Over the past
few weeks, we have been revisiting the conversations Jesus had with the Temple authorities
and Pharisees while Jesus was preaching in the Jerusalem Temple. In the days prior to Jesus’ arrest and
execution, those who were plotting Jesus’ death worked to entrap Jesus by
getting him to speak out against the Roman Empire or Jewish religious laws.
Today, we focus on the portion of the
conversation that concerned paying taxes.
Listen to Jesus’ wise words as we read from the Gospel of Matthew,
chapter 22, verses fifteen through twenty-two:
Scripture Reading Matthew 22:15-22
15 Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words.
16 They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are.
17 Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax[a] to Caesar or not?”
18 But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me?
19 Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius,
20 and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”
21 “Caesar’s,” they replied.
Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
22 When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.
Here ends this reading of the word of god
for the people of God. Amen.
Prayer for Understanding
Let us
pray: Life Sustainer, we receive the things
you desire to offer us today and each new day! Grant us wisdom and openness to
your Word and use its teachings to energize our bodies and spirits. This we pray, Amen.
Message
Christians
vs. Caesar
Taxes….the government….and our faith.
A few weeks ago, I participated in a
Zoom workshop offered by our UCC Conference that focused on “Politics in the Pulpit.” The gist of the call was that as pastors, we
endanger our church’s status as an official, governmentally recognized n0n-profit
organization, if we support specific candidates and political parties when we
speak publically as representatives of our church. Sounds simple – but,.. things get murky when
you are a pastor 24 hours a day/7 days a week….when I worked at Burger King, I
didn’t represent Burger King after I took off my uniform and showered the smell
of grease off of my skin. But, I am
always a pastor—I am a pastor when I am speaking during worship services, I am
a pastor when I sit at my desk answering phone calls, I am a pastor when I go
to the YMCA early in the morning to swim laps, and I am a pastor when I am
listening to the radio in my car and driving to Target.
So, according to the guidance offered
by the ZOOM workshop, every time I make a statement publically – be it in the
pulpit, in my office to Deb, on my facebook page, or when I am on the phone
with Lucia’s teacher – I am a representative of Trinity Church. I have to be very careful about not-airing
my political views, which is tricky when we are inundated with politics 24/7 as
we gear up for the presidential election.
When Jesus was being questioned in the
Temple, the religious authorities wanted to know if he thought it was “right”
to pay taxes to the Roman government. This
question was a trap. The religious
authorities knew Jesus could get in trouble no matter how he answered their
question. If Jesus said Jewish people
shouldn’t pay taxes to the unpopular Roman government, he would have gotten in
trouble with the Romans. They counted on
taxes to fund their government and its wars and infrastructure projects. If Jesus said Jewish people should pay taxes
to Rome, he risked offending the large percentage of the population that was resistant
and resentful of Roman rule. Most of
Jesus’ supporters were probably in the anti-Roman-rule camp. Most residents of Israel, no matter what their
religious beliefs, were unhappy about being ruled by the Romans, the brutal
foreign government that had conquered Israel in 63 BC.
The 1st Century residents
of Israel had to participate in the Roman system. They had to trade using Roman coinage. They walked on roads built by Roman
engineering. They drank water delivered
by Roman Aqueducts. They watched Roman
soldiers drilling and policing their towns.
Their families were counted in the Roman census. The citizens couldn’t avoid the Romans.
When Jesus was asked if it was right
to pay taxes to the Imperial Roman government, Jesus told his questioners to
return to Caesar what is Caesar’s and return to God what is God’s.
Jesus did not tell the Jewish people
to become the Romans. They were not
supposed to meld into the Romans – to become the enemy. They could pay their taxes and follow the
laws and yet continue to practice their faith and believe in our God.
Wherever we live, must work to give
God what is God’s. When you live in a
country and approve of your government, it is easy to follow the laws of the
land. But, as Christians, our faith should
be our priority. We must prioritize God
ahead of our patriotic fever, ahead of our loyalty to the company we work for
and ahead of our school spirit for the places we are educated. Our faith comes first.
