Render to Caesar
Readings: Matthew 22. 15-22
How do our loyalties to the Kingdom of God, and the nation within which we live here and now intersect? Do they intersect at all?
Jesus in today’s Gospel is faced with an odd alliance coming to trip him up. The disciples of the Pharisees, those who were strongly opposed to Roman occupation, and the Herodians, those who are part of Herod’s court, the puppet ruler of Judea who answers to the Romans. Two groups who could not be more different, who should be opposed to one another, and yet find in Jesus a common enemy, someone who is a threat to both.
And so they come to try and trick him into saying something which will entrap him. The outcomes are clear aren’t they; say pay your taxes and those who are opposed to Roman occupation will walk away from Jesus, he’ll lose his repute among the people. But if he says you shouldn’t pay your taxes, and at the heart of Roman rule in that region at that, he’ll be arrested for seeking to spark an insurrection.
Jesus sidesteps the trap and in doing so challenges their assumptions about the nature of the Kingdom of God and the Kingdoms of this world.
You see the Pharisees thought that the only way they could truly serve God was by driving out the Romans and by reclaiming the autonomy of the nation, placing a descendant of David upon the throne. Do this, and once more all would be well. For them the Kingdom of God and the historic nation of Israel (not to be confused with the modern state) were one and the same. God’s Kingdom consisted of the land, that region on the eastern shore of the mediterranean; the Davidic line of Kings, being ruled in accordance with God’s commands and decree’s; and God, God to defend, bless and watch over them.
Now historically we in this country, and in other countries across the world, have been tempted to merge God’s Kingdom with the state, we’re a Christian nation which means we needn’t worry about split loyalties as loyalty to the state is identical to loyalty to God.
In our own day it’s one of the key underlying principles of Donald Trump’s popularity in the States, the idea that loyalty to America and a particular vision of America is the same as loyalty to God. We do it in this country too when we declare that a true Christian could never vote Conservative, or vote Labour, or, on the flip side, that the true Christian could only ever vote for one particular party.
And that’s an insidious position to hold. It’ll corrupt you. Because now your loyalty to God, which goes right to our core, is now tied to the state, or a political party or vision, and so we’ll fight for it, drive it forwards as though it were divinely appointed. Any attack on it or straying from it, we’ll feel deeply.
But also as that vision, that party or state, drifts away from God, we’ll all too often find ourselves drifting with it, defending things we shouldn’t because for us the Kingdom and this political viewpoint are the same, and we’ll miss how they don’t mesh, the critiques which are rightly levelled against it.
But Jesus in his response challenges this assumption, this mistake, that the Kingdom of God can be fully realised in a particular nation or political stance in this world. No nation or party or political position has a monopoly on the things of God’s Kingdom. The Kingdom of God transcends all these things, and as such we’ll find traces scattered throughout the political spectrum. And in that sense we have dual citizenship. We are citizens of heaven, citizens of the Kingdom which is both here and yet to come, whilst also citizens of, in our case, the United Kingdom. Those two things aren’t one and the same, and never will be, but neither need they be in conflict as the Pharisees assumed.
Jesus paints us a vision for how to live in the world whilst also not being of it. We’re not called to run off into siloes, create our own nations or hide away in communes from the outside world. We can interact with our world and with its rulers in good faith.
Because, as Jesus points out, the nations in which we live have valid claims upon us.
There’s a word which is a little lost in our translation today, present in older translations, it’s the word render. Render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s. Give is a fine translation, but render, an older, but perhaps more accurate, word has at its root the same word we get surrender from, the Latin word reddo – to give back.
You see Jesus is pointing out that, as the coin bears the face of Caesar, it belongs to him, and as such when Caesar asks for it back, we should surrender it back to him, it’s his after all. The same can be said of money in our own day. This past year King Charles has started appearing on coins, the new definitive set has just been announced. When the government, ruling in his name, call on us to pay taxes, we should do so, they have the authority to do that. They have authority to make laws and enforce them to ensure good governance, and we should submit to them, as Paul reminds us in Romans 13.
But there’s a limit to their authority, which Jesus also makes clear. Whilst we should render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s. Caesar doesn’t own everything, the rulers of this world have a limit on their power, they don’t have the ultimate or last say. Instead, stood over and above them is the King of all Kings and Lord of all Lords. The God of the universe also has a valid claim on us, and so we should also render to God that which is his. And what bears God’s image? We do. Each of us is made in his image, bears his likeness.
As such we are to surrender our lives to him, to give back to him what he has given us. And in a way as Christians, we bear God’s likeness in a double sense; made in his image but we have marred that image, and yet are restored in that image through the death and resurrection of Christ, through the working of the Spirit. God has re-stamped his image on us. And so we are to surrender our lives to him, out of loyalty, out of love.
God is the one to whom ultimate loyalty is due. And it is he who has set the bounds on earthly authority. It is perhaps tempting in the challenges of these days, both economic, socially, environmentally, to look to politicians as saviours, to look for a leader who promises to lead us out of the mess into a glorious future, and to throw our all behind their cause. It’s tempting, the challenges we face are great. And yet there is only on Saviour, only one in whom such trust and loyalty should be placed.
And that’s good news. Our politicians, our leaders, whilst they may aim to have our best interests at heart, they’ve also got one eye on their polling numbers, considering how to position themselves best for the next election. Need to control the narrative to look as good as possible.
With Christ there is none of that. In him what we see is what we get. In him we see perfectly the visible image of the invisible God. He truly longs for our good, he has no polling numbers to care about, he doesn’t need to worry about catering to our whims and feelings, instead as the ultimate source of good, justice and righteousness, he pursues it for us unceasingly.
My brothers and sisters, in considering our loyalties to the Kingdoms of this world and the Kingdom of God we can fall into two traps. Assuming that in our preferred approach they are one and he same, or assuming they are completely separate, the realms of politics and faith are utterly separate.
And yet in today’s Gospel Christ walks us through the middle path. We are to render to Caesar that which is Caesar, we can happily surrender and money and the things of this world to them, they are things, transient, we don’t find our identity in them. And yet over and above our rulers is the greater ruler from whom all authority comes. And we are to render to him our ultimate loyalty and obedience, our very selves, for in him is no shadow or flicker due to change. Instead he is guiding us and all things to that day when all shall be made perfect. Knowing that in Christ, we are his, and he is ours.
Amen.