Claiming our part in the God’s dream
Proper 24A | Matthew 22:15-22
Let us be crystal clear. Jesus is not endorsing the separation of church and state. He isn’t talking about the morality of state taxation as a concept. Or the morality of paying our taxes.
This may be the one teaching of Jesus’s that is most manipulated by Americans. Most often to justify our present way of life or the ideals of our nation.
This is ironic given that the Temple leaders are trying to get Jesus on charges of heresy. Because we’re the ones messing around in it.
So, here’s what we have.
The Temple leaders have just tried to trap Jesus, so they decide to get some students of theirs involved. Get them to do a little entrapment. So they first butter him up. Try to make Jesus feel good. Ooh, you are so wise! We sooooo want to hear what you have to say! All that stuff.
Then they throw it at him. Is it lawful to pay taxes?
The Law they are referring to in that word lawful is Torah—the Hebrew Bible. This isn’t a legal question entirely. It is also a faith question. They are essentially asking if God is down with the Judean people paying taxes to the Roman Empire occupying their country.
This is a deeply suggestive question—just like the one Jesus asked their leaders about authority. There’s no way to safely and apolitcally answer it.
If he says yes, then he’s saying God is on the side of Roman occupation. Which, given that nobody in Judea thinks this is true, then it discredits him with the people.
But if he says no, then the leaders tell the Romans that Jesus wants the Judeans to refuse to pay taxes and the Romans would certainly kill him.
So what does Jesus actually say?
Everything is God’s
First he plays these disciples for chumps. He asks them to show him a Roman coin that none of them is supposed to have in the Temple. And of course they do! Revealing that fact to thousands of people. So he shows off their hypocrisy and what they truly consider is lawful. They literally putting the currency of the occupying nation above following God’s law.
[And we already know what Jesus thinks about wealth, accumulation, and power. He doesn’t like it.]
Then Jesus sets himself up—he asks about the image on the coin (a graven image they have in their possession). Which he knows is a depiction of Caesar—a human claiming to be a god. Not unlike our own graven images of dead presidents we idolize.
So, counting along, that’s two unlawful things Jesus exposes of his interlocutors.
Then Jesus gives them one more fake before the slam dunk. He starts out coy, giving them the benefit of the doubt. Clearly these smart students wouldn’t be so unlawful as to carry around sin on purpose. It has Caesar’s head on it, so it must be his. Give it back to him.
Notice, too, that this isn’t an answer about taxes. In fact, the literal implication is that all Roman currency should go back to Rome.
But the twist, of course, is that all of creation is God’s. So, when it comes down to it, giving to God what is God’s means…everything. Rome is not greater than God. All of this is God’s.
We’re trying to be apolitical.
That’s what the common reading of the text offers, doesn’t it? Just pay your taxes and be a good citizen. But give your heart to God. That’s what matters. The internal part. But that is nothing like what Jesus says.
Because that’s not what Jesus teaches anywhere else, either.
He teaches a very political message. A rejection of empire. Of hate, abuse, occupation, separation, sin, murder, betrayal, exploitation, slavery, corruption, wealth. He walks into the houses of the powerful and calls them exploiters to their faces. And he eats with the marginalized knowing how much the powerful hate him for it.
We might want to pretend this is hypothetical or mystical, but in Jesus it is material and real. We can’t escape it or avoid it.
This is why Jesus started his ministry preaching about repentance. Turning. Turning away from sin and toward God. Changing our lives; our obsessions; our behaviors and priorities. And align them with God’s. Follow Jesus in this Way of Love. Of hope. Becoming new.
The Kin-dom is a political project.
And we learned about it way back in chapter 5, with the Beatitudes: the opening salvo of the Sermon on the Mount. When Jesus preached about blessing in poor spirit, in grief, and meekness. In hungering and thirsting for justice and in making peace.
Making peace. Not ignoring conflict that is already raging.
All over the country, people will be praying for peace this morning while supporting genocide. And somehow think that is apolitical.
Of course, we’ll add insult to injury and say that talking about the mass murder of thousands of people, the mass starvation and migration of thousands more, that talking about that is political. As if saying nothing is an abstaining from politics. It isn’t. Watching murder is political. Refusing to speak is political.
We’re in love with plausible deniability. For the same reason we don’t lose sleep about terrible things our own military does, the votes our politicians cast, or the decisions our judges make. As if every last one of us is not deeply entrenched in the politics of our world. As if all of this isn’t God’s creation that we’re letting others destroy.
Jesus entered Jerusalem as a political revolutionary.
And his revolution is a way of love. A political statement about living out the Kin-dom’s priorities in this world. Enacting God’s compassion, peace, and justice in civic life and society.
Living like God’s way is more important than our ways. More important than nation, state, or community.
Living like everything actually is God’s. And we should care about it enough to act.
What does that look like?
It starts with examining those distorted orientations we have all grown up with. The ones that say that God blesses the United States rather than the other way around.
And recognize that God welcomes rather than rejects. Demands justice over punishment, peace over war, and love over hate. That so many of our cultural priorities are oriented toward preserving the state rather than advancing the Kin-dom of God.
Jesus walked to the cross to be executed by the state to fulfill the dream of God. And asked us to do likewise.
But our focus in church is often on comforting those already in Christ’s embrace far more than welcoming those outside into it. We are far more inclined to come to this place for solace than for renewal.
What Jesus offers in all of these Temple teachings is the opportunity to compare our world to the Kin-dom of God.
To ask ourselves:
Is this what God wants?
The irony is that we all will say no! We all think the world is far too sinful. And yet we find ourselves flummoxed, unable to agree to why and what to do about it!
But rather than coming together to speak in one voice, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor—that in us, the Kin-dom is being made known—we would choose silence instead. Quiet prayers—by ourselves. I know I do. Saves me getting yelled at when everyone else leaves.
But we do know what God wants.
Peace. Love. Reconciliation. Restoration of all things. A Jubilee—where all property is returned from the wealthy who hoard it. Freeing prisoners. Healing the sick. Exorcizing our demons. Proclaiming the good news. Eliminating poverty, food insecurity, and homelessness. Bringing outsiders in. Restoring the beauty of creation!
We think it needs to be complicated. That’s just our excuse for not committing. To one another. To build the thing God has called us to build.
We can be brave.
And often are. Now it’s time to work together. To own what is commanded of us. To speak God’s compassion, peace, and justice into our community. With love and conviction. Hope and generosity.
We are already working to end homelessness and food insecurity. I also know we are feeling convicted by other needs, too.
To work on behalf of our environment. And to show public support for marginalized groups, including LGBTQ+ , black, Jewish, Palestinian, and disabled persons.
To address the injustice in the carceral system and the exploitation of those trapped in it. And to work to end the despicable evil of the death penalty.
These are not pipe dreams. This is about God’s dream. And our entire purpose and reason for being is to live in a way that makes God’s dream for humanity real. To enact that compassion, justice, and peace here so that it can spread everywhere.
But if it is God’s dream, that means it is also our dream. So then let us be dreamers who live these dreams into our waking lives. With our whole community until the whole community is as it is in heaven.