July 22, 2007

"Give to God...Give to Caesar"

Matthew 22: 15- 22; Romans 13: 1- 7; Micah 3

We had just moved to Iowa.  Many in the community had gone out of their way to welcome us.  We both were impressed by how friendly and helpful people had been.  But, one evening we were returning from a restaurant.  I was engrossed in my conversation with Brenda.  Passing us, going the other way, was a Grundy County sheriff's car. 

"How fast were you going?"  Brenda asked me.  "He's turning around."

I check my speed.  "Only 60"  But, I really wasn't certain.  I could have inadvertently slowed down when I saw the car."

He turned on his lights

I stopped.  The deputy came to my window.

"May I see your driver's license and registration?"

"Was I doing something wrong?"

"Yeah, you were going 66 in a 55."

"My speedometer said 60."

Yeah, right!

He went to his car and came back with a ticket.

What would you do in this situation?  Would you argue with the deputy?  Would you fight the ticket?  Or would you just pay it? 

It was the mid- 1960's.  Racial tensions were high.  My father was being interviewed to head an inner mission in Chicago.  One elder on the committee asked my dad to give them assurances that if Martin Luther King came to Chicago he would not take to the streets and march with him.  It was this elders contention that King was breaking the law and showing disrespect to our governing officials.  My dad refused to give that assurance, saying simply, "If I believe it is right to march, I will march."  Who was right, the elder or my dad?

Since the beginning of the last century there have been significant cultural battles in the United States, many of which have not been resolved in what we as evangelical Christians believe are God honoring ways.  Certainly the abortion issue is a case in point.  What should our response be?  Should we continue to fight for what we believe?  Should we withdraw from politics altogether?  Or, should our response be something else?

 "Teacher," they said, "we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are. ¹⁷Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"

Now, the question which the Pharisees and Herodians asked Jesus was intended to trick him.  Either he would come down on the side of a pagan, oppressive, and often unjust government or he would be forced to say something that would cause officials from that government to imprison or maybe even execute him.  It was the perfect trap question.  Yet, in another sense, it was the perfect trap question, because it was such a difficult one.  It is easy to obey those in government when they does no harm to us or those we care about.  It's easy to support a government that supports us and our values.  But the difficulty comes when it doesn't.   Jesus knew that and he knew how the people struggled with that question.  So, in spite of the impure motives of his questioners he gave a very serious answer. 

Show me the coin used for paying the tax." They brought him a denarius, ²⁰and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?"

²¹"Caesar's," they replied.

Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."

But, what did Jesus mean?  What is Caesar's and what is God's? 

We cannot understand Jesus' answer without understanding why he wanted them to show him a coin.  He didn't just do it for effect.  He had a reason.  And he had a reason for asking whose inscription was on the coin.  The coin he asked to see was the coin used for paying taxes. Caesar's inscription was on the coin, because Caesar was the head of the government in power at that time.  Now when said Jesus said "Give to Caesar," the Greek word translated "give" is the word apodidomi, which often carried the implication of giving someone what was due them.  For example, the word was used to for an employer giving his workers their proper wages.   So, for someone who lives under a particular government, it means giving them the taxes that are due.  The Apostle Paul used the same Greek word in Romans 13: 7 when he said,

Give [apodidomi] everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

Why is this so?  Why should God's people give a pagan ruler and pagan government their due?  For that we must look at the verse we read in Romans 13: 1 and following

¹Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. ²Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves

God established government for our good.  Without government our society would decay and it would be impossible to live together.  Governments are not just something human beings dreamed up.  They are God's design for the smooth running of society.  And in our world that has been polluted by sin, they are one way by which God in grace restrains the evil around us.

But governments will not work very well without the cooperation of those who are governed.  Thus, we must be subject to our leaders.  We may not be particularly happy with a government official-maybe with the policeman who's giving us a ticket.  But we must respect that person.  And it's not so much that the person must earn it.  We must give respect.  Why?  Because by doing so, we respect the order which God has put in our society.  Kids, that holds true for the classroom and for that teacher that other students are walking all over.  To show disrespect to that teacher is to show disrespect to God.

But there's another side to the coin and to Jesus' answer.  Jesus asked about the inscription on the coin.  Why?  The inscription on the front of the coin read,

"Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus."

By these word Caesar was claiming for himself what rightly belonged God.  Every Jewish person who was listened to Jesus and every Christian today knows there is only one true God.  No human being can claim that title.  And our ultimate allegiance is to the one true God.

But what does that mean, practically speaking, for us today?  One thing it means is that God is our ultimate authority.  For example, when the Jewish leaders demanded that Peter and John stop proclaiming the gospel, what was Peter's answer?  "We must obey God rather than men!  Certainly when we say that we must be sure we are obeying God and not just simply acting out of self interest.  But we must know where our ultimate allegiance lies.

From time to time I've mentioned our brothers in sisters in other countries who are being persecuted for refusing to be silent about Jesus and about good news of salvation in him.  Once again, I encourage you to check out the Voice of Martyrs website or to write to this organization or to The Bible League, another Christian organization that has committed itself to letting us know about the struggle of such brave members of our church family.  These people have given up their livelihood, their homes, their families, everything, in order to give to God what is God's.

