Grace,
mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
The sermon
text for today was inspired by the Holy Spirit through the apostle and former
tax-collector St Matthew. And we read from this gospel reading today where
Jesus says about paying taxes:
Therefore
render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.
Prayer: May
the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O
Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Our Gospel
reading actually seems pretty straight forward, and not very complicated. Just
like in the last two weeks, this passage comes from the week before Jesus dies.
He knows that he is going to die at the end of the week, and yet he just keeps
teaching.
But also, as
we get closer to the end of the week, and the teaching of Jesus starts to ramp
up, the hatred towards Jesus also ramps up. The chief priests and all kinds of
people are hatching their plans to put Jesus to death. We read: Although
they we seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because they held him to
be a prophet.
And so in
our Gospel reading today, we read: Then the Pharisees went and plotted how
to entangle him in his words. In the Gospel of Luke, where he tells of the
same event, we read: So they watched him and sent spies, who pretended to be
sincere, that they might catch him in something he said, so as to deliver him
up to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor.
You can see
that the Pharisees were not interested in asking Jesus a question. They just wanted
to catch him out. This often happens to people who hold some kind of authority,
whether it is a teacher, or a parent, or a politician, or even a pastor. A
student comes up to a teacher and put to them a curly question—and they have
absolutely no interest in what the teacher has to say, but they just want to
catch the teacher out. As a pastor, it is often the case that people come up to
me and put some curly question, like, “If God made everything, who made God?”
And then before you’ve even opened your mouth to even try to respond, the
person is already saying, “See—I’ve got you!”
And this is
a similar thing that the Pharisees are doing to Jesus. And so here’s the
question: Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God
truthfully, and do you do not care about anyone’s opinion, for you are not
swayed by appearances. (They start by buttering Jesus up a little bit.) Tell
us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?”
Now, here’s
the problem. There’s a whole lot of politics behind this question. You see, so
many of the Jews were furious that the Romans were in charge, and they wanted
their independence. And there were all kinds of rebels and freedom-fighters,
who were trying to perform all kinds of terrorist acts to bring about an end to
Roman occupation. When Jesus was crucified on Good Friday, he was actually
crucified between two other men, one on his right, and one on his left. Often,
we say that these two men were robbers—but they were more than robbers. You probably
wouldn’t have been crucified for stealing a loaf of bread. These men were more
like highway-robbers, rebels, bandits, insurrectionists. They are probably a
bit like the “bush-rangers” in Australian history. They were robbing from the
rich and giving to their own people, and all that kind of thing. Crucifixion
was not a Jewish form of execution—it was the way in which the Romans wanted to
send a cruel and harsh message to these kinds of rebels. And there’s a kind of
sense in which the Jewish people probably felt some affinity with these rebels,
just as in Australia, many people felt that Ned Kelly were doing something that
was fair and just, even though it was illegal. But crucifixion was the way in
which the Romans dealt with this problem.
Now back to the
question: Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? If Jesus says “yes,
you should pay taxes to Caesar”, then it means that he would be saying that the
Roman occupation is legitimate. This would have made the Jewish people furious!
Here they have a foreign army in their country, and Jesus is telling them that
they should keeping paying for the occupation to continue!
But then, if
Jesus says, “no, don’t pay taxes to Caesar”, then he’s basically encouraging
the people to start a revolution. Either he would make the Jewish people angry
and turn against him, or the Pharisees would have every excuse then to hand him
over to the Romans to deal with him.
If Jesus
answers “yes”, or if he answers “no”, he’s in a real pickle.
So what does
he do? We read: But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the
test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought him a
denarius. And Jesus said to him, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They
said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things
that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
Even today
in our country, we look on the back of our coins, and it has a picture of our
Queen, Queen Elizabeth II. Her likeness is imprinted on the coin. And also, it
has an inscription. On our coins it says: “Elizabeth II”, “Australia” and the year.
Basically, Jesus says to the people: the coins have a picture of Caesar on
them. And they have a message that he put there on them. He’s the one who
organised for the coins to be minted. If he wants them back, then give them to
him.”
Now, we read
at the end of our reading: When they heard it, they marvelled. And they left
him and went away. The Jews can’t get cross with Jesus, because they know
full well that there is a picture of Caesar on them. But the Romans can’t get
cross with Jesus either, because he has actually told the people to pay the
tax.
So what’s
the point of this reading? Do we just look at this reading, and say: “Boy! That
was a close one! Jesus did pretty well that get himself out of that tricky
situation!” Is that it? Is that the point of this reading? Do we say, “Wow!
Jesus is really smart! He really stumped them.” Is that it?
Well,
yes—Jesus did get himself out of a tricky situation, and he also stumped them.
But let’s look at Jesus’ answer very carefully. First he says: Whose
likeness and inscription is this? They said, “Caesar’s.”
You see, in
the Scriptures, God said nothing about the Jewish people being obligated to pay
tax to a foreign government. And God established various laws for the Jewish
people to run themselves as a state. This state survived for many years. But
then the Romans invaded and took over. What does this mean? If God gave the
Jewish people a system of government, then surely the Romans must be completely
illegitimate in God’s eyes! Well, the Jewish people had turned away from God,
and were unfaithful to him. And so when Jesus shows them the coin with the
picture of Caesar on it, he tells them: “Do you see this? This is a call to turn
back to God. Sure, you shouldn’t need to pay taxes to Caesar—but you shouldn’t
also need a Caesar. God has sent you a Caesar, God has sent you the Romans.
Sure, you don’t like the Caesar—sure, you don’t like being occupied. But God
wants you to wake up from your sleep. It’s time for you to call to God, to turn
back to him, and ask him to bring this regime to an end. If you had done what
God required of you, you wouldn’t have a Caesar.” And so, Jesus says: Render
to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s. Do you see that Jesus
in effect says to them: If you had rendered to God what is God’s in the first
place, you wouldn’t need to render to Caesar what belongs to him.
