Render Unto God
THE TWENTY-THIRD SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY
Tell us, therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not? But Jesus perceived their wickedness and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? Show me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? They say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's (Matthew 22.15…)
And there it is: "everyone, pay your taxes!" Amen. This famous passage of Scripture, "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God, the things that are God's," is frequently interpreted to mean that Jesus endorsed paying taxes. But this isn't a particularly modern view but One which was first expounded in the 2nd century by St. Justin Martyr in the 17th chapter of his First Apology addressed to the Roman emperor Titus Antoninus Pius, writes:
"And everywhere we [Christians], more readily than all men, endeavor to pay to those appointed by you the taxes both ordinary and extraordinary, as we have been taught by Him; for at that time they came to Him and asked Him if one ought to pay tribute to Caesar; and He answered, Tell Me, whose image does the coin bear? And they said, Caesar's. And again He answered them, Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."
Now, Jesus does, in fact, expect his people to pay the required tribute or tax demanded by their government. Paul would encourage this as well, writing in the 13th chapter of his epistle to the Romans, "Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this, you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed." So, in today's Gospel lesson, Jesus is telling us something about our civic duties as Christians. But is that really what the Gospel lesson is about? A story told by the way in all three of the synoptic Gospels. Or is there something else? As with so many Scripture passages, the interpretation is far from simple or obvious.
Let us begin by quickly setting this story's historical context. In 6 A.D., Roman occupiers of Palestine imposed a census tax on the Jewish people. The tribute was not well-received, and by 17 A.D., a tax-revolt, led by Judas the Galilean, soon followed. Judas the Galilean taught that "taxation was no better than an introduction to slavery," and he and his followers had "an inviolable attachment to liberty," recognizing God, alone, as King and ruler of Israel.
The Romans brutally combated the uprising for decades, and the Jewish revolt cost Judas the Galilean two of his sons who were crucified by Rome in 46 A.D. Thus, for Jews, paying tribute encapsulated the deeper philosophical, political, and theological issue: Either God and His divine laws were supreme, or the Roman emperor and his pagan laws were supreme.
This strong undercurrent of tax revolt resides in the three Gospel tellings of this story, which is why tensions are high in Jerusalem, where Jesus has come to observe his last Passover in the Holy City. Things are tense between the Israelites and their occupying Roman rulers. And tensions are extremely high between the Jewish religious establishment (the Pharisees and Sadducees) and Jesus of Nazareth.
All three synoptic Gospels place this Tribute story immediately after Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem in which throngs of people proclaimed Him King, as St. Matthew states, "And when he entered Jerusalem the whole city was stirred and asked, 'Who is this?' And the crowds replied, 'This is Jesus the prophet, from Nazareth in Galilee.'" His coming has 'stirred the pot,' so to speak, unsettling the inhabitants of Jerusalem, both Romans and Israelites. The Holy City just days before the Passover is a hotbed of political and religious fervor, and it is against this background that the Tribute Episode unfolds.
Having come to Jesus, the Pharisees (accompanied by the Herodian guard) publicly ask Jesus, "Tell us, therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not? But Jesus perceived their wickedness and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?" Feigning respect, they pose their question about offering tribute to Caeser with wicked intentions. Fearing the crowds, they dare not seize him. Instead, they set a snare before the Lord's feet. If Jesus says it is lawful to pay the tribute, He is then seen as a collaborator with the Roman occupiers alienating the very people who had just proclaimed Him a king a few days earlier on Palm Sunday.
And, if Jesus says that the tribute is illegitimate, He risks being branded a political criminal and incurring the wrath of Rome. Either answer will result in being arrested by the Herodians and his life in jeopardy. Yet the Scribes and Pharisees failed because Christ asked to see their money, which turned out to be Roman coins. Under the Jewish Law which the Pharisees claimed to follow, even touching a coin engraved with the image of a man, in this case, Caesar, made one unclean and unable to enter the Temple. But they had just come from the Temple with their pouches full of ritually unclean Roman money. This is why Jesus openly calls them hypocrites.
Jesus continues, "Show me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny." Emperor Tiberius would have issued the denarius in question, whose reign coincided with Jesus' ministry. The denarius was truly the emperor's property: he used it to pay his soldiers, officials, and suppliers; it bore the imperial seal; it differed from the copper coins issued by the Roman Senate, and it was also the coin with which subjected peoples, like the Israelites, were required to pay the tribute. The tribute coin was a tangible representation of the emperor's power, wealth, deification, and subjugation.
He then asks them a question: "Whose is this image and superscription? They say unto him, Caesar's." Jesus inquiring about image and superscription is key. The front of the coin would have shown Tiberius's profiled bust crowned with the laurels of victory and divinity. The words circumscribed (or written) around Tiberius' image reading, "Tiberius Caesar, Worshipful Son of the God, Augustus."
