'Whose Portrait is this?'
Sermon preached in St Salvator's Chapel, St Andrews on 16th October 2011 by Rev Dr Ruth Gouldbourne, Minister at bloomsbury Central Baptist Church, London
Give Caesar what is Caesar and God what is God’s. The whole gospel passage we have read leads up to this pronouncement, the whole story is told with this statement as its climax. Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, to God what is God’s.
But of course, the story actually ends with = when they heard this, they were ashamed and went away. The whole story as Matt tells it is not just to encapsulate this tight little phrase, but to encapsulate it in a particular context, and embed it in a particular story.
The phrase itself, of course, so beautifully translated into such sparkling and memorable English has moved beyond the story, and become one of the biblical phrases that people know even without knowing where it comes from – and often without knowing the context in which it first emerges. And even when it is considered among believers, we do often end up taking the phrase, the text, and using it to deal with issues that are important issues, but not necessarily exactly what Jesus was dealing with when he first uttered the phrase, nor what Matt was intending to reflect on when he wrote the story down this way.
So – we can – and historically it often has been used as a way of arguing that we should submit to legal, state authorities, and keep our faith private. It can be read also as a way of challenging submission to the state, recognising that at times there have been demands made which are counter to the gospel, and these words appear to give authority for resistance, in the name of a higher obedience.
We can read them as directing us very specifically in how we should deal with our money. And we can – and historically have - read them as having something to do with insisting that the civil power should submit to theological power – usually embodied in a powerful church.
And if nothing else, this variety of readings all of which are perfectly justified and appropriate ways of listening to the text illustrate something important about what Jesus is saying here in the particular context; that it aint that simple!
Because the context matters. This is not one of the statements that we presented with Jesus just saying; standing on the mountainside or beside the lake. This is an answer to a question – more than that, this is an answer to a question that we are told and Jesus recognises is deliberately set, not in order to find out, not even in order to test his knowledge, but to trap him.
The story is told as forming part of the dialogues and challenges that Jesus faces in the last week of his life. All through his ministry, he has been presenting, exploring, inviting into the kingdom; this rule and reign of God which profoundly challenges the assumptions and the power structures of the world he is living in. And here in this last week, much of this comes to a head; and the religious and political authorities are coming to the conclusion that he is too dangerous to allow to continue. And if they are going to get him out the way, they need a reason and a justification. So, among other things, what is going on in this whole group of stories -= and perhaps most clearly in this one – is an attempt to get him to say or do something that will allow them to denounce him.
And this question that they ask – and the people who ask it – is politically loaded. It was not just an academic question dreamt up by somebody who was thinking this would be tricky one, lets go with that. It was actually at the heart of the divisions between the two groups Matt tells us were asking =- the Pharisees and the herodians.
The Jews at this time lived as an occupied people, under Roman rule. There are different ways to cope with being occupied, and these two groups exemplify two possibly extreme ways of dealing with it. The phar were concerned to maintain purity and identity; to resist the homogenising impetus of the roman empire – an empire that was happy to allow subject nations to continue with their own faith practices and so on, as long as they also adopted the recognition of the emperor as the divine embodiment of the empire. The phar interpreted loyalty to the law as meaning that that was not something they could do; that would idolatry or apostasy. And so part of their ostentatious keeping of the law, and part of their determination to ensure that the law was kept was to protect the identity of the people of God in the face of the undermining from the oppressive imperial regime.
The Herodians on the other hand exemplified the other way of dealing with being occupied; they made peace with it in order to retain as much self-determination as possible; to work along with the occupiers in order to build working relationships, and keep as much space to exist as possible.
Look around the world and you will see the same patterns still at work. Look at your own life, and see where the same issues arise – you may not be pushed into armed resistance – but where are the areas of proper compromise, of tough standing against?
And these are the two groups who have found some sort of common ground to work together to question Jesus.