But what about us?  We live in a free country-where we can free proclaim our faith.  In that sense, we can give to God what is God's without incurring Caesar's wrath.  But how many of us take advantage of that?  Or, are we afraid of embarrassment... Or maybe are we too busy with other things? 

As we think about that, we might want to consider what the Lord Jesus who uttered those words did for us.  Picture him before the Sanhedrin when one after another false witnesses were brought in to accuse him.  Picture him as he was ridiculed and beat and spat upon.  Picture him as he stood silently before Pilate.  Picture him as he was lead away to the cross.  Picture him in terrible agony on the cross.  And over and over again hear the words he prayed to his Father, "Not my will but yours be done."

How many of us have stopped our pleasure driven lives long enough to ponder those words.  Yet, the surprising truth is that the only way to know real joy is to say as our master did, "not my will, but yours be done."

But there's another way we give to God what is his.  And that is by doing what the prophets in Micah's day refused to do.  These prophets lived in a time of terrible injustice, when rich and powerful people were preying on the poor.  It was a time of  corrupt judges, who easily influenced with bribes.  It was time when rulers used their power to take what they wanted, often from those who could least afford to give it.  Hear Micah's words again,

"Listen, you leaders of Jacob ,you rulers of the house of Israel.  Should you not know justice, you who hate good and love evil;          who tear the skin from my people  and the flesh from their bones;         who eat my people's flesh,          strip off their skin and break their bones in pieces; who chop them up like meat for the pan, like flesh for the pot?"

And in the face of all of that, the prophets of God were looking the other way.  They were proclaiming "peace," in other words that "all is well."  In some cases they were part of the corrupt system, proclaiming good prophecies to those who paid them money   Listen to verse 11. 

¹¹            Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets tell fortunes for money

Contrast these false prophets with our chief Prophet Jesus Christ, who when he was among us proclaimed,

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

Now you might wonder what this all has to do with you and me.  Listen to these words of Peter from his sermon on the first Pentecost Sunday.  Acts 2: 17

"‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people .Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.

The "last days" Peter spoke of are those days after Pentecost when the Spirit was poured out.  The last includes the time when you and I are living.  We claim to be God's people.  And so our young men and women should be prophesying and our older men and women should be proclaiming dreams and vision of hope.  We together are the prophets of God in our world today. 

Prophets of God,  what is the message we are proclaiming?  Is it the message that Jesus proclaimed-a message of hope and good news to the poor, or are we merely giving in to the injustice and corruption that is so rampant in our time.  Are we like the prophets proclaiming peace where there is no peace.  Are just we part of the unjust system?  Or, are we calling society to repent?  Are we seeking to make a difference?

William Wilberforce lived in the late 1700 and early 1800's.  He was the only son of a prosperous merchant in England.  After graduating from the university he won a seat representing his district in his Britain's Parliament.

At first Wilberforce acted like any other privileged member of British society.  But, under the influence of min like William Boswell, John Newton, and William Pitt, he began to seriously read his Bible.  And he discovered that God had purpose for his life.  And he came to believe as Chuck Colson put it in his book Kingdoms in Conflict, that his Christian faith," if it were true, must bring God's compassion to the oppressed as well as oppose the oppressors."  And from then on he worked tirelessly to end slavery in his country.  His first effort met with ridicule and tremendous opposition.  Yet in spite of that he continued the fight for nearly 50 years.

By 1833 his health had begun to decline. He suffered a severe attack of influenza and never fully recovered. In July of that year, in spite of his frail health, he rejoiced at the news that the bill for the abolition of slavery had finally passed its third reading in the Commons. But his health continued to decline and he died early on the morning of July 29.  A month later, Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act which ended slavery in the British Empire.

People of God, our Lord put us here to be his prophets.  He put us here to stand up against injustice, to proclaim a message of hope to those who are oppressed. Wilberforce understood that.  He could have just ignored what was going on and focused on his family and had a successful career.  But, he didn't.  And God used him so that the world might know that in Christ there is no slave or free. 

There are other issues today.  Abortion, gambling, health care, poverty.  (Yes, there's still poverty.) If only we cared as much about such things as about the minor injustices done to us.   I had a woman e-mail me, asking whether our church had funds to help a working single-parent mom pay her rent.  I had to say no, we don't that much money in our benevolence fund.  Granted, I don't know this women.  I don't know whether or not poor choice on her part contributed to her situation.  Yet, I couldn't help but see that there is something wrong when a system so devalues the work of some that they can't even pay their own rent.  And if that's a problem here in the United States, what about in countries like Liberia and Vietnam, and Haiti.   I don't have the answer and I'm not advocating for one political solution or another.  But, it seems from scripture that we had better be raising questions like this. For to do so is to give to God what is his.

And in a sense, when we in this way, give to God what is his, we also give to Caesar what is Caesar's.  Remember God ordained governments for our good-to promote justice.  When we as God's prophets demand that they do, we are helping them to fulfill the mission God gave to them.  God put us here in our democratic country for a reason.

No, we are not called to bring about the new heaven and earth.  Our Lord will do that.  But we are called to proclaim good news to the poor. Eternal salvation, certainly! But, we are also called to proclaim the message that God cares about injustice.  And we are called to do all we can to make this world a picture of that which is to come.  Then, can we truly say we are giving to God what is God's.  And when we in this way give to God what is his, can know that when we seen him face to face, he will say, "‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."  Enter into the joy of your Lord.  AMEN!