The Things That Are God's

Matthew 22:15-22

October 22, 2023

 

            Way back when in the 1980’s a movie called The Gods Must Be Crazy was released. It wasn’t widely known in this country, and I don’t remember even hearing about it until I was in college. It was very funny movie, although looking back on it, there were a lot of stereotypes that wouldn’t and shouldn’t play so well anymore. But its premise and plot has remained with me all these years.

            A man name Xi, a member of a remote tribe who had never encountered industrialized western civilization before, was out walking one day when a small plane flies overhead. The pilot throws out a glass coke bottle – clearly the ideas of recycling and not littering were not part of the movie’s consciousness. The bottle lands, unbroken, near Xi who had never seen anything like it before. It seems to Xi that this strange bottle had fallen from the heavens, from the gods.

            He picks it up and brings it back to his people. This small glass object is treated with wonder and amazement. The people discover that the bottle has multiple uses. It can be used to break open large fruit. It can be used to roll out dough for baking. The bottle’s mouth can be dipped in dye and used to decorate cloth. Everyone in the village finds many ways to use this bottle, this gift from the gods, and with each new use the popularity of the bottle grows.

            Here is the problem. There is only one bottle. And the people of Xi’s clan begin to fight with one another over who gets to use this supposed gift from the gods. The desire to use the bottle leads two women to fight over it, and one woman grabs it and hits the other woman on the head with it. What had been a gift of great utility has now become a weapon.

            The woman who hit the other is distraught at what she has done. The whole village is in turmoil. Nothing like this has ever happened between them before. It’s clear that they don’t have a mine versus yours mentality, just what is ours is ours. But the introduction of this bottle changes that. The people realize that the bottle must go. It must be returned to the gods, even if that means taking it to the edge of the world. So, Xi, who brought the bottle to them, takes on the task of returning it. He takes the bottle, and he walks out into a big world, much of which he has never seen before, and encounters the civilization that we take for granted. Misadventure ensues. At one point in the movie, Xi is giving paper money as payment for his help. Money means nothing to him. Just as the bottle turned out to be a problematic gift, this paper stuff is useless, and he leaves it on the ground. And watching this, you realize that so much of what we place value on – things, money – is just made up, artificial. Xi, who had never known anything but his family and tribe, the land, the earth, the sky, the trees, the animals, can’t see the value in the money paid to him because in his world it has none. And the one object that he thought came from the gods caused more trouble and strife than good for his people. If this was a gift from the gods, clearly the gods must be crazy.

            But unlike Xi, we have lived our entire lives in a world where money and objects do hold value, where money is necessary to live. And although economics may play out differently today than they did in the time of the gospels, economics is economics. Economics and politics were the underpinning of the society that Jesus lived and ministered in as well. And that brings us to our passage from Matthew’s gospel this morning.

For the first time in a while, our passage is not centered on Jesus responding to his questioners with a parable. But our story does involve a confrontation with the Pharisees. The Pharisees have been confronting Jesus since he came into Jerusalem and into the temple. But this confrontation is different. Not only are the Pharisees trying to trap Jesus, the Herodians have joined them. We do not read about the Herodians very often. In fact, I think this story is maybe one of two where they are mentioned at all. In a casual reading of this story, we might just accept their presence without question, but it is significant that this group we know little about are siding with the Pharisees against Jesus. Consider the name; Herodians suggests Herod.  Herodians were Jewish leaders who allied themselves with Herod and the Roman Empire. The Romans were the occupiers, the alien force who held them and their land under the empirical thumb. Just as tax collectors were despised and given their own special category for sinfulness because they collected the taxes demanded by the Roman government, the Herodians would not have been popular or loved by the common folks. Certainly, the Pharisees, the religious leaders and authorities of their day, would not have cared for them. But here they stand together trying to trap Jesus. Their collaboration gives new meaning to the phrase,

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

            Both the Pharisees and the Herodians hated Jesus. Both were threatened by him. He had been stirring people up for a long time, but at first, he was just a nuisance, an annoying thorn in their collective side. Now this itinerant rabbi has become dangerous. So, as Matthew tells it, they schemed to entrap him. 

            “‘Teacher, we know that you are sincere and teach the way of God in accordance with truth and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?’”

