Reading Jesus

Though not intended as a treatise on America’s policy of the separation of Church and State, Jesus’ words strike at the heart of this doctrine, which has proven a deeply-rooted conflict within our society. With the rise of Christian Fundamentalism in the last twenty-five years, the doctrine provided for by Thomas Jefferson’s famous “wall of separation”[1] between government and religious enterprise, has come under heavy fire. The issues are numerous: prayer in the public schools, bio-ethical issues including abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, and stem-cell research, vouchers for private school funding, and the most recent controversy concerning the phrase “one nation, under God” in the pledge to the American flag.

In our last “Faith-Talk” pastor’s session with our fourth and fifth graders, our subject was Baptist history. At the heart of Baptist history are “four fragile freedoms”,[2] the last of which is Religious Freedom (the separation of church and state). Though this freedom has been at the heart of Baptist heritage since our seventeenth-century beginning, there is considerable division today as to what this actually means. What did the framers of the constitution really intend when they chose to prohibit the so-called “establishment” of religion by exercise of the government?

How do we as a nation: “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s,

Jesus’ society was by no means like ours. Far from America’s foundational belief in the freedom of religion, first-century Israel was premised on a political theology called theocracy, that is, the belief that God was, in fact, the head of state who exercised disciplined through divinely appointed leaders. Therefore, in Jesus’ day, all decisions, social and cultural, as well as those which we would understand as governmental, were religious decisions. There was no distinction between the rule of the Church and the rule of the State.

And, complicating this theocracy was the presence of a powerful, foreign and pagan government, which respected neither the religious culture of Israel, nor its God. Israel’s very existence was predicated on its belief that God was the divine possessor of the land, and that God had chosen the Jewish people to live on that land as their elected inheritance. The intruding Romans were polluting that inheritance.

As we try to make sense of this text for today, please make two mental notes: First, note how remarkably different this setting is from our own political and cultural climate. There was no “Church” and “State,” there was only the “nation” – “God’s people,” who were being imposed upon by an imposter named Tiberius Caesar. Second, though the political setting could not have been much more different, the issue of interest on this particular day could hardly be any more the same. The issue concerned the payment of taxes. (Ah, “tax” has always been a “four-letter” word!)

As you no doubt have already observed, the title of today’s sermon is an allusion to those now-famous words spoken by President Bush, the senior, during his run for the highest post in the land, in which he said to a salivating Republican crowd, “Read my lips: No New Taxes!” The promise, however sweet it was, was a promise he could not keep (I’m sure the Democrats are to blame!), for, as they say, “Only two things are sure: Death and Taxes.”

So what can we learn about taxes from the one we call Lord, on this day in America? In just a few weeks, we go to the polls to exercise our citizenship in free and fair elections. What will govern our choices there? The question of taxes, or our pursuit of truth? Will our understanding of Jesus’ life help us to navigate the waters between God and Government in a nation that is arguably confused about which is supreme? If we listen closely enough, I believe we can read Jesus’ lips, too. But there is no cheering to his message. “Read my lips:” he says, “Pay your taxes.” To the Democrats. To the Republicans. To Feds or Foreigners alike. For money, which will always prevent you from seeing the Kingdom of God,[3] belongs to Caesar. It is his due.

More often than not this passage has probably been used to salve the consciences of Christians with divided loyalties, for by separating Church and State, in some ways, we have tamed God. Relegated God to “church day,” as we call it in our house. To that which is only religious. And we have read Jesus’ words as a justification for doing so. (On Sundays we render to God… In things religious we render to God… but in all other things, all other days…just as Jesus said…) But in reading the scripture in such a way, we have tamed the Bible from speaking to that which matters most in the “real world” – money and military, secular and social, power and politics. William Stringfellow says:

… Americans, for the most part, have dismissed the Bible as apolitical, a private witness shrouded in holy neutrality so far as politics is concerned, having nothing beyond vague exhortation to do with the nation as such, relegated to the peripheries of social conflict. Thereby, we have actually suppressed the Bible, since it is intrinsically political.[4]

When the sermon touches on “politics” some will protest that the preacher has “done gone to meddlin’!” But good preaching and true theology is always about politics. And God is always about Government. And Truth and Taxes are never separate issues if the Jesus of scripture is the Christ we claim as our Lord.

