Matthew 22:15-21; Pentecost 22; "Do You Serve God or Caesar?"

It’s a set-up! The enemies of Jesus think they’ve finally got him. They have come up with the perfect question to trap him in his words: "Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" They are so confident of their ploy that, in order to butter him up, they are even willing to say publicly in the temple, before all the people: "We know that you are a man of integrity and teach the way of God in accordance with the truth." These words come from the mouths of those who earlier claimed that Jesus was possessed by Beelzebub and in league with the Devil (Mt. 12:24). This is how sure they were they were going to get him this time.

At the root, this question they pose is about allegiance. Is your allegiance with God or with the pagan emperor, Caesar? If Jesus answers "yes" (with Caesar) he will immediately be discredited as a prophet of God. For the Jews wished to be a free people and to have their own king, of their own blood, as was promised to them by God through Moses (Deuteronomy 17:15) and they had been reminded many times that they should serve no one, except God. But if Jesus should answer "no" (that his allegiance is with God) then, he would be executed by the Roman governor of Judea as a rebel. As you can see, this question is a set-up. If you are ever put into a corner with such an either-or question, don’t answer it. What you do is reword the question.

Jesus refuses to answer the question as it is posed to him. He changes the question and responds in kind to his adversaries. He says: "Show me the money!" He said it not like Cuba Gooding Jr. in Jerry Maguire, but in the sense of proving his point. For by having them produce the coin in question he has them condemn themselves. For on the coin was the image and inscription of Caesar himself. On the one side of the coin, the inscription read: "Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus, Augustus" and on the other, "Pontifex maximus" – High Priest! "Not only the image of a face but also the designations ‘divine’ and ‘augustus’ bring the coinage into the realm of idolatry. The fact that they had a coin to produce shows that they used the currency and therefore were as much implicated by its suggestions of idolatry as if they paid the tax." With devastating accuracy, Jesus had exposed the hypocrisy of the Pharisees: If it was unlawful to use a coin with a graven image, why then were they using it? Of this, Luther says:

Therefore they answer and say, "Caesar’s." Then he pulls the noose tight and says: Thank you, dear sirs. You asked me if one ought to pay tribute to Caesar? Here you have the answer. You acknowledged with your own mouths that you have already done that. Now I ask you, what kind of people are you that you do something and then after you have done it you ask whether it is right? [Luther’s House Postils, vo. 3, pp. 60-61]

Since the Pharisees hold in their very purses the image and inscription of Caesar, they must then agree that it is permissible to give back to Caesar what they themselves use in their daily transactions. Since money is coined by the authority of the state, it follows that the state has the right to govern financial matters.

But Jesus does not stop at taxes. The issue brought forward by the Pharisees ultimately had to do with allegiances. The Pharisees thought that paying taxes to an ungodly, pagan king was unlawful and negated their allegiance to God. But this either-or approach betrays how wrong their perception of God’s rule is. For they have the mistaken notion that God can only rule through them; only where the law of Moses is followed. Sometimes we Christians are led astray when we believe that God’s rule or influence is extended when the Lord’s prayer is recited in the schools or the Ten Commandments or Christmas trees are publicly displayed. The reason such things do not serve to extend God’s kingdom is because his kingdom is not one of externals, but of faith. If we seek to impose God’s kingdom as the Pharisees sought, we would only produce hypocrites. Rather, God’s rule is of quite a different nature than we might be led to believe.

Jesus’ answer is profound, and yet so simple. For it indicates that Caesar exists and rules only by the specific permission of God himself. Caesar is never above God, even if Caesar believes himself to be! Even though a nation or empire may put themselves in the place of God, that does not make them so. For such blasphemy God does not always destroy them immediately. Often God uses such ungodly rulers to accomplish his purposes for the salvation of his people. We see this throughout Old Testament history in God’s dealings with Israel. Whenever they refused to repent, God threatened to bring in pagan neighbours to punish them. And so it was that the Assyrians and the Babylonians came into Israel and destroyed their nation, carrying them off into captivity.