And the question they ask is at the heart of the debate between them. Because taxation always involves issues of power and authority – and in this context also involves religious identity. To pay the tax to Rome is to admit Rome’s right – or at least power – to demand tax. And since as the story makes clear, the tax is paid in a coin bearing the head of Caesar, there is a religious issue here; the making of graven images – the representation of a living being in art – was forbidden by the commandments which defined the nation’s religious identity. So not only were the people being asked to pay a hated tax, they were being force to pay it using blasphemous coinage. For the herodians, these issues were not important enough to threaten the working relationship they were committed to – and so the answer they would give to this question is, yes, of course it is lawful to pay taxes to Caesar. For the phar, the paying of the tax symbolises and acts out all that they are trying to resist – and so their answer is no, it is not lawful – by which they mean it against the law of God.
Together they turn up to ask Jesus this question – and are they there to find out what he thinks because they need to the knowledge, and it might change their minds – probably not! They are there to trap him. Because whatever answer he gives, he is wrong. If he says, yes it is lawful, the herodians might agree, but the phrs will know that he is a traitor to the nation, a betrayer of all he has been saying about being within the kingdom of God – as they understand it. And if he says no, the herodians will be justified in denouncing him to the legal authorities as a danger to peace and Rome – and getting him executed as such. This is an impossible question to answer in the context without getting into trouble.
And yet that is exactly what he does.
And look at how he does it. He refuses the rules. He refuses to play the game they are setting up. They want him to identify with one side or the other, so that the side he refuses can condemn him and get rid of him. And he walks through the middle; give me a coin. A coin, incidentally, that, since it is a blasphemous image, should not be there in the temple, so by showing he doesn’t have one and putting them in the position of finding one he has already uncovered the plot – he has shown that he knows that this is not a genuine question, but a set-up. But they do bring a coin, and he asks – whose picture, whose inscription. He pushes the question away from himself – from being trapped, and shows them both that he is well aware of what they are doing – and that the simplistic set up they are offering is precisely that – too simplistic! He answers the question with that phrase we considered a few moments ago – and which is open to various interpretations…and so he insists that understanding the call of God, the identity of being the people of God is not top be answered by simplistic ticking of boxes, and passing over the right to somebody else to determine how and where that will be worked out, but by thinking, reflecting, wondering – and taking risks – including the risk of getting it wrong. What does it mean to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to god what is Gods – that is the question he is leaving them to deal with; he is refusing to give an easy answer because part of the life of faith, part of living faithfully as the people of God is living with and in the questions; not finding a one-answer fits all, but wrestling with struggling with talking about and wondering over the real and demanding questions. Like – how do we spend our money, what is our responsibility in society; to what extent is it my duty as a follower of Jesus to be involved in the redistribution of wealth to enable society to function – which basically is what taxation is; taking some of the money I earn to ensure there are schools, armies, and an infrastructure – and when there is that which I disagree with, what do I do about it. This is the kind of question that is embedded in the struggles that the folk questioning Jesus were living with – and they are the questions we need to be tackling, if we are truly to live lives shaped by faithfulness. We cannot simply read off answers and use them automatically; we need to ask, to discuss, to debate and to live with the tension of maybe getting it wrong. These words are not simple, and they are not intended to be. These words – like so much of Jesus’ teaching – are not just straightforward take and apply it. They are an invitation to avoid simplistic responses and engage our brains and our hearts and our faith with the world as we live in it. Where are the areas we make accommodation, and where we resist – and have we really thought them through, struggled and wondered – or have we opted for easy – and therefore ultimately wrong – answers.
Jesus refuses the easy answer – not only because either of the easy answers would get him into trouble – but because that is not the game he is playing. Those questioning him are looking for a way of living that is without doubt and without ambiguity – at least in this moment. And Jesus is refusing it – because that is not what it is to be human, not what it means to live in a society, not what it means to relate to God.
They want a black and whit world and he is telling them that being part of the people of God is not about keeping the rules, solving all the problems without any remainder, but living in the world as it is and dealing with it with integrity, creativity – and, I suggest, humour,.
