Matthew 22:15-22

Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. 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. Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?’

But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, ‘You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax.’ They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, ‘Whose image is this? And whose inscription?’

‘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.’ 

When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away. 

Let us pray,

May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of all of our hearts, be pleasing and acceptable to you, our rock and our redeemer…

I really enjoy going for evening walks in my neighborhood. On these walks I’ve noticed a proliferation of political signs in my neighbor’s yards. It’s as though these signs are how people are decorating for Halloween this year. I noticed that one of my neighbors has hung neither a Trump/Pence, or a Biden/Harris sign in her yard. She hung two different signs. One sign says “Support Our Police.” And the other sign says “Black Lives Matter.”

I stopped to chat with this neighbor during one of my evening walks. She said that she put the signs up because she was tired of the false choice presented to us during this election cycle. That one either supported the police or supported black lives. Real life is more complicated that one or the other she said. She loves the Ross Township police. They opened her car for her when she locked her keys in the car. But she also supports changing national policing polices so that they are fair for all Americans. Her sister’s grandchildren are black. She wants them to grow up in a world that is safe for them to be who God created them to be.

I think my neighbor is onto something. We should be skeptical when presented with a false choice. When someone tells us that there are only two possible ways forward. And strongly implies that one way is clearly right. And the other way is clearly wrong. Rarely can big, complicated issues, be boiled down into two choices.

It has been my experience that people present us with false choices when they want to entrap us. To force us to say or do something that we will later regret. In our Scripture reading for this morning, the Pharisees and the Herodians mean to entrap Jesus. Their question: Is it lawful to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not? Was meant to give Jesus two choices. Defy Caesar and not pay taxes. And risk punishment for sedition. Behavior that intentionally incites rebellion against established authority. Which, at the time, was punishable by death. Or offend his followers. Women and men who are actively resisting what they see as an oppressive imperial tax. 

Jesus knew that the choice for himself and his followers was more complicated than engaging in sedition or condoning the empire oppressing his people. The whole nature and trajectory of God’s kingdom. That Jesus has inaugurated. And is inviting people to participate in. Is fundamentally at odds with Caesar’s. However, Jesus knows that it takes nothing away from our identity as children of God to render to Caesar what is due him. Just don’t mess around with the things that belong to God.

Jesus’ instructions regarding taxes speaks to his larger concern of how his disciples are to live in the already but not yet kingdom of God. Living in between the time when Jesus came. And when Jesus will come again. When Jesus returns, the question of taxes becomes irrelevant. God will restore creation to its intended glory. But until Jesus returns, governments are necessary. And governments need tax revenue to maintain our roads, staff our police, and provide services for the vulnerable in our communities. 

For Jesus the choice of whether or not to pay taxes to Caesar is a false choice because it oversimplifies the complex issue of what it means to be children of God. As children of God our identity primarily comes from the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. In our own lives we seek to follow Jesus and obey his teachings. But children of God live out their identity in a particular time and place. We pay our taxes to Caesar out of a sense of what Martin Luther calls our civic responsibility. Never forgetting that our primary identity comes from Jesus, not Caesar. 

Still, paying taxes to Caesar does not resolve the tension we feel living in the already but not yet kingdom of God. Between being citizens of heaven, and citizens of this world. What, if anything, will? This week a friend recommended me the book, Love is the Way: Holding onto Hope in Troubling Times by Bishop Michael Curry. Bishop Curry is the bishop of the Episcopal Church. He’s also the priest that married Prince Harry and Megan Markle. His homily at their wedding argued that love is the only force in the universe powerful enough to change the world. He writes:

And love- unselfish, sacrificial, unconditional, and liberating love- is the way, frankly the only way, to realize God’s dream of the beloved community, on earth as it is in heaven. It’s the only thing that can, and that ever will, make the world a better place (Curry, 6).

Friends, the point of Jesus’ teaching for us today is to show us that it’s fine for us to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, because Caesar is not the most important thing. Love is the most important thing. Love of God and love of neighbor. The problem with false choices is that they entraps us into thinking that one choice is obviously more loving than the other choice. When we all know that the way of love is complicated, and messy, and totally worth the aggravation. Love is the only thing powerful enough to change the world. And God’s love for us, in Jesus, is the only thing that will inaugurate the kingdom of God. 

This week my challenge for us is to discern how God is calling us to participate in God’s love in the world. For me this is going to mean staying present and engaged with political discussions I’d rather tune out. For you it might mean doing something you’d rather not do- baking cookies for the Craft Show Bake sale, supervising the construction of the new flooring in our Fellowship Hall, for example. It might also mean sitting with another person’s pain. Knowing that you can’t fix it, but you are called to bear witness to it.

In whatever way we choose to participate in God’s love in the world. We do it knowing our job is to do our job in God’s great movement of love in the world (Curry 135) and leave the rest up to God. We may never see the fruits of our labor, and that’s okay. The point is to get started. So when we’re faced with a false choice in our own lives, we are able to reject them, and instead imagine the way of love.

Thanks be to God,

In Jesus’ name,

Amen.