I almost always read from the New
Revised Standard Version of the Bible, because it’s a reliable translation in
modern English, but from time to time I like to break out the good old King
James. In the case of our passage, the NSRV gives an accurate, but rather dull,
“Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you
hypocrites?” while the King James reads “Jesus perceived their wickedness, and
said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?” In my estimation, altogether more
colorful and exciting. In the same vein, the NRSV reads “‘Show me the coin used
for the tax.’ And they brought him a denarius” while the King James says “‘Shew
me the tribute money.’ And they brought unto him a penny.” And though the NRSV
is once again more accurate—it really is denarius
in the Greek—the coin handed to Jesus has been known ever since as a “tribute
penny.”
There’s a picture of one on the front
page of your bulletin, and you can see the head(in Greek, eikon) of Emperor Tiberius
with his hooked nose and prominent chin, wearing an imperial garland and a
kingly frown. And on the back—the reverse, in coin-collector lingo—is his mama
Livia done up as Lady Pax or in English, Lady Peace. But it’s what was
inscribed around Tiberius on the obverse—that’s front to you and me—that got the Jewish
religious authorities in an uproar. It said “Caesar Augustus Tiberius, son of
the Divine Augustus.” And though they had no problem with him being the son of
Augustus—after all, that’s who he was—they considered it blasphemous that
Augustus had claimed to be divine, and thus Tiberius being a chip off the old
divine block. Come to think of it, that might
have been what got them mad at Jesus as well . . .
Anyway, the Romans required that taxes
be paid with this specific coin, this tribute penny, so you can imagine how it
made them feel. It was bad enough they had to pay taxes—which were pretty
steep, and a burden on the poor—but to make them pay with a coin they weren’t
even supposed to touch
. . . well, that was just frosting on a very sour cake. Which, of course, was
exactly why they did it, just another way of keeping the Roman thumb on them,
another way of showing who’s boss.
And so it’s more than a little sly that
the Pharisees ask him about paying taxes, because it’s a huge thorn in Jewish
sides, and though the Pharisees are very opposed to paying the taxes
themselves, just to make things interesting, they bring along some Herodians,
supporters of the puppet governor Herod and therefore in favor of paying the taxes,
as witnesses. They want to get Jesus in a double bind: if he answers the
question in the negative—that he’s against paying the taxes—they could be sure
that the Herodians would go running off to the man, and Jesus would be labeled as seditious,
and therefore in hot water with the empire. If he answers the question in the
affirmative, the Pharisees would have more dirt on him with his own people, and
their plot to have him eliminated would be that much further along.
But first . . . they try to butter him
up. “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.” And the irony of it all is that though they’re being
oily, and believe not a word of it, everything they say is true. Jesus is sincere, he does teach the way of God
with truth, and he shows partiality to no
one.. Not even big-wigs like the chief priests and rabbis, which,
come to think of it, might be another
reason they were out to get him.
So. They butter him up and then slip in
the shiv . . . “Tell us, my pretty . . .” Ok, there was no “my pretty,” not
even in the King James, it was just “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor,
or not?” And the law they were talking about was the Torah and it’s
interpretations, and on the surface, they’re asking him for his
interpretation, one interpreter to another, but
Jesus knows exactly what’s going on,
because, well, he’s Jesus,
and after blasting them for being hypocrites, asks them whose picture, whose icon, is on the tribute
penny, and when they reply “Caesar,” his famous reply is “Render therefore unto
Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's,”
or, in the boring old New Revised Standard, “Give therefore to the emperor the
things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
Matthew says they are amazed, and maybe
we should stop right here and ponder why. Why would they be amazed? After all,
seems like a perfectly good solution to me
. . . I mean, we do it all the time, we divide our capital—our money, our time,
even our affection and esteem—between the state and church, some of us slicing
the pie one way, some another, but we all do it nowadays without even a blink of an eye, and I
think the key is in that word “nowadays” . . .
Nowadays, in this country at least, we
are actually able
to do what Jesus suggests, we’re able
to give unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and at the same time, that which is
God’s to God, we think nothing of it, but in Jesus’ time, it was a radical
idea, for the simple fact that most of the time there wasn’t much difference
between the two. Theocracy was the order of the day, every state and city-state
had their Gods, and of course, one of the much-remarked geniuses of Imperial
Rome was their never meeting a god they didn’t like. They had no problem
letting each conquered entity keep their national gods, they just added them to
the Roman pantheon, which is Greek for “all gods,” as long as you gave overall
loyalty to the Empire, as represented by the Emperor.
Which would be ok for the Jews and all,
except that starting with Augustus, Tiberius’ daddy, emperors began claiming to
be divine—thus the inscription on the tribute penny. And unlike many of their
neighbors, Jews were monotheists,
which was so important that even today, observant Jews inscribe a tiny scroll
with the Shema,
AKA Deuteronomy 6:4, and place it on the doorposts around their houses, so they
can always be reminded of one thing: “The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.”
So this divine emperor thing wasn’t just
some mild irritant to the Jewish people, not just something they could put up
with. It struck at the heart of their religious identity, and for them, it was
pretty obvious: you had to serve one entity or another, you couldn’t serve two
masters. Either you served the emperor or you served God.
So what Jesus did was pretty radical. He
took two competing ideas, two competing loyalties, and he found a third way,
one unheard of in those days: “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which
are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.” And if that were all
there was to it, we could all up and go home, ‘cause we’ve heard it a thousand
times as a justification for paying taxes, but as usual for Jesus, it’s not
quite that simple.
And it revolves around question of just
what does belong to God versus what belongs to the government. Obviously, you
have to keep the roads patched and pay for the sewers and protection against
fire, but beyond those kinds of things . . . Just what does belong to God?
My favorite answer is everything. Everything
belongs to God . . . as creator of the universe, everything ultimately is in
Gods hands. After all, doesn’t Psalm 24 begin with “The earth is the Lord’s and
all that is in it?” Q, as they say, E and D.
But while it’s a satisfying “gotcha,”
and it may have been what Jesus meant, it’s not very helpful . . . It still
doesn’t help us navigate the very modern set of confusing loyalties we face
every day. And I think that the Greek can help us here. When Jesus asks the
Pharisees and their buddies “whose head is this?” he uses the Greek word “eikon,” which all things
being equal, I would prefer to see translated as “image,” as in “whose image is
on this coin?”
And of course, Tiberius’ image is on
that denarius, just as Lincoln’s and Washington’s and Jefferson’s are on ours,
so you can give that to them, but where’s is the image of God’s? Or to turn it
around, who is in the image of God? And this is as subversive, at least, as
saying all things belong to God, because the answer of course is “we are.” We
have been created in God’s eikon
, in God’s image, and we belong to God. Not the Roman Empire, not the State of
Ohio, not the U.S. of A. And we have been commanded to render ourselves unto
God. Let’s think about what that means.
Amen.
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