Because there is surely humour in what he is doing here. You can just see them – they turn up serious, intent on tricking him, getting him to show himself up and condemn himself, so that they can finally deal with him. And there, in the middle of the temple, he makes them break their own rules – bring a coin with the emperor’s head on it, a blasphemous image in the holy place, and more than that, makes them identify that to him in public. Whose image – whose inscription; that is really driving the point home; the inscription on these coins left no doubt about the claims to divinity; almost certainly a coin of Tiberius, given place and timing – a coin with the phrase Tiberius, high priest, son of the divine Augustus.
And Jesus makes them read it out, identify it, shows them that the world is not as simple and cut and dried as they are trying to make it.
He is refusing to play their game, allow them to condemn him by their rules. But he is going further.
He is challenging them to move outside the rules and the domination that is shaping every reaction they show, and date to live in the kingdom of freedom and grace.
Render to Caesar that which is Caesar's – the verb is pay back, give over, return to; this coin that is representing all the problem- he makes them look at it not just as a symbol, but just as what it is – a piece of metal with a picture and some words on it. Yes, it represents all sorts of stuff – but only if you view the world in a certain way; only if you accept that it has the power to do so. But if you see it from another point of view, it is a piece of metal that has some scratches on it. If Caesar, if this dominating empire, if the powers in this world they are living in, in which the question they are asking has such potency – if that whole complex thinks this is important, then hand it over to them, let them have it – but don’t think for a moment it matters. That is also there in Jesus words; especially as he follows it up with give to God what is God’s. The coin is identified with Caesar because it is Caesar’s picture and words that are on it. So where is God’s image and words, where is that which is identified with God, which is, if we might put it this way, the sign, symbol, power and coinage of the rule and kingdom of God.
Well, it’s themselves, it’s the people around them, it’s the community. And here is Jesus real challenge to them – the one they can’t respond to, as far as we can see, given that they go away in confusion. Will they not only stop trying to make everything simple and straightforward – will they join him in living outside the world constructed by this dominating power, which tries to control?
See, if he chose either answer they offer – if h goes with pay or don’t pay as the proper response, both are still defined by the overarching power of Rome; to pay is to submit to its power, not to pay is to resist its power – but both reactions are determined in the light of the power of Rome. It remains the power shaping the way the world is, and the choices that are open.
But Jesus is offering something else; if it matters to them, let them have it – but know who you are, what you are. There is an image on this coin that says it belongs to Caesar – fine, if he wants it, give it to him. Once you do that, you are still here – and you are the image of God. And that’s something different. His deep challenge here is who actually determines who you are and how you live; is it the apparently all-powerful empire. Or is it the God who made you, and who is working in and through all that is, even when it is hidden. Whose image matters?
When we hear this story up against the story of Cyrus as we do this morning, this is highlighted for us; there is Cyrus, king and power – the equivalent in his day of the system that is demanding the tax and trying to shape the world in Jesus day. And doing his thing. And from the standpoint of knowing that God is at work, what is seen is that in and through that – but not controlled by it , not dominated by it – the purpose of god is being worked out, and the will of God is being fulfilled.
And Jesus challenge to them – even when they are trying to trick and condemn him – is to invite them to take the risk of trusting in that; to let go of their need to find clear answers, and to move beyond the assumption that the dominating power is truly in control – and to live with him in creativity, in exploration, in freedom. Let Caesar have it if it matters to Caesar – we are living in a different world. Look at yourselves, know yourselves as the image of God – and dare to live that out, to trust in the loving and acting purposes of God.
No – Jesus doesn’t give simple answers that let them off the hook, or allow them to pigeonhole him – and that is because he doesn’t live in that world, the world defined by power and violence, the world created by the empire, and limited to its options. And not only does he not live in it, he invites them to let go of their fear and their assumptions, and join him ion the playfulness of living in freedom as the images of God, loved and loving, free and hopeful.
They set up to trap him, and so they didn’t listen. Our listening is of a different order. But the challenge and possibility remains the same. Where will we let ourselves live; under the system of domination and power – or in the freedom of the kingdom of the living, acting God, whose images we are?