Money, Politics & Religion

A Test

In the Gospel reading, Jesus asks the Pharisees and the Herodians,

Why are you testing me?

I need to repeat that question now to Rector Hule because the Gospel reading contains 3 of the 4 topics you never want to bring up in conversation:

money, politics, and religion.

Since I only have 10 minutes, all I can do is poke the hornets nest and run!In the spirit of asking questions that test people, here’s a serious question:

Is it right or wrong to support president Trump? Is it right or wrong to support president Obama? Or, to contextualize the Gospel reading, would Jesus support either president Trump or Obama?

Illustration: Childhood Politics

I grew up in rural IN in a family that loved Jesus and was and still is thoroughly Republican. We had extended relatives who were “black sheep” — you know, Democrats.

Even more confusing to me as a young person having grown up in this environment was encountering the odd combination of a Democrat who claimed to follow Jesus. I thought, how can that possible be? How can one be a Democrat and love Jesus?!?

Of course, now that I’m older and wiser, I’ve encountered people who think precisely the opposite. How can one possibly be Republican and love Jesus?!?

So which is it?

Are followers of Jesus better identified as Republican or Democrat?

I have good friends at both extremes of that question. For full disclosure, I find myself in the middle as an independent. How is it possible for people to claim to be faithful followers of Jesus to come to such opposite conclusions about people who support the opposite political party?

Why do we divide our world into these categories? More importantly, what happens to people when we view them this way?

The Context of The Gospel Reading

The text of our Gospel reading falls in the section of Matthew where Jesus is on the way to the Cross.

Jesus had just entered Jerusalem and immediately found himself in controversy over his authority

He tells 3 parables in response

The Sadducees and Pharisees realized that Jesus told these parables about them and set out to trap him in his words.

Our text begins the first test in the temple in an effort to trick Jesus with respect to politics, money, and religion.

Much like our modern context, people in antiquity organized in groups motivated by money, politics and religion. And since the goals of these groups differed wildly, they often found themselves in disagreement.

The Challenge to Jesus

In our text, the Pharisees and the Herodians come together in their common ground to discredit Jesus.

They ask him,

“Tell us then, what do you think? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”” (Matthew 22:17 NET)

Their hope was that Jesus would either say,

“No,” and, thus, be charged as a potential revolutionary or

“Yes,” and, thus, label him a compromiser and weaken his messianic claims

Either answer would lead to potential problems for Jesus. This is just like the “gotcha” questions we see all the time in modern politics.

Money Politics and Religion

Let’s look a little closer at the setup of this trap because it is here that we find the key to Jesus’s response and the Good News for us this morning.

Jesus sets us free from our modes of partiality.

The Pharisees and Herodians set the trap up around the question of truth and more importantly, impartiality.

“Teacher, we know that you are truthful, and teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You do not court anyone’s favor because you show no partiality Tell us then, what do you think? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” (Matthew 22:16 NET)

As it would seem, they are setting Jesus up to respond “no” since paying the tribute tax could be construed as showing partiality and it would have affirmed foreign rule over the people. Jesus says,

“Show me the coin used for the tax.” (Matt 22:19)

Then asks,

“Whose image is this, and whose inscription?” (Matt 22:20)

They replied,

“Caesar’s.”

He said to them,

“Then give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” (Matt 22:21)

The Coin

I have here the coin in question that was used to pay the tribute tax. On it, there is the profile image of the head of Caesar Tiberius with an inscription that reads

“Tiberius Caesar, son of the Divine Augustus”

“Ti(berius) Caesar Divi Aug(usti) F(ilius) Augustus,”

On the other side of the coin we find the goddess of peace, Roma, sitting with an inscription that reads

“High Priest”

“Pontif(ex) Maxim(us)”

On this coin that every non-Roman adult used to pay an annual tax, we have the convergence of

a son of God

who is the high priest of the people of the Empire

who through Roman rule brought peace.

This coin is held up before Jesus,

the Son of God

the high priest of the people of Israel and the gentiles,

who also offers peace.

To put it in contemporary terms, the one who could truly “make Israel great again,” is confronted with another person who claims to do the same thing.

This is no abstract issue either. A little over 20 years prior to this, in A.D. 6 when Jesus was around 13 years old, a man named Judas the Galilean and a Pharisee named Zadok started a rebellion over this very issue. Josephus, a Jewish historian, says that they called their fellow Jews

“cowards for consenting to pay tribute to the Romans and tolerating mortal masters, after having God for their lord” (Josephus, J.W. 2.8.2 §119).

Notice three things about Jesus’s response:

He shows no partiality in the matter, since paying the tax is simply giving back to Caesar what he already claims to own.

He claims God supreme since he has the greater claim on their lives.

He invites them to see things differently than they currently do. In posing their question, they only had in mind two possible responses, and they leave “stunned” at Jesus’s response which offered a third way.

A Call to Impartiality

In closing I want to address this last point a little further. At the opening I asked why we divide ourselves and others into categories?

One answer is for simplicity’s sake. When we label ourselves and others, we can associate a broad collection of beliefs or positions with someone. Thus, the label Republican or Democrat immediately usher not only strong emotion, but the stereotypical views that go with that label.

Here’s where things can get dangerous.

We determine the value of others and ourselves through these labels and thus show partiality

Rather than hearing one another we turn to our one-liners, sarcastic quips, and assumptions

In our political battles, we are essentially always negotiating what belongs to the President or the groups with which we identify. We associate morality with healthcare, government waste, taxes, border control, etc.

If we are not careful, when our moral allegiance is bound up with a political party, we find ourselves unwittingly negotiating what belongs to God.

The problem is not that we think politically, but it is that we start there. Michael Ramsay urges followers of Jesus to remember that our principles are

“pre-political rather than as political” (The Christian Priest Today, 37)

That is, we often filter our religious belief through our political ones instead of the other way around. If we are to give to God the things that belong to God, we must think first in pre-political terms.

The Good News, Wilmore Anglican, is that Jesus shows us the way of being and thinking that frees us from the boxes that we put one another and ourselves in and he leads us to embrace his Kingdom reality.

Our world creates groups for us with which to identify. Jesus calls us out of that.

To be clear, I’m not asking anyone to not identify as Republican or Democrat.

What I am asking is this: what does it look like for us today to give to the President what belongs to him and to give to God what belongs to God?