What is it like to live in exile? Or in an occupied country? Happily, for most of us here, that question is only speculation. Most of us live where we want to live, in a country where we are more or less free. Whether you agree with the current political administration, whether you think we should vote for McCain or Obama next month, most of us here have the right to vote, to help in the decision-making process, and to live where we want. We have some obligations that come along with those rights, but we are neither in exile, nor occupied.
The people that we read about in today’s gospel text are in a very different position from us. The principle actors in the gospel text, Pharisees and Herodians, the crowd watching, and Jesus himself, are all living under occupation. This nation has been occupied or in exile for nearly all of its history. They managed to hold their own for a short time after they conquered Canaan, but throughout their history, Israel have been fighting off one empire after another, they have been exiled to Babylon and brought home, and now they are under the rule of the Romans. How does this nation make any sense of the world around them? How can this nation understand what God is up to?
One way they have made sense of history is to realize that God is God of all, not just of Israel. In the first reading, Isaiah calls Cyrus the Lord’s anointed. In the original Hebrew is says that Cyrus is the Lord’s messiah. In Greek it says that Cyrus is the Lord’s Christ. Scandalous! How can this title be applied to Cyrus, the king of Persia, a gentile who does not even know the Lord? But it was this Cyrus who ended Israel’s exile, who returned them to their homeland and helped them to rebuild their temple. So Isaiah teaches that God can choose to work for Israel’s good through someone outside Israel, even through someone who rules over Israel.
This is where the Pharisees and Jesus and the crowds are living. On the one hand, they are occupied, and often brutalized by their occupiers. On the other hand, they know that God can work through this situation. In today’s story, they are each trying to make sense of how God is at work in this occupation. They are each trying to determine how they are called to act next. The coin at the center of the conversation is far more than a coin. This coin, imprinted with the emperor’s face, is a symbol of authority. The question at the center of the conversation is not, should we pay our taxes, even if we don’t like our government? If that were the question, Jesus has sidestepped it better than the best politician. We do not get an answer to that question at all. The question at the center of the conversation, rather, is “who has authority?”
Jesus’ opposition have laid a clever trap for him here. They come to him, flattering him with their insincere praise, and then ask him, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” Since there is nothing in Scripture that forbids paying taxes to a ruling government, and as I said, the Hebrews have had plenty of time to test that under previous empires, you can bet that these guys already know the answer to their own question. Jesus knows, as we do, that this is a trap. If he answers “no, don’t pay taxes,” they can turn him over to the Romans for sedition. If he answers, “yes, pay taxes,” the crowds watching will lose their zeal for Jesus and turn against him. Those who are plotting against him have laid the perfect trap. Either Jesus is a rebel and a traitor, or he is a collaborator and a patsy.
Rather than answer their question, Jesus asks to see the coin with which the tax is paid. This census tax can only be paid with a Roman coin, imprinted with the face of Tiberius Caesar. When his questioners produce it, Jesus asks them, “whose image is on this coin, and whose inscription?” They answer him, “Caesar’s, the emperor’s.”
In that short interaction, Jesus shows the crowd who the real collaborators are. They all know that there should not be any coins with the image of Caesar on them anywhere in the Temple compound. The moneychangers that Jesus kicked out the day before were in the Temple precisely because these Roman coins were not allowed. Furthermore, since they bear the image of Caesar, and an inscription claiming Caesar’s godhood, no good Jew should carry one, certainly not a Jew so righteous as a Pharisee claims to be. By asking them to produce the coin, Jesus has shown the crowd that the Pharisees are in fact collaborating with the Romans. He has demonstrated that, for the Pharisees, authority lies with the Romans.
In truth, this is a sensible position. The Pharisees know their history. They trust in God’s promises, and believe that God will act for the good of Israel in order to fulfill those promises. “If we are oppressed, if we are occupied,” figure the Pharisees, “God must have a reason. Until that reason is revealed, therefore, we should respect the earthly authority of the Romans, through which God has chosen to act.” Though they are not exactly thrilled with Roman rule, the Pharisees are not going to out-and-out rebel, either. They’re in the go-along-to-get-along camp. A very sensible position for those who have been under one empire or another for centuries.
The crowd, too, were waiting for God’s promises to be fulfilled. They, too, believed that God would act for the good of Israel. And they, too, looked to a governmental authority to carry it out. But the crowd were looking for the Messiah, who would reestablish the Davidic kingship. The Messiah, as God’s anointed, would overthrow Roman rule, and authority would once again rest with the nation of Israel, through its earthly ruler. For both the Pharisees and the crowds, the kingdom of God would be ushered in by the authority of some earthly governmental body.
Jesus, however, rejects both of these scenarios. When Jesus says, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” he calls attention to the image of Caesar on the coin, the symbol of authority that the government circulates. That image is posted throughout the Roman Empire, on coins, statues, temples, everywhere that someone needs to be reminded of Caesar’s authority. But Jesus does not stop with Caesar. Caesar’s is not the final word. Jesus continues, “render unto God the things that are God’s,” and calls attention to the image of God that is everywhere around him. Each face that he sees, the faces of the Pharisees, the faces of the crowd, Jesus reminds them, bears the image of God, as Genesis 1 says. It is there, in the place of God’s image, that authority rests on earth. “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” Give Caesar his place, he has his proper authority. But that is not the authority that brings in the kingdom.
“And unto God the things that are God’s.” We are each created in God’s image, and God’s is the authority that brings in the kingdom. John the Baptist proclaimed that the kingdom had drawn near, and Jesus preached the good news of the kingdom. In our baptism, we are each sealed with the cross of Christ, and given the authority that is ours in the freedom that Christ has won for us. Jesus took his own words seriously, rendering himself up to both Caesar and God, dying on the cross as a rebel and a criminal, bearing all of the sins of the world. In the conversation about the coin, Jesus reminded the Pharisees and the crowd that they had authority to act freely as children of God, no matter who their government was, oppressed or exiled or ruling their own kingdom. And baptized into his death and resurrection, we now bear Christ’s authority and freedom to usher in the kingdom. We don’t have to wait for the government to act, or to see who will win the election and what economic policies they will employ. As the Body of Christ, we have all authority in heaven and on earth, to draw the kingdom near today, for the sake of our neighbor. Amen
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