A Sermon for Proper 24, Year A

Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's.

“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesars and to God the things that are God’s.” Jesus’ words may be more familiar to you in this older translation. But in whatever version we know them, we think they have a familiar meaning. Give to Caesar – that is, to the political powers of the world – the obedience and loyalty that are rightly theirs; and give to God the obedience and loyally due to God. Jesus’ words, we think, neatly divide the world into two spheres: the public, secular sphere which belongs to Caesar, and the personal, sacred sphere which belongs to God.

In Caesar’s sphere belong politics, taxes, money, work, justice, peace, war and the like. In God’s sphere are the church, worship, crisis and celebration in our individual and family lives and the spiritual life. In this neatly divided picture of the world, the two spheres are separate so we can be clear where our loyalties lie in the important areas of life. This picture helps us to avoid the conflict that can arise when religion and politics get mixed up. It is a very neat, comfortable and safe picture of how we are to live with God & Caesar.

It is also dead wrong.

The truth is, Jesus’ words challenge this safe, comfortable, neatly divided picture of the world. In the Gospel story, Jesus’ questioners try to force him into siding with one side or the other of this divided picture -- but Jesus will have none of it. Some representatives of the Jewish ruling class, collaborators of necessity with the Romans who occupied Israel, try to set a trap for Jesus.

After warming him up with some heavy-handed flattery, they ask a loaded question: “Is it lawful before God to pay taxes to the Roman emperor, or not?" The question is meant to put Jesus in a no-win situation. If he answers, "Yes," he risks losing the support of the crowds, who hated the Roman occupation and the heavy taxation that went with it. If Jesus answers, “No”, he risks being arrested for advocating disobedience to Rome.

But Jesus turns the table on his questioners. He sides neither with the angry crowds nor the collaborators. Instead, he forces his questioners to examine their own loyalties. After asking them to show the coin in which the tax was paid – a coin with the emperor’s image on it -- he tells them to give to the emperor what belongs to the emperor, and give to God what belongs to God.

It might seem at first that Jesus is saying they are to give the Emperor’s coin back to him, but no. Instead, Jesus makes them face the real question: What rightfully belongs to Caesar and what rightfully belongs to God? Jesus’ doesn’t resolve the false dichotomy his questioners have posed. Instead, he forces his hearers – then and now – to answer the really important question. The really important question is not whether to pay taxes. The really important question is: what rightfully belongs to Caesar and what rightfully belongs to God?

As soon as the question gets framed that way, the answer is clear to any faithful Jew or Christian: Everything in life belongs to God. Everything belongs to the Creator of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. Everything belongs to the One who made the world and all that is in it, including the emperor and the little pieces of silver with the emperor’s face on it.

Jesus’ words, so often used to justify the picture of the world neatly divided into secular and sacred realms, actually tear that picture to shreds. Everything in creation comes from God. Everything in creation belongs to God. The world is one and everything in it is God’s. We acknowledge this truth when we say grace at our dinner tables. We celebrate it each Sunday when, after placing bread, wine and money on the altar, we say: All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee.

Food, money, shelter, love, human society and the world in which it happens; economics, taxes, law, the environment, justice, war, peace, wealth and poverty, discrimination and the political arena in which we deal with all of these issues -- all belong to God. There is no separate secular sphere in which Caesar can claim his due apart from God. The whole world, including the political world, belongs to God.

In case you hadn’t noticed, we have an election coming up in this country in 16 days. As in all elections, but with particular intensity at present, the issues before us are what I’ve just named as belonging to God: war and peace; economics; taxes; the environment; justice; wealth and poverty and much more.

Since these issues and the world they are part of belong to the God whom we seek to worship and follow, we Christians have the duty to engage in the political process with our best efforts to be faithful to our God. This means, of course, that we should learn about the issues, the candidates, their positions and those of their parties, and that we should vote. But it means more than that. If we truly believe that the whole world, including the political world belongs to God, then our faith should shape how and for whom we vote.

Now, before you start worrying that I’m going to tell you who to vote for, relax – I’m not. But I am going to say something about what God cares about when it comes to the political realm. You see, God cares about the world God has made. God cares how we humans act in and for that world. God cares that we do our best to do God’s will -- including when we enter the voting booth.

We know God’s desire for creation largely through the words of Scripture. So here is some of what our biblical tradition tells us about the politics of God.

First, and most challenging perhaps, is that God does not want us to act politically on the basis of our own self-interest. Political candidates of all parties and persuasions routinely tell voters what they intend to do for us and people like us. They appeal unabashedly to our self-interest: “Vote for me and I will make your life better.”

But our self-interest is not God’s political agenda.

God’s agenda is the well-being of all people, and particularly, our weakest and most vulnerable sisters and brothers. Over and over in the Hebrew Scriptures, the prophets proclaim God’s demand for justice for the poor. In the Magnificat, the Virgin Mary praises the God who casts down the mighty from their thrones, lift up the lowly, fills the hungry with good things, and sends the rich away empty. In Matthew 25, Jesus tells us that we will meet him in the hungry, thirsty, sick, naked, the imprisoned and the stranger. These are the people whose well-being is central to God’s political agenda.

Central, too, to God’s agenda is peace between nations. The prophet Micah speaks of the days to come when people from many nations shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. Jesus blesses peacemakers as the children of God and calls us to love our enemies. Peace is high on God’s political agenda.

Above all is the image that Jesus used again and again: the Kingdom of God for whose coming we pray each Sunday, that realm in which there is peace and justice for all; God’s Shalom in which the wolf and the lamb lie down together; where every family, language, people and nation feast together around God’s throne. This is what our God wants for the world which belongs to God. These are the politics of God which we Christians are called to do our best to enact – in many ways, including voting.

Of course, no political candidate, party or Church can bring the Kingdom of God into being. That, in the end, is God’s work. But politicians, political parties and even churches can move the world a few steps closer to what God desires. When you vote in 16 days, I urge you not to ask yourself which candidates will best serve your self-interest. Ask instead, which candidates you believe are most likely to move God’s world a few steps closer to what God desires: who is more likely to bring some justice to the poor; who is more likely to further peace in our war-torn world; who is more likely to foster that community of mutual care that is at the heart of the Kingdom of God?

Faithful and thoughtful Christians will differ on which candidates they believe will do a better job of making real what God desires for the world. That is fine. But working and voting for God’s desire for Creation as we each discern that is what we are called to do when we enter the voting booth. For this whole world belongs to God. Everyone in this world is to serve God’s purposes as best we each can -- everyone, including you, me, and Caesar-- and whoever will be the next President of the United States.

The Rev. Jack Zamboni

October 19, 2008