This story is ripe with tension. At this point in Matthew’s good news, the bad news is clear – Jesus’ life is at stake. The Pharisees have, here, conspired with the Herodians. The Herodians were Jews who were faithful, for reasons which are unclear to me, to King Herod. Herod was Caesar’s appointed ruler over Palestine. So, in this interesting twist, those radically opposing paying Caesar’s taxes, and those controversially supporting his tax conspired, together, against Jesus.

They asked him, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?” Which law were they questioning? The tax code of the Roman IRS? Hardly. The Jews were not concerned with any Roman law (remember, they recognized only one authority), so their question referred to the Law of Moses. God’s law. It was the only law that mattered.

Just as quickly as they asked the question, though, Jesus turned the tables on them. “Do you have a coin?” he asks naively. By simply producing a Roman coin, which was the only currency by which the tax could be paid, he knows that they are already, themselves, guilty of breaking the very Law with which they try to entrap him. For the second commandment prohibited Jews from making or possessing any graven image,[5] yet that coin, held on the sacred ground of that magnificent Temple, was inscribed with a picture of the emperor, and the words, “Tiberius Caesar, Son of the Divine Augustus, Pontifex Maximus.” (Tiberius Caesar, our High Priest, Son of Augustus, who is God![6]) How often do we, trying to hide behind our own religious pretexts, likewise, expose our own hypocrisy? In God we trust?[7] (During the sermon: hold up a dollar bill here.)

Then, I imagine with the slightest grin on his lips, Jesus said to his accusers, caught in their own game, Give to the emperor what is the emperor’s and give to God what is God’s. It was an innocent statement that turned them away in shame. It was wisdom which silenced their deceit. It was simplicity which satisfied their scheming. But, why? What did Jesus really say? What is the state really due, from those who claim a higher loyalty?

This is a difficult question to ask in America today. It is more difficult even to answer, and I believe Jesus’ theology would not be much welcomed in our on-going dialogue. For in America, we have separated Church and State (as we ought), but in so doing, we have weighed heavily in favor of the State, but claim the stamp of divine approval. We are “…one nation, under God” – whether we act like it or not. America has claimed “manifest destiny” – that God’s providence has made us great. And many have believed that “Christian America” has supplanted Israel as God’s “chosen nation.” But as we make such claims, we should hear again God’s subtle warning to Moses. “Yes, you will see my glory… but, I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious.”[8] Only God is truly free.

David Heim’s controversial point, which is printed in your bulletin today,[9] should be heard, whether you agree with his conclusion or not. The judge of the Ninth Circuit Court based his ruling on his belief that the phrase “under God,” does in fact still carry religious weight in America, making such a phrase unconstitutional. Heim, who is the editor of the weekly journal called “The Christian Century,” agrees with the ruling, reasoning that the phrase can only be considered constitutional if, in fact, the words “under God” actually mean nothing.

Many Christians will protest such an accusation, but perhaps we should all consider the evidence. Though the United States was recently surveyed as the third most religious nation on earth, with nearly 90% of the population claiming a belief in God, and nearly half participating in some kind of on-going expression of worship, the claim can hardly be measured in any “real world”(political) measure.[10] Consider just a few: the murder rate, the divorce rate, the growing gap between the rich and the poor, the spiraling debt that is crippling families, the increasing sexual abuse of women, the physical and sexual abuse of children, the rate of substance abuse, particularly among youth, the death of our inner cities and the abandonment of their children to gangs and crime, our skyrocketing national dependence on anti-depressant drugs, the moral failures of political, religious, and corporate leaders… (I’m starting to sound like a Baptist preacher!) If every tree is known by its fruit,[11] then what in God’s name does it mean to claim that we are a nation, “under God”? What have we given to God, but a bad name?[12]

