10/29/2023: Paying Taxes to Caesar

Minted in God’s Image

Matthew 22:15-22

Rev. Loren McGrail

Holmdel Community United Church of Christ

October 22, 2023

In the face of yet another aggressive and explosive question meant to entrap him, the Pharisees and Herodians, approach Jesus with a question: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” On the surface it appears this passage from Matthew, also told in the Gospels of Mark and Luke, is about taxation.

Yet we know from history that the Pharisees of Jesus’ day saw this tribute tax as heretical and a capitulation to a pagan emperor; for stamped on the coin under the head of Caesar were the words, “Caesar Augustus, Son of God, Father of the nation.”

In Jewish religious thought, foreign kings have power over Israel only by permission from God. The Herodians, however, saw refusing to pay the tax as sedition. Jesus understood either way this was going to be lose-lose proposition. Jesus did not get along with either religious elites or Roman conquerors. He knew that the Romans lived off the poll taxes collected from the conquered territories. What these religious elites were saying is, “Do you support us, those who collaborate with Rome, or side with the rebels who want to restore a Davidic empire? Will you follow Caesar’s law or Moses’ law?

Though he is approached by flattery, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth,” Jesus knows their intentions are sinister, so he asks, for them to show him a coin. They dig into their pockets and pull out a Roman coin. By the way under Jewish law, it was illegal to have these coins in the temple.

Having caught them in their own web, he finally answers, “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what belongs to God.”

Dear Ones, reach into your pockets or purses and pull out a paper bill, turn it to the side that says, “In God we Trust” over the Lincoln Memorial. Did you know that it used to say E Pluribus Unum, “Out of Many One?” I invite you to ponder here with me what it means to have our currency stamped with a religious conviction or wonder why it was changed. Earlier in the children’s sermon we learned about buffalo nickels. These were minted from 1913-1938. The side with the Native American profile is a composite of 3 Native American chiefs. In bible study this week we decided this was a longing for a romanticized past and not an attempt to show respect for our indigenous sisters or brothers. Likewise, did the shift to a native woman, Sacajawea in 2000 on the silver dollar settle the score of how to respect our indigenous ancestors? Perhaps a better tribute is to acknowledge the land we stand on is not ours and as such we should pay rent to those tribes whose land we occupy. A number of churches in Seattle due this every month when they pay rent to the Duwamish people.   

And then there is Susan B. Anthony, the famous suffragette, who found herself on a silver dollar in 1979. Does this mean we finally accept women as equals? Worthy of equal pay and equal rights like making decisions about their own health including their rights to health care? What do these portraits on our coins mean?

Back to our Gospel. “Give unto Caesar’s what is Caesars, and to God what is God’s.” How typical of Jesus to respond with a challenge, and a both- and answer. It’s important to stop here and recognize also what Jesus does not say. He doesn’t say that there is a secular and a religious realm, and that they each require our fidelity. The coin already has the emperor’s image on it, so give it to him. Does this mean Jesus is condoning paying taxes? Some read the passage this way.

Others are more concerned with what belongs to God. What kind of tribute do we owe God? Dorothy Day, Catholic activist, and founder of the Catholic Worker Movement said, “Once you give to God what belongs to God, there is nothing for Caesar.” Is Jesus saying we owe nothing to a false god like Caesar, and we should reserve all things for God?

Is he saying we may owe Caesar taxes, but we owe God our whole selves? Dear Ones, why should we render all things to God? How do we render all things to God?

Our faith teaches us that all people are created in the image of God.  So Dear Ones, I invite you to look around at the people on either side of you.

I invite you to see God’s imprint on their lovely faces and to allow others to see God’s imprint on your beautiful face. I invite you to bring your hands together and repeat after me the namaste greeting, “The divine in me meets the divine in you.” Thank you.

If we believe we should give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, what happens when Caesar is Hitler or a tyrant or a leader who is making decisions that are leading to the deaths of thousands of people?  And what if a government has become a fascist or apartheid state? What then? Finally, what if the rule of law takes the away people’s freedom or protects only the few or elite? Do we still give? Do we resist?

There is a wonderful story about Henry David Thoreau who along with Ralph Waldo Emerson were war resisters because they refused to support the war. As part of Thoreau’s resistance, he refused to pay his taxes. He then ended up in jail. Emerson is said to have visited him and asked, “Why are you in jail?” Thoreau answered, “Why aren’t you?”

Dear Ones, each of us has to account for how we spend our time, energy, and financial resources. To whom do we give it over to? And how much?  

If everything belongs to God, then our spiritual lives and our political lives must be in alignment. They must not contradict each other. As an image-bearer of a loving, forgiving and gracious God, we owe God grace and generosity to all of God’s people even those whom we differ with or deem enemies, do we not?  Right now, there are many in our country expressing strong feelings about our tax dollars going to support two wars. They are telling their congressional representatives their views; they are marching in the streets. They are praying for divine intervention or a cease fire.

           

Dear Ones, wherever you are on this continuum, we all have been coined in God’s image. As we reflect on who or what we render to the state versus what we render to the one who minted us, I invite you to reflect on these words by the Hebrew Scriptures scholar Walter Brueggemann:

                        In any case we are haunted
                        by what we render to Caesar,
                        by what we might render to you,
                        by the way we invest our wealth and our lives,
                        when what you ask is an “easy yoke”:
                        to do justice
                        to love mercy
                        to walk humbly with you.

                        Give us courage for your easy burden, so to live untaxed lives.

           

Dear Ones, God has coined us, minted us in God’s own very image so we can live “untaxed lives” doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God. Dear Ones, let us allow ourselves to be used and spent building the Beloved Community on earth as it is already on earth. Is this not what the kin-dom of God looks like? In God we trust, let it be so.