A Sermon Preached at St. Matthew’s, St. Paul, October 16, 2011

Isaiah 45:1-7, Psalm 96:1-9, 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10; Matthew 22:15-22

Blair Pogue

Last March, Luke and I joined my dad in Washington DC for four days of sight seeing and visiting with friends. We toured the Capitol, the Air and Space Museum, the National Gallery, and Mount Vernon. What site do you think was on Luke’s top four priority list? The Bureau of Printing and Engraving. Assuming wrongly that we were the only ones who would want to go on this tour, we showed up a little before 8 am only to see a long line wrapped around the building and to learn that all the tickets were gone by 7am. Clearly, this was a popular tour. We did get to go inside, however, and Luke’s eyes grew to twice their size when he saw a huge plexiglass box full of $20 dollar bills. I knew that his brain was calculating how many toys and video games that money would buy. The gift shop featured money-themed wallets, salt and pepper shakers, jewelry and shot glasses. So we purchased our Bureau of Printing and Engraving trinkets and post cards and moved on to the Washington Monument, where we learned that tickets to climb to the top had also been given away at 7 am. Strategically, the Washington Monument gift shop was also open, and my father and I began to joke that we were actually on the Washington DC gift shop tour.

While we were at the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, as I pulled a dollar out of my wallet to buy yet another postcard, the words on our dollar really stood out: “in God we trust” and “liberty.” Those two understandings of our country and its relationship to faith and economics sometimes work together and at other times cause conflict. Faith and politics in America are deeply intertwined and yet also separate realms.

Today’s Gospel from Matthew attempts to explore these same issues. The Pharisees and Herodians, strange bedfellows, join forces to try to trap Jesus. Modern equivalents for these groups might be representatives of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street. The Pharisees were a rigorous breed of observant Jews, part of a revival movement within Judaism. Biblical scholars aren’t sure who the Herodians were – this term only appears in the Bible. It’s safe to guess that they are a party that collaborated with Rome, the imperial power occupying Palestine, the colony all of them were living in. Herod Antipas was Palestine’s ruler, a puppet beholden to Rome for his position and support. Both groups ask Jesus, “is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?” The Pharisees want Jesus to answer “yes” so they can portray him as a Roman collaborator, and the Herodians want him to answer “no” so they can tar him as a revolutionary.

Jesus, ever the wise and clever debate partner asks for the coin used for the tax, and they bring him a silver denarius containing the Caesar Tiberius’ image. Both the image of Tiberius and the wording on the coin indicate Tiberius’ supposed divinity. Jesus asks, “whose head is this, and whose title?” When they answer “the emperor’s,” he responds, “give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” His answer amazes and shuts down both the Pharisees and the Herodians, and they go away.

As people of faith, where does our ultimate allegiance lie? We have, as St. Augustine and others have pointed out, dual citizenship. As Christians we are citizens of heaven, but we are also citizens of this world’s societies and empires. Sometimes our allegiances complement each other and at other times they clash. What belongs to God and what belongs to the state? And what about those times when our tax dollars go toward policies and priorities that conflict with our beliefs? In Jesus’ day, the taxes Palestinians paid went to support the army that occupied their colony and made the average person’s life miserable.When should we support our government and when should we protest its decisions and actions?

As Christians we know that ultimately everything belongs to God. God is our creator and sustainer, and anything we are or have is pure gift. We know that we must think about our money, belongings and talents through the lens of being claimed by Jesus Christ. As Jesus’ followers we know that God desires abundant life for all people. Abundant life includes peace, justice, and quality of life – shelter, food, education, employment and hope for the future. Abundant life involves our participation in God’s work to bring healing and reconciliation to all people and the earth. It involves working for the common good, and there are different opinions – even among Christians – about what the common good looks like and how we should get there.

And let me throw something else into the mix. Our reading from Isaiah makes clear that God can work through rulers of nations, including those who are of a different faith and may formerly have been our enemies. In Isaiah Cyrus, from Persia, modern-day Iran, is the one who frees the Israelites from their Babylonian captivity. Cyrus becomes the exiled Jews’ savior. This is completely scandalous! How do we know when is God working through other leaders and countries, and when are they acting contrary to God’s purposes?

In America, church and state are supposed to be separate, and yet sometimes these lines are blurred. On one hand, certain leaders and groups seem to think we are a Christian nation, which was never really the case. On the other hand, certain leaders and groups seem to think that our faith in God should never influence our national decisions. Both perspectives strike me as naïve and short sighted. Our decisions and the decisions of our leaders are informed by many competing impulses. Why should religion and the powerful moral and ethical tools that the world’s major religions provide not be employed in discernment about critical issues? These include decisions about war and peace, about whether we should torture prisoners or not, about who gets taxed and for how much, and about budget priorities. All of these decisions are influenced by different conceptions of the common good. How can we both acknowledge the diversity of religious, ethnic and political viewpoints that exist in America while also not abandoning the beliefs that we hold dear?

Living as a citizen of two realms is clearly not easy. There is a lot of ambiguity. And yet, as Christians, we believe that Jesus, not Caesar, is ultimately lord, that God’s way of being present in the life of Christ offers an ultimate vision for human flourishing. We are called to prayerfully examine the whole of our lives, what we are, what we do and what we have, through the lens of following Jesus. What we are and have is not really ours, but given to us to steward prayerfully and thoughtfully. How do our choices about what we will do with our time, money and talent match up with the vision of life and the common good we sense God calling us to? In the whole of life, we must pray daily for God’s leading. Amen.