Tribute to Caesar Yes – but Today?

A meditation to foster better reflection.

Over the weekend of October 15, 2005, the Gospel heard in many Episcopal parishes will be Matthew 22:15-22. In It are these words of Jesus: Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s. He said these words as he held a Roman coin in his hand, a coin on which was the image and inscription of the Emperor.

This profound pronouncement came from Jesus’ lips in response to a question: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?” Whether or not the Jews as a subject people, whose land was occupied by the Roman forces, ought to/should pay taxes to the Roman imperial government was a hot theme in Jewish piety. The Herodian party which benefited most from the occupation insisted that it was good and right to pay taxes; the Pharisees sat on the fence but paid in the end; and the Zealots refused to pay and took the consequences.

Jesus called for a Roman coin and surprisingly his questioners quickly produced one. (The mere possession of which suggested that they accepted the principle of paying taxes to the imperial government!). Then Jesus asked whose likeness and inscription was on the denarius? And they answered, “Caesar’s” for all Roman coins of this period had such on them.

At this point Jesus made his pronouncement: “Give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” Pay your taxes, keep the laws of the land and submit to the government.
Yet this instruction must not stand alone as an absolute for man is God’s creature. So Jesus continued: “ Render to God the things that are God’s.” God’s image and likeness [Genesis 1:27] is stamped upon you, therefore offer to God your whole being and life for he is your Creator, Lord and Judge.

What we see here is that all obedience to human governments and authorities is not isolated and standing alone but is WITHIN the comprehensive submission and obedience to God as the LORD. Thus we are to obey the laws of the land and pay taxes, as part of our obedience of God, for “the powers that be are ordained of God.” Children are to obey parents, wives obey husbands, church members obey their elders, soldiers obey their officers – and so on – within the one submission and obedience to God. Thus we are only to refuse to submit to human authority when it is absolutely clear that the human authority is exceeding its God-ordained role (e.g., when the Caesar required worship of his image, then the Christians said no and became martyrs).

The situation in America is very different from that in Jerusalem in A.D. 30! And thus the temptations are different, and, further, not identical for people of different persuasions and mindsets.

Take, for example, a temptation facing people of a social conservative mindset. Some of them are perhaps in danger of giving too much devotion to “Caesar” (read the Republican Party and Government). That is, they possibly identify too closely the political ideals and programs of the “right” and of its “conservative ideology” with the will and purpose of God. So much so that they see it as a Christian duty not merely to vote responsibly and carefully but to vote only Republican, and they see it as a sin to vote any other way.

And this general commitment is usually linked to a particular (but debatable) reading of American history, of its founding and its constitution. Politics seems to have ceased to be the art of the possible and has become the means of the realization of the foretaste or first-fruits of the kingdom of God on American soil. This close identification of a this-worldly yet high-minded political aim and ideal with the actual kingdom of God and the perfect will of the LORD means that, in effect, too much is rendered to Caesar. And thus what is rendered to God, the Lord, whose image and likeness we bear, is less than it should be, for some devotion is taken away and is given to the “earthly kingdom.” (One well-known southern preacher often says of his evangelism: “We get them saved; we get them baptized; and then we get them signed up to work for the Republican Party.”)

It is part of our required obedience to God not to kill (and thus not to engage in abortion or euthanasia) but it is not necessarily part of our clear obedience of God to support or not support this or that legislation at the state and federal level. Prudential judgment is required all the time for politics is the art of the possible. It is one thing to be submitted to God’s law personally and as a family or congregation of Christ’s flock, and it is yet another thing to be clear as to the best way of helping and causing people in general to submit to this divine law via political, education and social means.

Whether our judgment leads us to vote one way or another, it is the act of voting responsibly that is required of us by God in obedience to the State as appointed by him. No earthly program, however noble, can ever equate with the perfect requirements of the kingdom of Christ. Likewise no political party is worthy of our total devotion and commitment. Why? Because Jesus Christ is Lord.

The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon MA., D.Phil (Oxford)