by Fr. Bill Garrison
Please note that the following sermon text was provided prior to the audio recording. The two versions may differ substantially.
Bartolomeo Manfredi, Il tributo a Cesare (Public Domain)
The Pharisees went and plotted to entrap Jesus in what he said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.
—Matthew 22:15-22 (NRSV)
We just heard a gospel with a famous line that most people remember. “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s.” So, I thought since we are talking about taxes, I would relate a couple of IRS funnies before we get serious. Here we go.
A nervous taxpayer was unhappily conversing with the IRS auditor who had come to review his records. At one point the auditor exclaimed, "We feel it is a great privilege to be allowed to live and work in the USA. As a citizen you have an obligation to pay taxes, and we expect you to eagerly pay them with a smile."
"Thank God," returned the taxpayer. "I thought you were going to want cash."
A young child had swallowed a coin and it got stuck in his throat, and so his mother ran out in the street yelling for help. A man passing by took the boy by his shoulders and hit him with a few strong strokes on the back, and so he coughed the coin out. "I don't know how to thank you, doc...", his mother started. I'm not a doctor", the man replied, "I'm from the IRS".
Ok. I am going to confess to something really weird. Hang on to your hats. I enjoy preparing for and doing taxes. I expect a lot of accounting folks do too but I am not nor ever have been an accountant. I wonder how many of you are plagued with this same issue. I enjoy putting together deductions throughout the year and I enjoy planning ahead so that I minimize my tax obligation. It’s me versus the government. Now I believe in paying taxes unlike some people I have heard about, but I also believe in using the tax laws to minimize what I owe. It killed me when I recognized several years ago that I needed the services of professionals to finish them correctly and completely. My taxes had gone beyond my ability to complete. I was actually quite sad.
The gospel today is based in taxation. There were two types of taxes in Judea during the first century. The first was the Temple tax. Nehemiah introduced an annual one-third shekel tax for the running and maintenance of the temple. This was later increased to a half shekel, which was worth about two Denarius, the equivalent of two day’s wages. All Jewish males, except the priests, were liable to pay this tax, but it was mostly only the Pharisees who did so.
The second was the tax paid to the Romans and collected by the High Priest and those he chose to help him. The tax collectors were much despised by the Jewish population as they were making their living, and living quite well, off the vigorish of collection. Josephus estimates that the revenue from the Judean male population was between 600 and 800 talents per year. A talent was an immense amount of money. If the population of working males in Judea was around 250,000 as we think it was, then each man effectively worked for about three to four weeks every year for the Roman state. (Don’t you wish we had it so good? Our tax freedom date this year was April 16th. That’s a whole lot longer than three or four weeks.)
In today’s gospel the Pharisees and Herodians are trying to trick Jesus into saying something that will get him into trouble with either the Romans or the Jewish people. Here is the question. “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?", they ask.
His answer is a classic after requesting a coin and asking whose image is on it. "Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's." This was not what they had expected and their plot had failed. They retreated to fight again another day.
But having said that it remains a question that has continued to be an important one down through the centuries ever since. And it seems to me an especially important question on October 18th, 2020.
For hundreds of years there was no separation between church and state. In fact, the state found itself beholden to the church and this led to no end of issues including the creation of an extremely corrupt clergy. Europe found itself in the clutches of the church in Rome. Great chunks of real estate were governed by clergy. Things were a real mess.
All of that ended at the close of the Thirty Years war and the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Please make a note as there will be a test later. 😊 The church and the state were disconnected at this point as was philosophy and the church. For the first time in human history, with the exception perhaps of ancient Greece, political and cultural emphasis was placed in human reason rather than the instruction of the church. The pledge made by the signers of the peace was that going forward human reason would be independent and primary in the guidance of society. Our country was created in this atmosphere.
In the grand beginnings of this country they attempted to apply the winds of philosophy and reason into account and insisted that for a democracy to survive and flourish there needed to be a separation between church and state.
And here we make an important note to ourselves. As with most things it appears Jesus was way ahead of his time. Give to Caesar what is Caesar and to God what is God’s. The separation of church and state were clearly in his mind at that time.
So how has the primacy of intellect worked? What follows is my opinion only. For me the pendulum has swung totally the other way. Besides becoming fabulously successful at killing incredible numbers of people religion has been robbed of almost any authority in the ways of most human beings. The ethics presented in religion has almost no meaning in the affairs of state. Ethics have given way to what is legal rather than what is ethical it seems to me.
And that impacts how we answer the question Jesus asks. Let me ask it another way. What is the State’s influence and what is God’s influence? So now let me ask myself and you an individual question. Bill Garrison you spend a lot of time working on the preparation of your taxes for the state, are you spending equal time thinking about the stewardship of what is God’s in your life? Does God impact your thinking during the week as much as on Sundays? Is God getting equal time? Are you even coming close to rendering unto God what is God’s?
Unfortunately, I know how I answer that question. How do you answer it? I think our invitation is this. Why don’t we think about this divide between God and society to which Jesus refers? Is God getting equal time and thought in each of our lives? If not how might an increase in God’s significance impact things? Might our lives be enhanced? How about our community, how might it be enhanced? Let’s think about it.