October 16, 2005

Belonging to God

by Julianne Stokstad

They cornered him in the Temple, set him up with flattery and then sprang their trap on him. It was framed in a way so that he would lose no matter what he said. It was one of those questions like "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" They asked Jesus, "Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?" If Jesus answered, yes, pay the tax, then it was clear he was not a loyal and devout Jew and if he answered, no, don't pay the tax, then he was publicly violating Roman law and could have been arrested for sedition.

The alliance of the Pharisees and the Herodians was an unlikely one. Both were groups of Jews, but opposite in their views toward the Roman occupation of Israel. The Pharisees were ultra-orthodox, earnest in following the Law. They knew using Roman coins with the image of Caesar was an insult to God and violation of the First Commandment. They were critical of the Roman overlords and of paying taxes to the Romans. The Herodians were a Jewish political party supported by Rome. They wanted to gain position and power by cooperating with Herod. These groups united in their common hatred of Jesus.

It's not that Jews or even Jesus were against all taxes. Taxes, then like now are a price for living in a society, used to support the government and government services. Then, like now taxes are always susceptible to misuse and abuse. Jews in Jesus' time paid a number of taxes: tithes to the Temple (averaging about 21% of their income each year), customs taxes and taxes on their land. The tax in question was an additional yearly tribute tax to Rome. When the gospel of Matthew was written about 50 years after Jesus died, the Jewish Temple had been destroyed and so even the Temple tax was going to Rome for the Jupiter temple, and so taxes were even a bigger issue to the Jews.

Something often overlooked in understanding this passage is its context. In the chapter just before, Matthew 21, the story, most often retold at during Holy Week, of Jesus angrily overturning the table of the moneychangers is found. The moneychangers were in the Temple courtyard to exchange the Roman coins in general usage (the ones with the images of Caesar on them) for Jewish coins, which were to buy offerings at the Temple during Passover. Devout Jews would not use coins with emperor's image at any time and certainly not in the Temple.

And so they asked Jesus "Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?" Jesus asked them for a coin, saying "Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites?" Hypocrites they were because they had carried a coin with the image of Caesar into the Temple. Looking at the coin Jesus said "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's."

His answer was brilliantly ambiguous. Jesus doesn't say pay the taxes and Jesus doesn't say don't pay the taxes. Jesus doesn't deny the reality of responsibility to the state, but he reminds us all of another level of responsibility.

Christians for centuries have based their attitudes toward government and the secular world on this passage, understanding it in different ways. One way to understand this is that Jesus is saying these are entirely different realms with no overlap: Caesar's and God's. This interpretation sits well with Americans given our separation of church and state. In Israel, a religious state, separation isn't so clear. And these days, even here in the United States, evangelical conservative Christians are pushing to blur the political boundary. Jesus raises a most provocative question.

Briefly, I'd like to explore what belongs to Caesar (be that the powers of the world or state or culture or as Marcus Borg says powers of domination) and what belongs to God. So imagine I have two piles here. We might put in Caesar's pile: taxes, money, power, work, security, and government. Or if we go to the interpretation of complete separation all secular things. In God's corner we might put: Sunday school, our church, the Bible, our personal relationship with God, spirituality, sacred things.

I don't think separation is that neat and clean. Let me tell you a story. I'm really a big Cal Bear football fan. Yesterday they played Oregon State. The Oregon State kicker has been noticed on the sidelines occasionally putting his fists together and staring at them. The kicker, Alexis Serna was a walk-on freshman last year. In his first game, he missed all three extra-point attempts with the last miss coming in overtime. His team lost by one point. TV cameras captured his agony on the field and also in the locker room where he was shown crying on the floor. Needless to say, the next week he lost his job to another player.

Several weeks later he received a letter from Austan Pierce, a 12-year-old boy who suffers from soft tissue cancer. He'd had lots of chemo treatments and even replacement of some of his bones. He wrote the kicker everyone has bad times and that his own situation helped him to empathize with the kicker's disappointment. It ended with "Go Beavers." Well, that was all. Several weeks later he got another chance and made his kick. He began corresponding with the boy and he began putting an A on one thumb and a P on the other. "It's just a reminder of how some people have it so hard and I shouldn't be worrying about something like kicking."

The kicker didn't miss another point that season and kicked 17 out of 20 field goals. Now he is one of the top kickers in the country and he says, "It's odd that a 12-year old can teach someone so much older about life." This is a story about football, not church. He wasn't praying exactly, but I'd render that story to God's corner. God will not be confined to one hour on Sunday morning.

How do we decide what belongs to God? The easy part is paying the taxes. By that I mean doing those things we are required to do. The harder part by far is discerning what belongs to God. There is no easy answer. Each of us must figure out over and over what from our lives goes into God's corner. The amazing thing is we have a choice when it comes to God's things. We have complete freedom about what we render to God.

In the freedom God has given us, we do not always make very good choices. Moses articulated one of our big problems. We can't see God and can't always hear God's way and so we like the Israelites in the desert, we complain, make bad choices and blame God when things don't go our way. We get distracted fulfilling the demands of Caesar, we forget to give to God what belongs to God.

The Bible gives us clues and instructions about how to find God's hand in our lives. Jesus through his teachings and his life showed us how to find God in our lives. God wants us with the freedom God gave us to choose to follow God's ways.

Paul Tillich speaks of ultimate concerns and preliminary concerns. One of the gifts of crises: of public failures like the kicker experienced, of serious illnesses, of death is that we realize in facing these ultimate concerns, that God matters most. We belong to God and God's good grace, love and mercy shower upon us all.

St. Augustine said, "For humanity was made to God's image and likeness." Everything ultimately belongs to God: all creation, all of us. Everything can be sacred if we recognize it as such and treat it as such. We are all God's children, each and every one of us in this world. God loves us all. Recognizing this, how can we ever treat anything as less than something of God's? How can we not return to God our lives, shining with gratitude and love?

Amen