Christian and Citizen

20th Sunday After Pentecost

Today's Reading: Matthew 22:15-22

Grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

God certainly has a way with timing and a sense of humor that a TAX question would appear in the three year SET lectionary just 16 days away from a huge election in our country. It is not a far stretch to put the Pharisees and the Herodians in our shoes today, asking the Lord face-to-face, “is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” (v.17). In true Jesus fashion, however, his answer seems to be no answer at all; “Give to the emperor what is his and to God what is God’s” (v.21). Matthew tells us that they went away AMAZED..

Perhaps they weren’t so amazed at Jesus’ answer as much as they were scratching their hands, amazed at how Jesus managed to escape the lose-lose scenario they thought they had so cleverly trapped him in. I imagine for the disciples and the Jews who stuck around for more had plenty of follow up questions; questions like: So, what is our role in society and/or government? When you say we should pay the authorities what is theirs, does that still stand if what they are doing with the money is unlawful? And how exactly do I determine what is the emperors, what is God’s, and what is my own? What belongs to whom?

I see our communities all over the nation struggling with these questions still today, especially right now. The original audience was wondering about the intersection between their lives as Jews and their lives under the Roman Empire. Today we wonder about the intersection between our lives as Christians and our lives as citizens of a nation. To be honest, this may even be too uncomfortable for some of us to even ponder, so we compartmentalize and separate our faith from our citizenship.

All of us here today grew up in the culture of private religion. In fact, we have all grown up to know that the two things you DON’T talk about at the dinner table are religion and politics. Yet even Jesus was asked, how do we live both under God and under human authority? Jesus was asked this difficult question that we still wrestle with today, BECAUSE we carry our identity as God’s children around with us everywhere we go. We live and move and have our being in CHRIST and on this earth, under some sort of human governing authority no matter where we live, because that is just how we organize ourselves. No matter how uncomfortable the conversation, religion and ‘politics’ make up our identity, our daily lives, how we correspond and coexist with the world around us.

As we think about these things, may we always call to mind the first commandment, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make anyone/anything else an idol that you bow down and worship, for I alone am God” (Exodus 20). Perhaps when Jesus said ‘give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s’, he was reminding his listeners that there is only ONE God. The emperor at the time was Tiberius Caesar, who called himself a high priest and the DIVINE son of Augustus. It was common practice for the emperor to claim divine origin; in fact the words/phrases used for Jesus were ones commonly ascribed to the emperor, such as, Son of God, high priest, Prince of Peace. Jesus was a direct threat to the emperors who demanded THEY be worshipped and glorified, not unlike the Pharaohs in ancient Egypt.

“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” Yes, give this coin, which bears Caesar’s image back to Caesar; God has no use for it. Don’t worship or bow down to this coin or the emperor who are false idols. There is only ONE, true living God – give to God what is God’s. So.. what bears God’s image? YOU do. Every life belongs to God. Every life is inscribed like that coin with God’s image and it is God’s law and gospel that is written on our hearts. And, as the Rev. Richard E. Spalding so beautifully puts it, “baptism is the watermark of our currency.”

Jesus’ response is one of dual allegiance, calling us to participate in both the kingdom of God and the world around us. Martin Luther came to call this our dual citizenship of the Two Kingdoms. We are not being asked to divide our loyalties; we are always loyal to the one true God. God remains the only one to whom we worship and bow down. Our ultimate allegiance is to the God whom we have covenanted with in baptism and that covenant guides how we live in the world: together in community, serving all people, and striving for justice and peace. This means that when we are faced with the challenges our life together inevitably brings, we have these questions to guide us: Am I serving God or an idol? Am I serving self or community? Who is being left out, exploited, or harmed? Does this advance or negate the justice and peace reflected in the kingdom God intends?

Martin Luther, in explaining the Two Kingdoms, speaks of governments as appointed by God, as God’s servants for your good; which comes from Romans 13. We know, however that governments don’t always work this way. The Roman Empire for example, from our gospel reading, was demanding taxes from the Jews so they could use that money to keep occupying Israel. There are endless amounts of historic examples of the ways in which governments have abused their authority rather than serving their people well. Yet Jesus’ response is still a call to dual allegiance, to participation in the kingdom of God and the world around us.

So again we come to the question, how do we navigate the intersection between our lives as Christians and our lives as citizens of a nation? As always, we should start with what we know: There is only ONE true living God. In this God we have received salvation. With this God we have engaged in a baptismal covenant: to live amongst God’s people, to hear God’s Word, to share in the Lord’s Supper, to proclaim the Good News through word and deed, to serve all people just as Christ did, and to strive for justice and peace.

Knowing these things and living into them, we can be better equipped to live in both kingdoms, to live as Christians and citizens of our nation. And may we never forget that not only is God alive and at work in us, but God is also alive and at work in our governments, calling us all to new life, to new realities that better reflect the kingdom of God.

Or as Rev. Dr. Andrew Purves puts it, “Union with Christ in his coming again creates in the present a restless, forward-looking way of life in which trust in God’s promises motivates discipleship for action in such a way that every area of the world’s life is seen in terms of Christ’s rule.”

Amen.