The Gospels include several stories in which the religious establishment tries to set Jesus up to be humiliated. Generally, these officials ask Jesus to make a choice between God and Caesar—that is, between Jewish law and Roman law. Either way he chooses, he loses.
In this story, if Jesus says, Yes, it’s OK to pay taxes to Caesar, he’s advocating for the oppression of his own people. Roman taxes on Israel could amount to fifty percent. That is, if you harvest 100 bushels of wheat, 50 of them go to the tax collector. Press out 10 gallons of olive oil or wine, and five go to Rome.
And next there was the tax collector’s fee, which came out of the people’s pockets, not Rome’s.
And finally, there were Temple taxes—you may remember the story of the elderly widow dropping her last few cents into the tax box.
People starved to pay their taxes, or they lost land that had been in their families for generations, or they sold their children or themselves into slavery.
And it’s not as if those taxes were paying for improvements to the lives of the colonized Jews. Rather, their money was supporting their oppressors—buying food and clothes and equipment and weapons for the soldiers stationed in Judea; and keeping the puppet king, Herod—and the Temple officials—in luxury.
This situation is what Jesus will be endorsing if he says Yes, you should pay your taxes. And if he does so, he will lose any credibility he has as a prophet of justice, and he will likely be attacked by his former devotees.
And if he says No? He’s committing sedition—advocating for a tax strike, an insurrection against Rome. The penalty for that is a particularly ugly death: crucifixion. Judea has seen far too many crucifixions already.
But Jesus steps completely out of the two alternatives. He moves the problem and the bullies into a different dimension—a third place. His answer demands that the bullies stop and think—not just about trying to trap him, but about their own cozy friendships with the oppressors, their own power, and their own relationship with the God they claim to love. These pious Temple officials, these definers of morality in the Jewish community, are carrying with them at least one graven image, forbidden by the second of the Ten Commandments. The coin has the face of Caesar stamped on it. And his image is that of a self-proclaimed god—a man who blasphemously calls himself “Savior of the world, the son of a god, the Prince of Peace”—and, yes, those titles belonged to Caesar before Christians gave them to Jesus. So the worship of Caesar’s money—and through it, the worship of Caesar himself—turns the Temple officials into idolaters. Jesus is asking them if they are willing to give Caesar back the coins they’ve amassed by cooperating with Rome and corrupting the integrity of God’s Temple.
The trap Jesus springs is also partly in the “advice” he offers—give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, he says; give to God what is God’s. It sounds so simple and logical, doesn’t it! But—what is God’s? Psalm 95 says “In God’s hand are the depths of the earth: the heights of the mountains are God’s also. The sea is God’s, for God made it, and the dry land, which God’s hands have formed.” That pretty much covers everything, including the metal the Roman coin is made of and the bodies of the miners and smelters who made it. In reality, Caesar appears to own—nothing.
What Caesar actually owns is corruption and lies and greed. He owns slavery and exploitation of the poor. He owns destruction of the environment. He owns blasphemy and narcissism. And those who align their fates with his are working solely to please him and enrich themselves.
The Roman empire is long gone, but the spirit of Caesar is alive and thriving. I know everyone in this room or online has voted or plans to vote in the next few days. In contests from the Senate down to our local school boards and city councils and judges, we have an opportunity to vote yes or no on enabling Caesar’s agenda. Will our taxes, like the taxes on first-century Jews, pay for more lethal toys for ICE agents to use to oppress or kill our neighbors? Or will they buy housing for our homeless brothers and sisters, diapers for refugee children, lunches for hungry schoolkids? Will our dollars buy a gold-plated ballroom, or will they rebuild old and dangerous bridges? Will we pay to murder more Venezuelan fishermen, or to make sure everyone can get decent health care? Will we have a chance to rid ourselves of the out-and-proud corruption at the top of our government?
The prophet Micah has told us what to give back to God. “Do justice, love compassion, and walk humbly with your God.”
Love belongs to God. Our sense of justice belongs to God. Our sense of connectedness with all living beings, including all humans, belongs to God. Hope belongs to God, hope that motivates our activism on God’s behalf. Honor belongs to God. We can’t achieve what we want by lying, by cheating, by stepping on the heads of other people, by exploiting them. We need to offer our God, the God of love and justice, our best selves. Those are the things we give to God.
Giving to God means looking carefully at our spending habits as well as our taxes. This administration has threatened lawsuits against businesses and other institutions that have policies to insure diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility among employees and patrons. Some businesses and schools scrapped their existing DEI programs almost before the ink was dry on the Executive Order. Others, however, stated that they value all of their employees and customers, and that they would not comply. Those that refused are currently thriving. Those that rushed to obey have been struggling with boycotts, and are in difficulty.
So far, we’ve been talking a lot about money and what it can buy. But what exactly is money?
Money is a symbol that represents your energy. What did you do to receive or accumulate that money? How many hours did you work for the object or experience you are buying? How much of your “one precious” lifetime do your taxes represent? And where do you want your energy and spirit to go? Do you want to give your time and energy to Caesar or to God?
We give our energy to Caesar when we give bullies what they want. When we succumb to addictions—alcohol, drugs, TV or the Internet, shopping, even working. When we use someone else for our own gain. When we indulge in the luxury of rage or hatred or the desire for revenge. When we forget that we are connected to all of God’s creation, and that we are co-creators with God.
I confess to you that I have given much of my energy to Caesar in the last few years. I’ve spent a lot of time indulging my loathing of the man who lives in the White House, cherishing my thoughts and wishes for his demise, laughing at jokes about his intelligence, his appearance, his obsessions, and his ego.
But my hatred doesn’t harm him—in fact, he thrives on the attention, on the idea that his enemies are so obsessed with him. And my indulgence does nothing for me, either. It’s junk food for my soul, empty calories for my spirit. It coarsens me, warps me, turns me into what I most dislike. I feel my face twisting into a sneer to match his when I indulge. I’ve heard friends say that this is what they resent most about this time in our history: that we’re becoming as ugly as we perceive our enemies to be. We are giving our souls and our energy to Caesar.
But we don’t have to.
Let us give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s. Let us refuse to accept Caesar’s lies, greed, or scapegoating. Refuse to either accept the fear, the bullying, the manipulation. And refuse to use those ugly tools, even in the name of justice. Return them all to Caesar and those who love Caesar. They have no place with the people of God. They do not belong to God.
I went to a No Kings rally last week, and came away renewed, refreshed, and energized by what I found in the crowd there: joy, community spirit, and a powerful love for our messy, diverse, struggling nation. Whatever we love, we will protect and redeem. And redemption consists of actions like boycotting organizations that comply with evil, standing on a windy street corner with 400 of our neighbors, voting, and supporting candidates who will work for real justice. And redemption also consists of the small, simple acts of kindness and concern we do every day because we still believe in the power of love.
As individuals, as families, as churches, as denominations, as neighborhoods, we are a part of a movement to give to God what is God’s. So let us keep our eyes and ears and hearts and brains open and alert to the moving and calling of the Holy Spirit, as it guides us toward life, light, love, justice, and what belongs to God.
AMEN