            Jesus knows what they are trying to do. The text says that he is “aware of their malice.” Jesus turns the question back on them. As one commentator pointed out; the question Jesus was asked was extraordinarily clever, but his response was ingenious. Jesus asks them to show him the coin that they used to pay the tax to the emperor. They produce a denarius, and he asks them to tell him whose head and whose title is stamped on the coin. The emperor’s. Then, Jesus says perhaps some of his most well-known words.

“Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. Some interpreters have used Jesus’ words to justify the separation of church and state. That is not a debate that needs to be waded into in this sermon, but I do think that that kind of political and religious separation is our modern understanding. Given the context and the culture of the time, I doubt that anyone listening to Jesus or even the first hearers and readers of Matthew’s gospel would have thought in those terms. Religious law was the law. There would have been no separation between the two. But that is also why the empirical tax was so odious. 

This tax was the Roman census or the “head tax” that was instituted when Judea became a Roman province. The tax was not only considered unfair, but it also went against Torah. The land of Israel belonged to God alone. Since Caesar was a usurper, paying the tax was considered an act of disobedience to God. Not only would Caesar’s image have been on the denarius, but the inscription would also have read something like, “In Caesar we trust.”

The common understanding of Caesar was not just that he was the governing ruler; as emperor, he was, for all intents and purposes, a god. Paying the Roman head tax meant that the Jewish people consistently broke the first two commandments. They put another god before the Lord God, and they used a coin that bore a graven image. I expect that Jesus fully recognized the irony of the religious leaders being able to produce this coin which went against the Law, while he could not. I’m sure that the hypocrisy of the religious leaders having a coin like in this in the holiest of places, was not lost on Jesus. 

Yet even when this passage isn’t interpreted as a reason for separation of church and state, it is used as a way for believers to find their way through a complex world that is driven by money. Just give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and the rest goes to God. Sounds simple, doesn’t it?  But real life is a different beast altogether. We are, like it or not, driven by money. It is a reality of our lives. You need a certain amount of money just to survive. If you don’t have it, survival can be tough to say the least. People come in and out of our church office on a regular basis needing help with money to pay gas bills and water bills and electric bills so they too can survive. To be without money is to know firsthand money’s necessity.

            While I think that money is one critical element of this confrontation, I also think that what is being called into question is allegiance. Perhaps when Jesus questioned the Pharisees and the Herodians about the coin, he was also questioning their allegiance. Who do you belong to, God or the emperor? What are the things that are Gods?

            Jesus was the master at turning trick questions meant to trap him back onto those doing the questioning. But the question of allegiance, the question of priorities is also asked of us?  Who do we belong to? Where does our allegiance lie? What do we consider to be the things that belong to God?  

            We might glibly answer that we, of course, belong to God. Along with that everything we have, everything we are, everything in God’s creation are the things that belong to God. Yet how does our answer play out in our daily lives?   

            I must be honest, when it comes to my daily life the idea that I belong to God, that everything I am and everything that I hold dear belongs to God, does not always factor in. When I make a decision, whether it is about a purchase or what to have for lunch, am I thinking, “what does this mean considering the fact that all I am belongs to God?” No. Do I think on a regular basis about how what I do and say reflects my allegiances? No. As much as I want to live mindfully and intentionally, I know that I fall short of this repeatedly.

What are the things that belong to God?

What I’ve come to realize is that this doesn’t stop just with me being mindful of the things that belong to God. Where the rubber hits the road is what I do with that mindfulness. If I believe that the things that belong to God are all things and all people, how do I live that out? How is it reflected in my actions, my purchases, my consumption? And even more importantly, how is it reflected in my interactions with others? If I believe that all things are God’s, than does that include all people? Doesn’t that mean all life holds value, that all people should be treated humanely and with dignity? Even the people who have hurt me. Even the people with whom I vehemently disagree.

The coin that the religious leaders produced to show Jesus bore the image of Ceasar on it. But the hands that held the coin bore the image of the One who created them. We bear the image of the One who created us. And I’ve realized that we don’t get to choose who bears the divine image and who does not. So, if our allegiance is to God, than our allegiance must also be to all God has created. What are the things that belong to God? We are all the things that belong to God. Thanks be to God and may it be so. And may it be so.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

Amen.