Today’s
Gospel lesson is 3 dimensional.
We
need to go at it from 3 different angles to get the point.
The
first angle is the joke.
It’s
important because we read the Gospels
not just to learn what Jesus taught,
but to know who Jesus is.
So first let’s get the context.
Remember
the 2nd Commandment.
“You
shall not make any graven images.”
Jews
took that seriously and literally.
No
graven images meant: “no graven images.”
And
the Pharisees took great pride in how strictly
they followed the law.
Keeping
the 2nd commandment was awkward
in the Roman Empire since business
was done with Roman money,
and Roman money had the image of
Caesar on it.
To
make matters worse, Caesar was revered as a god.
So
to carry a Roman coin was to carry a pagan idol in your pocket.
Most
Jews compromised on that in daily life,
but remember the Pharisees were
ultra strict.
And
even ordinary Jews should not take a Roman coin
into the Temple.
That’s
why there were moneychangers outside.
They
swapped Roman coins for special blank Temple coins
that could be used for offerings.
In
today’s lesson, Jesus is teaching in the Temple.
That’s
where the Pharisees set out to trick him
with a question about taxes that
anyway he answers it,
he’ll make enemies.
But
the foxy Pharisee gets outfoxed.
Jesus
calls him a hypocrite and says, “show me the money.”
The
Pharisee reaches in his pocket and pulls out a coin,
with lo and behold the face of
Caesar on it,
right there in the Temple. Busted!
But
woven into the joke of Jesus outfoxing the Pharisee,
there is something profound.
That’s
the second angle on this lesson.
The
fact that Jesus uses a joke to make a profound point
is also something we learn about his
style.
But
what is the point? Just this:
Jesus
says the coin belongs to Caesar
because Caesar’s image is on it.
The
late Bible scholar Walter Wink
called the state and the market “the
domination system.”
What
the domination system giveth, it also taketh away.
What
little wealth and authority the system gives us
is just its hook in our flesh.
The
tighter we cling to it, the tighter the system’s grip on us.
So
Jesus says, “let it go.”
Give
Caesar’s stuff back and get yourself free.
But
then he says something really enigmatic,
“Render
unto God that which is God’s.”//
If
Caesar’s stuff has his image on it,
then what belongs to God?
What
is marked with God’s?
The
answer is in Genesis chapter 1 verse 27:
“God created humanity in his own
image;
In the image of God, he created
them.
Male and female he created them.”
We
are made in the image of God
because we belong to God.
Render
unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.
Render
unto God that which is God’s.
Jesus
invites us to give our lives, our hearts, and our souls to God.
But
it’s for quite a different reason than we render unto Caesar.
It’s
because giving ourselves to God is the way
to our own peace and our happiness.We are wired for God.
In
2002, three neurologists wrote a book called
Why God
Won’t Go Away: Brain Science & The Biology of Belief.
They
had discovered that the idea of God is hardwired into our brains.
Without
God there is something missing in us.
Some
call it the God-shaped-hole in the human heart.
That’s
set to music in the song God Shaped Hole
by Plumb.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_DbnBCVGPc
Plumb’s
song and the new brain science echo an old, old truth.
1.600
years ago, St. Augustine prayed:
“O God you have made us for yourself
And our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
But
the word “for” isn’t quite right.
It
is more like “toward” – “you made us facing you.”
We
are not whole, not complete, unless we are connected to God.
But
Jesus isn’t just talking about a private spirituality here.
We
won’t get this teaching without looking from the third angle.
The
Pharisees’ question is political,
and Jesus’ answer is political as
well as spiritual.
For
Jesus, the political is spiritual.
People
wanted Jesus to take the lead of the Zealot party
and lead the insurrection against
Rome.
Tax
resistance would have been the way to start that fight.
It
would have been the Boston Tea Party of the day.
It
would have kicked off their version of the Arab Spring.
Reza
Aslan’s book Zealot imagines Jesus as
that kind of leader.
But
the Gospels are emphatic that Jesus was dead set against
that kind of insurrection.
First,
he knew good and well they couldn’t win.
When
Judea started their revolt with a tax resistance in 66 AD,
1,100,000 people died, Jerusalem was
sacked,
and Rome still ruled.
Second,
Jesus knew that armed revolt, or any sort of power play,
just replaces one gang of thugs with
another gang of thugs.
Maybe
you get Bashir Assad out, but then you get ISIS in his place.
Mubarak
out; Muslim Brotherhood in.
Muslim
brotherhood out; martial law in.
Jesus
had a different kind of insurrection in mind.
He
imagined groups of people gathering together
to render unto God that which is
God’s.
He
imagined groups of people cracking the shell of the Old World Order
by collaborating to live godly
lives.
But
godly lives were not something you could impose on others.
It
was about power within each person,
not the power of one group over
another.
That’s
what the Christian Coalition never got.
It
wasn’t about a strict code of rules to follow.
It
was about people caring for each other.
It
wasn’t about judgment.
It
was about grace and mercy.
And
it wasn’t about solemn proclamations.
It
was about jokes, stories, and unexpected gestures
like foot washing that expressed
people caring for people.
Jesus
didn’t teach an ideology.
He
instilled an attitude of appreciation, humor, kindness, and caring.
It
was an attitude that honored the poor and the outcast
more than the rich and the inbred.
If
one person goes genuinely Christian, just one person,
It makes a little difference in the
world.
If
two people who don’t know each other go Christian,
It makes twice as much difference.
But
if the those two people come together
-- as we do in Holy Communion --
the power multiplies many fold.
You
get a dozen of those folks
and they can go out into the world
making disciples of all nations.
The
deaf hear, the blind see, the lame walk,
and the domination system begins to
crumble
before our very eyes.
Perhaps
you are wondering why the domination system
is still calling the shots.
G.
K. Chesterton replied:
“It is not that Christianity has
been tried and found wanting;
it has been found difficult and not
tried.”
But
we could try it – any old time now.
Nobody
said it was easy.
It
is the way of the cross.
But
it is the way to life and peace,
not just for a few believers,
but for the
whole of creation.
