Sermon — October 18, 2020
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Right now we’re experiencing one of those brief windows that rolls around in our national political life everyone once in a while in ordinary times, when religion and politics collide, and politicians and pundits try to figure out how to use the Bible to best bash their opponents into giving way. I call it “Render Unto Caesar Season.”
It’s a venerable tradition. Twenty years ago, when asked during a primary debate who his favorite political philosopher was, George W. Bush answered, “Jesus.” Chris Matthews, shocked to hear such a thing, turned to the Bible: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”[1] Two years ago, a sympathetic senator asked Bill Barr whether his Catholic faith should disqualify him from serving as Attorney General. “I don’t think so, no,” he replied, “Because you render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and unto God that which is God[’s].”[2] Ando so I was delighted—as questions swirled around the role of Amy Coney Barrett’s faith in her conservative legal ideology—to see the headline of a Wall Street Journal op-ed published Thursday afternoon: “How Would Jesus Vote? Nobody Knows—Religious leaders should render unto Caesar and refrain from electioneering.”
Now, don’t worry, I’m actually going to refrain from electioneering from the pulpit! This isn’t a partisan political point. Instead, I want to point something out. In these moments, when they quote this verse from today’s gospel, Republicans and Democrats alike are trying to say that politics and religion shouldn’t be mixed, although they mean very different things. Republicans, of course, say they’re trying to defend nominees like Judge Barrett or Attorney General Barr against what they see as an attack on their Catholic faith; their religious beliefs, they say, shouldn’t be the subject of political debate. Democrats, on the other hand, say they’re trying to defend our secular legal system against being infused with religious dogma; presidents and judges shouldn’t decide public policy, they say, on the basis of their private religious beliefs. These two parties, with their very different approaches, both quote “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and unto God that which is God’s.” In other words: politics are politics, religion is religion, and there’s a clear distinction and separation between the two.
But that’s not what Jesus is saying at all.
I’ve preached a few sermons on the Old Testament recently, I think, and so it might help to back up a few steps and take a running start at the gospel. Within the broader storyline of the Gospel of Matthew, our reading this morning actually takes place after Palm Sunday. Jesus has already entered the holy city of Jerusalem. The people have shouted “Hosanna!” and seemed to proclaim him their king. He’s entered into the Temple, driven out the money changers, and begun teaching with the parables we’ve read for the last few weeks.
The powers that be are worried. The Pharisees and the Herodians come to him. They’re rivals, not allies, but both groups are feeling threatened. The Pharisees are a popular religious movement, and the Herodians are the ruling political establishment. But now this supposed new king has ridden into the capital city, and he’s teaching in the Temple. He’s threatened their politics and religion alike. And so they come to him and plan to trap him with a question. “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” (Matthew 22:17) If Jesus says that it is, that people should taxes to fund the Roman occupation—he’ll lose popular support and political legitimacy. If he says it’s not lawful, then his enemies can turn him over to the Romans and accuse him of inciting rebellion. And if he refuses to answer the question, he’ll look like, well, a Supreme Court nominee; someone so committed to self-preservation that you could never get a straight answer out of him.
Jesus, unsurprisingly, turns the tables on them. He asks them to show the coin they use to pay their taxes, and when they pull out a Roman denarius, he asks, “Whose head is this?” (Matthew 22:20) Here our translation, in trying to be clear, misrepresents the text a bit. The Greek word is “εἰκὼν” (eikōn), “icon” or “image.” Whose image is this on the coin? Whose icon?
You may remember, way back in the first chapter of Genesis, God says, “Let us make humankind according to our image.” (Genesis 1:26) In the Greek translation of the Old Testament—in the Bible, in other words, as the gospel-writer Matthew knew it, in the language in which Matthew wrote the gospel—it’s that same word Matthew uses: “Let us make humankind according to our eikon, our icon.”
“Whose image is this?” Jesus asks. He’s not ignorant. He’s making a point.
Caesar can stamp his image on as many coins as he wants; but God’s image is stamped on humankind itself, on every human being. “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” (Matthew 22:21) Go ahead, Jesus says. Let Caesar have what belongs to Caesar: the largest armies, the finest clothing, anything that he can buy with any coin he’s stamped with his own name and face. But give to God what belongs to God: your whole self, stamped and shaped and molded in the image of God.
So welcome to Stewardship Season! No, I’m just kidding.
There’s a sense in which offering your whole self to God could seem like a burden. Many of you who are listening may already be tapped out. You already give half your energy to your work, and half to your family; and now another half to childcare for kids who aren’t in school, and another half to caring for your parents and another half to anxiety about the state of the world and maybe, like, a quarter to the election and a quarter to yourself. That’s six halves, so far, I think. But it’s okay! Give your whole self to God! Now you only need four of you.
But when I say that “give to God the things that are God’s,” it doesn’t mean that you should give more of yourself to God; it means you should let God into more of yourself. Spiritual life, in other words, isn’t an addition to the rest of your life; it’s the transformation of the rest of your life.
In case that’s not really clear, here’s what I mean. Spiritual growth, progress in Christian life, isn’t a matter of keeping everything about your daily routine the same and adding more and more Christianity on top. It’s a matter of keeping your spiritual life at the top, and letting it seep down into more and more of your daily routine, of letting yourself slowly be shaped more and more into the mold with which you were stamped, letting your life slowly be re-formed in the image of God.
This should come as a relief, because it’s not about doing something new, about adding another thing to your to-do list. It’s about seeing what you already do in a different way, and maybe even doing it in a different way, too. Not slapping a bumper sticker on it, calling it Christian—that’s not what’s important—but reshaping it in line with the two great commandments of love of God and love of neighbor.
So when I hear “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and unto God that which is God’s,” I don’t think about building up the separation of church and state. I think about breaking down the separation of spiritual life from the rest of life. To be a Christian schoolteacher, or a Christian lawyer, or a Christian neighbor, doesn’t mean teaching Christianity to schoolchildren, or enshrining Christianity in law, or pushing Christianity on your neighbors; it doesn’t mean ending the separation of church and state. It means teaching children, practicing law, being a neighbor, in a Christian way, following the Way of Love that Jesus walked. These things are ministries, even if nobody you meet ever knows that you’re a person of faith.
Because God doesn’t need us to do more for God. God doesn’t even need us to do more for one another. God needs us to be God’s, and to know that we are God’s; that we were stamped before time with the indelible image of God, and we belong to God in body, mind, and spirit. “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Amen.
[1] Cal Thomas, “Bush Puts Christ Back in Christmas,” December 17, 1999, https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1999-12-17-9912170215-story.html
[2] Catholic Vote, January 16, 2019. https://catholicvote.org/senator-to-ag-nominee-william-barr-does-being-catholic-disqualify-you/