Sometimes, we have trouble separating
politics and religion. Our politicians
weigh in on many moral issues. We expect
our civil leaders to follow a high code of ethics and to make political
policies that are influenced by a high sense of justice. But, we must work to separate our faith from
politics.
If the government made decisions that were in the best interest
of Americans, but may not be in the best interest of God, we would have to
uphold our faith by siding with God. I
hope we are never put in the position to have to defend our faith against the
will of our government, but we can look at the history of many countries, and
sometimes our own country, as being out of sync with Christian ideals. If we lived in Communist China, we would want
to practice Christianity even though freedom of religion is not permitted by
the government. If we lived in Nazi-era
Germany, we would want to practice Christianity by loving and protecting our
Jewish neighbors even though by doing so we would be committing a crime
according to the government. If we lived in the pre-Civil War-era United
States, we would want to practice Christianity by loving and protecting our enslaved
African American neighbors even though by doing so we would be committing a
crime according to our government.
When we return to Caesar what is Caesar’s, we separate our
obligations to our country and our obligations to God. We can support the work of our government by
paying our taxes and by being engaged in politics by voting for candidates we
believe are most likely to support caring for the most vulnerable people in our
country and the world. We can volunteer
to serve in local political offices to ensure choices are made for our
community that are consistent with caring for all of the people and creatures
who live here. We can support civic
institutions, like our fire companies, school districts, and ambulance services,
to make sure our communities protect and care for the weakest and most defenseless
people who live near us.
Giving to God what is God’s is slightly different than paying
taxes. God does want us to financially
support efforts to transform our world into the peaceful Kingdom God desires,
but God also wants us to give more than money.
God wants us to give with our hearts – to share our time to help
transform the world, to share our resources to help transform the world, to
share our talents to help transform our world.
It sounds weird for me to say God wants us to give money to
support God’s work in the world. We
remember the story of Jesus’ cleansing the temple...is it ok to ask people to give
money to the church? When Jesus cleansed
the temple of people selling animals to be sacrificed and people exchanging
Roman money into Temple money, the people who were running those stands were
exploiting the people who were coming to them.
They were making a profit from their sales. They were taking a fee from the money they
were exchanging. And, they had a
monopoly. The only place you could buy
sacrificial animals or exchange your money was in the Temple. So, people were being forced to pay exorbitant
fees in order to have the right kind of money to purchase the right kind of animals
they were obligated to sacrifice to God.
The whole process took advantage of the faithful.
At Trinity, when we ask people to give to the church, we aren’t
making a profit. The money comes in and
goes out. We spend it on things like
paying our Wifi bill so we can livestream our worship services, on buying Bible
for kids and curriculum for Christian education classes, trainings for our
staff and members so we can become more effective in our work as a church, as
gifts to support the work of the Daily Bread food pantry and Every Good Gift’s
work with young mothers, to print flyers about our activities and invite our neighbors
to our church. Our financial gifts pay
the salary of our staff members and for insurance on our buildings just in case
anything unforeseen happens. We use the
money to make sure we have beautiful and safe places to worship when we can
come back into the building. We use the
money to buy new choir music and to have the pianos tuned. We use the money to have the cemetery mowed
and to have the bathrooms cleaned. Some of the things we use the money for aren’t
pretty, but they are all things we use to operate this little corner of the
kingdom of God in Skippack.
When we support the work of the church, we give to God what is
God’s. God wants to us love God. God appreciates when we worship God. God wants us to love each other and care for
our neighbors. God want us to treat
others with kindness and respect. God understands
there is a place in our lives to support the work of our country, but God also
expects us to stand up for our beliefs, and to live out and practice our faith,
even if when we do so we break the laws of our country. Our first obligation is to God.
May we do so with love in our hearts. Amen.
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