It was not that the God of Israel was powerless to stop them; rather, the Jews failed to see that God was acting through these pagan nations to discipline them and to save them. This last aspect is wonderfully demonstrated in our Old Testament lesson. There we have one of the most remarkable prophecies in the Bible. Before Judah is taken into captivity, Isaiah already predicts the name of the king who two centuries later, will restore them to the land of Israel. The name of that king is Cyrus, or Kyrosh. What is even more remarkable is how God refers to this pagan Cyrus as a "shepherd of his people, who does all what the Lord delights in; God calls him "his anointed," his Messiah. These titles and designations were usually reserved for exceptional, believing priests and kings of Israel. But that a pagan king could have such honours bestowed on him by God was incredulous. God explains: "I am the Lord, the God of Israel who summons you by name. For the sake of Jacob my servant, of Israel my chosen, I summon you by name and bestow on you a title of honour, though you do not acknowledge me: I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God." (Isaiah 45) Unfortunately, this was a lesson that was lost upon the Pharisees. For in it we learn that the God of Israel is also the God of all nations and all kings, whether they acknowledge him or not. That is why Paul writes about the Roman government that is persecuting the Christian church: "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. (Romans 13:1) There is no authority except that which God institutes and approves. This is also a tough statement for us today who have been so used to viewing any authority with suspicion. Yet it is these very authorities that keep us safe and secure! This is not to say that all those who are in authority are good and just people. Indeed, more often than not, they are not good, but this does not take away from the fact that they have been sent by God for the good of society. Thankfully they do not last forever, because they are subject to God’s wrath and anger. God punished the Assyrians and the Babylonians for the crimes they committed. God punished the Romans, too, and once feared for their power, today they are merely known for their pasta. And how long did the Third Reich of the Nazi’s, who considered themselves the master-race of mankind, last? Barely 10 years. God certainly humbles those who exalt themselves. But he also uses them for his purposes, just as we learned about Cyrus. For Cyrus had no intention of honouring God’s name, yet he returned the Israelites to their land and so God’s name was honoured, for God had brought it about just as he had predicted it. I believe the same thing happened with Adolf Hitler. He was determined to wipe out the Jewish people who had received the promises of God. yet what did he accomplish? Now the Jews, after almost 1,900 years without a land of their own, and at the verge extinction through assimilation, are galvanized in their Jewish identity and are given a land. In this way through, through the hatred of Hitler, God’s faithfulness to the seed of Abraham was honoured as the Jews remain the longest-surviving distinct ethnic group in the entire history of mankind.

This should comfort us when we see our own nation going down the path of destruction in its arrogance against God and love of wickedness and when we find ourselves surrounded by enemies who seek to extinguish the light of the Gospel. Luther encourages us that we should not be afraid of the powers that be. "But we should fear our prosperity and good days which cause us more harm than our anguish and persecution; and we should not be afraid in the face of the wisdom and the shrewdness of the world, for the y can do us no harm. Yes, the more wisdom of the world opposes the truth, the purer and clearer does the truth become, consequiently the Gospel can experience nothing better than that the world rise up against it with all its force and wisdom".

In part we are to blame for ungodly rulers, for don’t we live in a democracy? Have they not been elected by us? So why do we resent them? The reason for the apostasy of our nation is partly due to the fact that we have been guilty of not rendering to God what is God’s. After Jesus has established that we must render our taxes to an ungodly Caesar because he rules by God’s permission, he goes on to speak about God. What allegiance do we owe to God? Luther summarized this in the words: "We should fear, love, and trust in God all things." All things. Even Caesar. Do we truly fear and love God above all things? The best way to measure our love for something is to see how much money we are willing to spend on it, or how much time we invest in it. For example, how much do we spend on entertainment? or how much time do we spend in front of the television? It is truly distressing that we have all failed to keep this commandment as we ought. We have feared, loved, and trusted others more than we have God. We have failed to give God what is his. Everything we have is from him and we owe him our very lives. Our Lord Jesus also paid the ultimate price so we might be set free from the consequences of our sins. While we stand condemned by the words "give to God what is God’s," they summarize the entire life and ministry of Jesus who gives back the things of God to God. Jesus turns the clever questioning of his opponents into an opportunity to show them that as the Son of God he is giving back to God the creation in a restored condition. Through Jesus were all things created. By taking on flesh he came to re-create his creation through his death and resurrection, to begin a new creation. Jesus, to whom all things belong, is about to give back to God what rightfully belongs to him: all of humanity—upon whom had been stamped God’s image—and all of creation.

What does this now mean for us? First, we can rejoice as we recognize Jesus as the one who restores us into a fellowship with our heavenly Father—freed of any sin or blame. Secondly, we rejoice in the calling we receive to follow Christ. No longer are our lives empty and meaningless, but we are assured that we have a gracious Lord who loves us and rewards us far more than we deserve. And so we serve him gladly and willingly.

What kind of service does God recognize or require of us? I like the inscription on our bulletin cover: "Labour prompted by Love." The image of a fireman battling a blaze perhaps reminds us of the willingness of so many firemen to risk their lives to rescue those who were trapped in the twin towers a year ago. Firemen simply doing their duty, what they were called to do, made them heroes. In the same way, as we live our lives, ling out our vocations as husbands and wives, as parents, as employees and colleagues, as neighbours and citizens, as fellow saints and members of God’s household, in each area of our lives, God gives us ample opportunity for his love to find expression in our own lives. In this way God helps us to respond in a meaningful way to the love he has so richly poured out on us.

For those of us who are redeemed, everything we do, we do gladly and in thanks to our Lord. Sometimes we may face tough choices and at times we may need to admit we were wrong. But whatever we do, we can trust the Lord to be near us, to help us and to forgive us. Because of this, we are truly able to humbly serve as Christ served us, not for gain or to seek a legacy, but for the sake of God’s love. This is the kind of love our world so desperately needs. The love which not only renders to Caesar what is Caesar’s, but also to God what is God’s.