If Jesus were standing here today, I believe he would say to us: “Read my lips – pay your taxes. And quit complaining about it. For even after Caesar gets his cut, you still have more money to waste than most of God’s children will ever even dream of seeing.” So, pay your taxes and let’s hope the government will take care of the poor and the oppressed. For the Church in America has almost completely abandoned this call.[13]

As unpopular as this opinion is, however, it is probably the easier gift required of this text. For giving money to the Caesars of this world pales in comparison to the demands of Jesus’ good news: Give all that you have to those who are on welfare. Love the Iraqis. Stand up for the homosexual. Pray for terrorists among you. Embrace the patient with AIDS. Wage peace.

Oh, these are not Jesus’ actual words. But they are without a doubt his love in action. And if we look (if we want to look) and if we listen (he said anyone who had ears could hear), we might be able to read his lips, today, and hear him say: Taxes are of no consequence in the Kingdom of Heaven, so let us give unto God the glory due to God’s name in a relentless pursuit of Truth. Truth which is more a becoming than a having.[14] Truth, which, alone, will set us free in this dangerous and divided world.

[1] On January 1, 1802, in response to the letter from the Danbury Baptist Association, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “…Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should `make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between church and State” (see

http://w3.trib.com/FACT/1st.jeffers.2.html).

[2] From a book by this same title, by Baptist historian Walter Shurden identifies Bible Freedom, Individual Freedom, Church Freedom, and Religious Freedom as the four pillars of “Baptist” thought.

[3] “…it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” Matthew 19.23. See also Mark 10.17-31 and Luke 18.18-30.

[4] William Stingfellow, Sojourners, Jan-Feb 1973.

[5] Genesis 20.4-6.

[6] Interpretation, “Matthew,” p.254.

[7] Insights in these paragraphs are from both Interpretation and The New Interpreter’s Bible, “Matthew.”

[8] The Hebrew text for today was Exodus 33.12-23. See especially verse 19.

[9] Concerning the recent Ninth Circuit Court ruling on the phrase “one nation, under God,” David Heim, editor of “The Christian Century” quotes Circuit Judge Alfred Goodman, and makes these remarks: “A profession that we are a nation ‘under God’ is identical, for Establishment Clause purposes, to a profession that we are a nation ‘under Jesus,’ a nation ‘under Vishnu,’ a nation ‘under Zeus’ or a nation ‘under no god,’ because none of these professions can be neutral with respect to religion” (Goodman). The only way “under God” can be construed as constitutional is by arguing that the words do not really carry the kind of theological weight Goodwin ascribes to them. Probably for many Americans the phrase “under God” in the pledge is not loaded with much religious meaning; it merely lends a pleasant aura of sanctity to the nation and its ideals… To the extent “under God” has real religious meaning, then, it is unconstitutional. And the phrase is constitutional to the extent that it is religiously innocuous. Given that choice, we side with the Ninth Circuit. And we see no need – especially not for Christians – to defend hollow references to an innocuous God.” “The Christian Century,” July 17-30, 2002.

[10] According to an article by Richard Land of the Christian Life Commission, the survey was presented in the December 1996 issue of George magazine.

[11] Matthew 7.17.

[12] “I will sanctify my great name… when through you I display my holiness before their eyes” Ezekiel 36.23.

[13] President Jimmy Carter said to a graduating class at Southern Seminary that the government might not be doing a very good job, but it has done a whale of a lot more than the church in recent years to protect those whom Jesus cared for the most!

[14] This phrase became a virtual mission/identity statement for Park Road Baptist Church under the ministry of Charlie Milford, its founding pastor who served here for 33 years.

[15] From the Lord’s prayer, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name…” Matthew 6.9-13.