Now, an image of the Roman goddess of peace, or Pax, would be on the other side and circumscribed around her the abbreviation, "Pontif Maxim," meaning "High Priest." Thus, the tribute coin imposes the cult of emperor worship and asserts Caesar's sovereignty upon all who transact with it. So in one of the most richly ironic passages in the entire Bible, all three synoptic Gospels depict the Son of God and the High Priest of Peace, newly-proclaimed by His people to be a King, holding the tiny silver coin of a king who claims to be the son of a god and the high priest of Roman peace.
Jesus then tells His interrogators, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's." God himself is literally standing before these Pharisees who bear his image and yet have not his Law circumscribed upon their hearts. They render unto Caesar but will not render unto God, Jesus, Israel's long-awaited Messiah, who has come to save them. They refuse to render unto God what is duly owed to Him: faith, love, and thankfulness.
Our Lord's response begs the question: what is legitimately God's and what is legitimately Caesar's? The word "render" is the key to understanding Jesus' teaching, and it means "to give someone else what is rightfully his." In this case, the Pharisees had taken Caesar's money and all of the other benefits of the Roman political system. In return, they owed Caesar his taxes on that money. The tax wasn't voluntary, and it wasn't a gift. The tax was a debt, and to fail to pay it would have been theft.
And if Christ has bound us to meet our obligations to our civil governors, then let us not forget the rest of his teaching by which Christ bound us to render to God the things that are God's. We are the Lord's property, who bear his image and whose Law has been circumscribed upon our hearts. Make no mistake about it. God, our King, requires tribute from us, a return on what he has freely given.
And God is the Lord of the visible, as well as the invisible because he made them both. Therefore, we owe God our visible tribute for his visible blessings, just as much as we owe him our spiritual worship for his invisible grace. Therefore, we render to God what is rightfully his.
Scripture calls the things which are owed to God the first fruits. For Israel, the concept of "first fruits" meant putting the Lord first in every part of life. That included the harvest, the shepherding of flocks, and child-bearing— and especially in regards to the worship of Israel, in keeping her feasts and sacrificial system of the Law of Moses.
In Deuteronomy chapter 26, the Lord commanded Israel, saying, "When you come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance and have taken possession of it and live in it, you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from your land that the LORD your God is giving you, And you shall go to the priest... [and] the priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down before the altar of the LORD your God."
This connecting of firstfruits to worship is vital to the New Testament understanding. You see, we are to give our first, our very best, to God as an act of worship, in response to what God has given us in Christ Jesus. For God has given us the best portion, the finest wheat, and purest lamb, Jesus Christ, of whom St. Paul says, is the choicest offering of mankind, "Christ [who] has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep" (1 Cor. 15:23).
Beloved, Jesus is the first fruit of the resurrection because he was and is the perfect man, a wholly acceptable sacrifice to the Father. He is the first fruit of all who find salvation through faith in Him. Therefore, according to St. James, we, the baptized people of God, are also called first fruits by the mercy of the Father who "of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures" (Js 1:18). So how should we render and to what extent? We should render our lives to God in light of what he gave to us: salvation. How; by enduring the pain and suffering of the Cross. He paid all and gave all to the fullest extent.
In the words of St. Paul, we are to "present [our] bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is [our] spiritual worship." He means our whole self, everything that we are: every thought, word, and deed. Each day at morning prayer we ask God to "open thou our lips" that our first words offered to God are ones of praise and thanksgiving. The various occupations and callings on our lives from God are done with excellence, integrity, and joy, gladly fulfilling our obligations at work, academic pursuits, or domestic chores. We give ourselves to our marriage our children our friends. Each day's work is an offering of thanksgiving to God, for all we possess is a Divine gift.
On the Lord's day, we gather and offer our best worship to God through ordered and humble liturgy, rightly administering both word and sacrament. We pray following our Lord and his apostles. We give our first fruits through tithes and offerings, again, giving back our first portion to he who freely gives. And, as we ascend up to the altar, we offer ourselves, we render our very lives back to God in partaking of the One who gave his body and blood that we might have life. We, the first fruit of the Gospel, partake of that first fruit of the resurrected life who is Christ: and in him, God gives more than we'll ever be able to repay: life eternal.
Today, Jesus teaches that the claims of Caesar and the Claims of God are mutually exclusive. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Whatever lawful authority any king or government may possess is only given by God. Neither emperor nor state can command our worship because worship belongs to God alone. So, my dear friends, let us not be as the Pharisees in Jesus' day who professed to have no king but Caesar (John 19:15). But let us render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's. Amen+
