“Render Unto God….”

Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

Matthew 22:15-22

Ordinary Time, Oct. 15, 2017

It’s not been a great day for our friend Jesus. Yesterday, he arrived in Jerusalem to great acclimation - singing, marching, palm waving. But now it’s Tuesday of Holy Week and the schedule has been relentless. The day began with Jesus cursing a fig tree and then quickly moved into a couple of throw downs with local authorities. Jesus was greeted with accusatory questions, “By what authority are you doing these things?” Jesus refuses to answer that question directly but is happy to offer up a few parables that feel like they were designed to trouble the hearts of self-assured religious folks.

And now...perhaps sometime in the afternoon? Here comes more trouble. The Pharisees and Herodians were two different religious groups in Jesus’s time. We could say a lot about them, but the important thing to know for today is that they weren’t usually friendly with one another. One thing they did have in common, though: they weren’t too fond of Jesus.

Here they come with surface-level-flattery, “Teacher, we know that you’re a truthful man and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. And you’re not concerned with anyone’s opinion for you do not regard a person’s status.”

Followed by the question that is carefully-phrased to entrap Jesus: “Tell us, then, what is your opinion: Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?”

Let’s be clear: there is no safe answer to this question. Jesus and other Jews were living under Roman occupation and, as such, were required to pay all kinds of exorbitant taxes. If Jesus says, “Yes, we Jews need to pay the tax,” then some of his fellow Jews would have been enraged. After all, he’s supposed to be working for their freedom, right? Not further enslaving them to the Empire.

But if Jesus says, “No, we don’t need to pay the tax,” then he is immediately committing treason and could be punished with imprisonment or even death.

Now, here’s something I’ve always found fascinating about what Jesus does here. If the way of freedom is to stand up against the ruling elites and encourage other Jews to fight for their freedom from Rome, why doesn’t Jesus, the Messiah, just do that? I mean, worst case scenario he’s going to be crucified. But the Gospels tell us that he already knew that was coming….and soon. Why not just rip the band-aid off and go for it?

What Jesus does instead is surprising - at least to me. He pivots. He refuses to answer the question directly and, in doing so, changes the subject.

Jesus says to his inquisitors, “Show me the coin that pays the census tax.” Immediately, one of the men questioning Jesus pulls out a Roman coin - Caesar’s face shining in the smooth metal on the face of it.

This - this pulling the coin out of his pocket - is shameful. Shameful on two levels - first, this is a coin worth a lot of money. So to just by carrying it around like no big deal when likely many of the others present would not easily have access to the coin - well, it immediately marks Jesus’s questioners as a part of the ruling elite. Secondly, they really shouldn’t be carrying around graven images of rules who like to pretend they are gods. “You shall have no other gods before me,” “You shall not have idols” and all that.

So before Jesus even speaks he has the upper hand because these inquisitors look foolish when they immediately pull the Roman coin from their pockets.

And then Jesus talks. “Whose image is this?” “Caesar” they reply (I wonder if they say it somewhat reticently, knowing they are walking into a trap). Jesus says, “Well, then, render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and render unto God what belongs to God.”

Now, it’s usually the first part of this brief statement that we hear. “Render unto Caesar….” we are told. And sometimes preachers seem to mean, “Of course you should just do whatever the government says. See? Jesus says it’s okay.” And sometimes preachers seem to mean, “We Christians are really supposed to divide our lives up into two neat sections - worldly stuff and church-y stuff - and it’s okay if they don’t match. See? Jesus says it’s okay.”

But I think that the real pivot here, the real brilliance of Jesus’s answer lies not in the first part of the sentence, but in the second. “Render unto God the things that are God’s.”

Every Jew present would have known what belonged to God:

“The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof…”

“The heavens are yours, the earth is also yours. The world and all it contains…”

“O Lord, how many are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your possessions…”

“I know every bird of the mountains and everything that moves in the field is mine…”

Everything belongs to God. Every cricket and clover, every stream and field, every word and every breath. And every Roman coin, too, I suppose. Even Caesar, smiling from the shiny metal in Jesus’s palm, it would seem, belongs to God.

“So God created humanity in God’s own image - male and female, God created them.”

What belongs to God? Everything. Even Caesar and the coin he rode in on.

I like to imagine Jesus sort of absentmindedly handing the coin back and walking off before they even have a chance to respond. Not only is his answer succinct and brilliant but Jesus masterfully both changes and expands the subject.

He says, in essence, “Friends, don’t you think we might be pondering the wrong questions here?”

He invites his listeners (and that includes you and me) to see that questions about money are never just about money. They are always about allegiances, which is to say they are concerned with the question of idolatry - who our gods are, where we find our meaning, who and what we are willing to follow to the ends of the earth and beyond. Questions about money are also always about the ways we make meaning, where we find our worth, what keeps us awake at night, our greatest desires and fears.

When Jesus pivots, he calls attention to the bigger questions that lie below the surface, unasked, “Who do we belong to? What matters the most in this life? Is there something beyond the surface of the day-in-day-out grind to put food on the table and keep my family safe?”

Jesus answered these questions loudly and often...not just with words but with his whole way of being. All these thousands of years later, I hate to tell you this, but there are people in the world who are looking at US to be the ones to answer those same questions. They are looking to US to be the ones who point the way to Jesus who answers those questions in word in deed.

When Jesus says, “Render unto God the things that are God’s” I am suddenly reminded that *I* belong to God. Me, myself. And also all the things I think are mine.

I have to say that, in my own life, this wild and holy invitation to pivot and reframe my understanding of what’s mine and what’s God’s has been utterly life changing. This is why I often say that the two most influential spiritual practices in my own life are keeping sabbath and giving away money. It turns out that when I give away my time and money in ways that are distinctly counter-cultural and anxiety-inducing what happens is almost like magic. My priorities are rearranged and my anxiety about starts to let up. I’ve never quite fully understood how giving away my time and money makes me feel less worried, but there it is.

I think part of what happens is that, through the scary risk of giving away things we think are ours, we find ourselves confronted with Jesus as he looks up at us with that coin in his hand and shifts the conversation. Suddenly, we are reminded that “the earth is the the Lord’s and the fullness thereof….” Suddenly, we are reminded that we are created in God’s image and loved beyond our wildest dreams. Suddenly,  we are reminded that we are linked with all of creation - “every bird in the mountains and everything that moves” is a part of us. Suddenly, we realize that Caesar may have his face imprinted on our money, but God is the one who rules our hearts.

And it is then, held tightly in the knowledge of who we are and whose we are, that we are challenged to try and get up each day and render unto God the things that are God’s. May it be so.