Matthew 22:15-22
15 Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. 16So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, ‘Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. 17Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?’ 18But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, ‘Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? 19Show me the coin used for the tax.’ And they brought him a denarius. 20Then he said to them, ‘Whose head is this, and whose title?’ 21They answered, ‘The emperor’s.’ Then he said to them, ‘Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ 22When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.
In every great political debate there is a “gotcha” moment. In the midst of all the mind-numbing policy talk, all of a sudden one of the candidates uses some verbal jujitsu to flip his opponent upside down. Debates are often won and lost because of clever one-liners. As a former high school debater I love to hear those zingers. Classics like Lloyd Benson’s “You’re no Jack Kennedy!” and Ronald Reagan’s “There he goes again” are amusing years later. During the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Steven Douglas accused Honest Abe of being two-faced. The rather homely-looking Abraham Lincoln replied, “I leave it to my audience. If I had another face, do you think I would wear this one?” Lincoln lost his Senate campaign against Douglas, but his debate win propelled him to the presidency!
On Wednesday night the Republican candidates for president gathered for a roundtable discussion at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. The candidates were allowed to aim questions and potshots at each other. Since Herman Cain’s candidacy is rising like pizza crust, his opponents tried to roll him flat! John Huntsman attacked the Dominoes Pizza executive’s 9-9-9 tax plan saying “I think it’s a catchy phrase. In fact, I thought it was the price of a pizza when I first heard about it.” Then Minnesota congresswoman Michelle Bachman went apocalyptic on Herman Cain by declaring, “And one thing I would say is, when you take the 9-9-9 plan and you turn it upside down, I think the devil is in the details.”[i] I don’t know if those zingers will sway the primaries, but they certainly are the most memorable moments in the debate.
There is nothing particularly new about these “gotcha moments.”
Consider today’s scripture. The Pharisees have ganged up with their political enemies the Herodians to trap Jesus in his words. The Herodians were the political party that supported paying taxes and collaborating with the occupying Roman forces. The Pharisees, on the other hand, cautiously and quietly supported the Zealot Party who advocated overthrowing the Romans. They say “Politics makes strange bedfellows.” Imagine Barney Frank and Paul Ryan teaming up to fix Social Security and you have some idea how bizarre it was that the Pharisees and the Herodians were teaming up against Jesus.
Last week Hank Williams Jr. was fired from Monday Night Football for comparing President Obama’s golf game with House Speaker Boehner to a pairing of Adolf Hitler and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The country music superstar was incensed that politicians he supported would have anything to do with “the enemies…the three stooges.” I don’t like the analogy or that American politics have become so polarized that our public servants can’t even golf together without being criticized. But that’s the kind of hostility the Pharisees and the Heodians had for each other. It was generally not in their self-interest to work together on anything.
The last time these archrivals banded together, the Pharisees and
Herodians were plotting to kill Jesus! This time the goal is merely character assassination. In front of large crowds the Pharisees and Herodians flatter him with false praise and then they ask him the impossible question: should the Jews pay taxes to the Romans? Roman taxation was the “third rail of Judean politics;” if you touch it, you die! If Jesus tells his followers not to pay taxes then he will be branded a revolutionary and put to death by the Romans. If Jesus tells his followers that they should pay taxes to the despised Romans, he would lose his popular support. The Pharisees and the Herodians constructed the perfect trap for Jesus. The only politically expedient thing for Jesus to say was “No Comment!’ But Jesus does not shrink from this or any debate.
As a concession to the Jews, the Romans locally minted cheap copper coins without the Emperor’s face on them. This was because graven images like paintings, sculptures and even the faces on coins today were totally anathema to the Jews. But only the Imperial Mint in Rome produced higher value coins made out of gold or silver like the denarius. These higher value coins always had the Emperor’s face on them. Underneath the Emperor’s face on the silver denarius was the inscription, “Tiberius Caesar Son of the Divine Augustus.” On the flip side was the Emperor’s mother Empress Livia dressed up like a goddess with the words, “High Priest” running at the bottom. Roman coins were a propaganda tool designed specifically to promote worship of the Emperor.
The denarius was the coin laborers would earn for a days’ work. It was also the coin that everyone had to pay just to live in the Roman Empire. Over and above sales tax; on top of property tax; and completely at odds with the religious tax levied by their own Temple, the Jews had to pay Rome one denarius a year. The denarius was completely unavoidable in the Roman economy. There was a false idol in the pocket of every single Jew, except for the very, very poor.