Jesus
teaches us here what is said in other parts of the New Testament. As
Christians, we are called to give respect to the people who have authority over
us in the state, even a state which we might think is illegitimate. St Paul
says in Romans 13: Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.
For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been
instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God
has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment...Therefore one must be
in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of
conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are
ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to
them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to
whom respect is owed, honour to whom honour is owed. And so also, St Peter
says: Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it
be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those
who do evil and to praise those who do good.
Now, the
reality is that in this country, Australians have no idea where to even begin
when it comes to honouring politicians. We constantly mock our politicians, we
complain about paying taxes, and we generally grumble about how things aren’t
as good as they used to be. In our Gospel reading today, Jesus simply teaches
that this is sin. And it’s the duty of Christians to respect those in
authority, and to pay our taxes without complaining. We are also called to pray
for politicians and those in government, as we do in church pretty much every
week. St Paul writes: First of all, then, I urge that supplications,
prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and
all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life,
godly and dignified in every way.
And we are
not simply called to respect and pray for those politicians that we like, but
all of them, whether we like them or not. We are called to pay taxes, whether
we agree with the tax or not. And if we think we have bad leaders, and unfair
taxes, then let’s take it as a call to repentance. Let’s ask God to send us
better ones who will alleviate the burden on us. Let’s render to Caesar what is
Caesar’s, and also to God what is God’s. Sometimes in the church, we end up
with bad pastors too—and it has often struck me that a tremendous strength of
faith is often demonstrated by Christians who faithfully attend church week
after week, even though they have a bad pastor. What about Australia? It’s a
wonderful duty of Christians to be able to pray for our leaders in government.
And there’s a simple rule that is taught here in our gospel: We get the leaders
we pray for. If we don’t pray for our leaders, or don’t respect them, then God
will continue to send us bad ones until we ask him for good ones. But also, in
this country, there’s always something to give thanks to God for, even when we
completely disagree with the policies and the philosophy of the person who is
in charge.
Render to
Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s. There’s
something even deeper that Jesus teaches. He points to the likeness and the
inscription: The picture of Caesar and the message from Caesar. And he says,
because this coin has Caesar’s picture on it, and his writing on it, it belongs
to Caesar, and you should give it to him.
But Jesus
doesn’t just talk about Caesar, he talks about God. God also has coins, which
have his likeness on them, and his inscription on them. These coins belong to
God, and you should give them to him. What are these coins that Jesus is
talking about?
He’s talking
about you—human beings, men and women and children. In the very first
book of the bible, it says: God created man in his own image, in the image
of God he created him; male and female he created them. God has created
each person in his own image, with his picture, his likeness printed on each
one of us. And not only his picture, but also his writing, his inscription on
us: God created you in his own image. We are living coins that
have crafted, shaped, molded, and stamped in God’s own mint, with God’s own
likeness and inscription on us. We belong to God, and he calls us to give
ourselves back to him.
But because
of sin, instead of paying ourselves back to God, we constantly give this tax
back to the wrong person, the devil. And then the devil erases this image and
inscription from our eyes, destroys the coin, disfigures the shape of the coin,
and turns us into a useless piece of metal. The devil turns us from living
coins, into mere lumps of lead, with hard hearts, and with sharp faces. He
turns us into cold statues, that don’t listen to God, and don’t answer God when
he speaks.
But God is
not finished with us yet. He still shows us that these human coins are still
valuable and precious in his sight. He sends his own Son, to use his own life
as a currency, as a tax, to pay for the sin of the whole world. This is the tax
that Jesus will pay at the end of the week, on Good Friday, not with gold or
silver, but with a living coin, with a living currency, with his holy precious
blood and with his innocent suffering and death.
Today in our
church, we’re going to baptise a person. And this is the occasion, when God
shows us that he values each person in the world, in the same way that he
values his own Son Jesus. He takes the person, and prints his image and his
inscription on them again. When we baptise people, we make the sign of the
cross over them. This is to show that God’s imprint is made on us, his image
his put on us, through Jesus’ death on the cross. And what’s the inscription? I
baptise you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved. There’s the inscription!
The forgiveness of sins, rescuing from death and the devil, and the gift of
eternal salvation to every single person who believes that all this is given to
them in baptism. It’s completely free! This is God’s mint. It’s his machine.
And we’re saved totally by grace: we’re saved totally by being still and
letting him make his imprint on us and make us into living coins.
Sometimes,
as Christians, we sometimes think our lives aren’t really going anywhere!
Sometimes, as a church, we might think we’re not really going anywhere. But how
is God going to make his imprint on a coin if it’s sliding all around the place,
or moving in a direction that is not with him? He says: Be still and know
that I am God. Or as he says to the Israelites when the Egyptians were
following after them: The Lord himself will fight for you, and you need only
to be still. God himself is the one who carefully imprints his image on our
hearts once again, and puts his inscription on us and speaks his words of grace
and promise to us.
St Paul
says: We know that for those who love God all things work together for good,
for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew
he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son. Molded,
shaped, stamped in the image of his Son.
What a
wonderful gift it is that God shines the light of his face, his image, his
likeness, through Jesus, into our hearts today! And what a wonderful gift it is
that he imprints his inscription on us: I have called you by name, and you
are mine! Amen.
Lord Jesus,
we thank you for imprinting the image of your holy face onto our minds and
hearts, our bodies and our souls, through Holy Baptism. We thank you for
constantly speaking your gospel of the free forgiveness of all our sins into
our ears and imprinting this message on our hearts. Send us your Holy Spirit
that we may constantly give ourselves back to you, we who belong to you! Amen.
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