Jesus didn’t have a denarius. Maybe Judas Iscariot had one in the common purse, but Jesus didn’t have a single denarius in his pocket. So he asks to see one from the purse of his opponent. Jesus is careful not to touch the false idol. He asks whose image and whose slogan is on the coin. Even the penniless people in the crowd knew the answer to that: Caesar’s! And the Jesus lays down the gotcha moment that wins the debate and sends his enemies home with their heads hung low. “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
A few years earlier when Pontius Pilate first arrived in the provincial capital Caesarea with Roman soldiers carrying golden shields decorated with the
Emperor’s image, the Jewish people rioted for five whole days. And it wasn’t peaceful like the Occupy Wall-Street protests. Huge crowds of people threatened to lay down their lives to prevent those graven images from entering Judea. But most of those rioting people probably had a denarius or two residing in their pockets. To amass wealth beyond mere pennies, everyone had to compromise with Rome. Jesus caught the Pharisees and Herodians in their own trap by having them show off the pagan idols in their pockets. Every single person with significant money was already collaborating with the Roman Empire! Why not give Caesar his ridiculous coin back? After all, it has his picture on it! Surely it must belong to him!
Two political parties were trying to lay hold of Jesus for their own selfish gain, but Jesus would not be pinned down by either one of them. When the
Pharisees and the Herodians tried to force him into an uncomfortable political position, Jesus sidestepped the thorny issue and reminded the crowd that true devotion is always about giving to God what is God’s. The pressing issues of the day matter, but they are not the sum of our being.
Paul tells us in his first letter to the Corinthians, “You are the image and glory of God.”[ii] It is not the bumper sticker on your mini-van, or the campaign sign in your yard, or who you vote for that forms your identity. As much as we admire the faces on the coins that we have in our pockets: Lincoln, Jefferson, FDR and Washington, your identity does not come from those guys either. Paul teaches us in Ephesians that your true identity comes from being “adopted… through Jesus Christ in accordance with [God’s] pleasure and will.”[iii] Everything else is just chump change compared to the identity you have in Jesus Christ.
The Pharisees, the Herodians, and all the average people in the crowd were willing to sell out their religious identities for silver and gold. Jesus didn’t tell his followers to toss their coins away or melt them down to their base metals. Jesus explains that if they are going to be complicit in a corrupt financial system that they are going to have to play by the established rules. And why not, because accumulating wealth was not the central focus that Jesus intended for his followers. Go ahead and pay your taxes, go ahead and ride the roller coaster stock market, but you are not going to find your true identity in money. Give it to Caesar; give it to IRS; go on and give it all away, because you are created in the image of God and your identity is not determined by money.
Who do you belong to? That’s what this story is really about. Do you belong to a political party; do you belong to the money in your pocket; or do you belong to God? If you belong to God, then give to God what is God’s. Before you decide on God, you better count the cost. I feel that I really must to warn you that God wants your whole life. Notice in the text that when the crowds heard this, “When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.”
C. S. Lewis explains this far better than I can. He writes, “We are all hoping that when all the demands of morality and society have been met, the poor natural self will still have some chance, some time, to get on with…life and do what it likes. …[W]e are very like an honest man paying his taxes. He pays them, but he does hope that there will be enough left over for him to live on”.
“The Christian way is different—both harder and easier. Christ says “Give me ALL. I don’t want just this much of your time and this much of your money and this much of your work—so that your natural self can rest. I want you. Not your things. I have come not to torture your natural self…I will give you a new self instead. Hand over the whole natural self—ALL the desire, not just the ones you think wicked but the ones you think innocent—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead.”[iv]
In Timothy Keller’s bestseller, “The Reason for God’ he quotes a young woman who found God’s grace after growing up in a legalistic church. Confronted by grace, the woman fearfully explained, “If I was saved by my good works there would be a limit to what God could ask of me or put me through. I would be like a taxpayer with “rights”—I would have done my duty and now I would deserve a certain quality of life. But if I am a sinner saved by sheer grace—then there is nothing[God] cannot ask of me.”[v]
Jesus Christ is a lot more demanding than Caesar. Rome only expected one measly day’s work a year. Jesus wants your every single day! God wants more than your loose change; he wants your life to be changed! There is no debate about it! If you want Jesus, you better be prepared to give him everything.
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