Sunday Homily - October 18, 2020 - Who Is Your God?

Jesus the Son of God Icon

The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

Isaiah 45:1-7

Psalm 96:1-13

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Matthew 22:15-22

I.

The easiest way that someone can get into trouble

 is if they say the wrong thing about someone

  who thinks they have power over them. 

Not asking for a show of hands on this one,

 but for those of you who were the kids in school

  who thought you could get away with saying something disparaging about your teacher

   and word of what you said reached the powers that be

    resulting in that awkward parent-teacher conference,

     you know what saying the wrong thing against someone in authority can result in. 

For you who have served in military service,

 for better or worse,

  you know better than most folks

   that it is a dangerous game to play to speak a word against your commanding officer,

    no matter if that commanding officer's character is good or bad. 

Authority can have an uneasy alliance with the truth.

 But authority abused is even more dangerous,

  especially if there are people trying to leverage that authority

   to silence a perceived threat.

II.

Which is exactly what is going on with Jesus this morning.

 And the powers that are attempting to be leveraged

  is a rival god's power:

   the power of the Caesar. 

The beginning of the Gospel passage

 makes it pretty darn clear

  that the question about taxes that Jesus is asked

   is not a genuine question.

It is a question that is built to result either in Jesus's dismissal as a Romanizer

 or in Jesus's potential arrest and trial for treason. 

Just think about the question that this group of Pharisees asks of Jesus:

 “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?”

Now, we might not completely understand how dangerous either a "yes" or "no" answer

 was going to be for Jesus.

  So, let's get a little deeper into what exactly is going on.

If Jesus answers "Yes, it is lawful to pay taxes,"

 this gives the Pharisees ammunition among the people

  to accuse Jesus of being a Roman sympathizer.

   But even deeper than this:

    it gives the Pharisees a particular theological opportunity

     to accuse Jesus of worshipping another God other than the Lord Most High.

      Because, at least for a particular faction of the Roman empire,

       the Caesar was worshipped as a god.

        That is a dangerous answer to make.

       [http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/roman_religion_gallery_06.shtml#:~:text=On%20his%20death%2C%20Julius%20Caesar,Julius%2C%20by%20the%20Roman%20state.&text=There%20an%20emperor%20was%20usually,sacrifice%20like%20any%20other%20gods]

But to answer "No, it is unlawful,"

 is an equally dangerous answer.

  Because if Jesus says, "No,"

   the Pharisees would then be handed an opportunity

    to accuse Jesus of insurrection against the Roman empire.

     Governments like their taxes, don't they?

      And the Pharisees know this as well.

But the main goal of the Pharisees' question, again, is not to learn a cogent answer.

 They are trying to give Jesus an impossible question

  so that they can get rid of the threat that Jesus posed to their status and power.

And they are willing to use the government in order to accomplish their ends. 

However,

 Jesus knows what they are up to,

  and outmaneuvers them at their own game.

Because Jesus's answer to the question is particularly brilliant,

 as it completely inverts the question back toward the Pharisees.

And it all has to do what seems to be a throw away line

 about the inscription and title

  on a Roman coin. 

Because coinage at the time of Jesus

 would have had the emperor's face on it

  and the emperor's title.

And that Emperor's title was none other than,

 "Caesar, Son of God."

Yep, I'm not kidding,

 we have coins from the 1st century

  depicting Caesar Augustus as

   "Caesar, Son of God"

     written in Latin.

And in Jesus's retort to give to Caesar what is Caesar's 

 and to God what is God's,

  is actually a brilliant inversion of the Pharisees' malicious question.

Instead, Jesus asks them a question in his answer:

 "Who is your God? 

  Caesar 

   or the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?"

 

III.

There is no wonder why the Pharisees were amazed at the answer,

 because they were beaten at their own game.

But it also is a stark warning to us today,

 perhaps especially during the final stages of a pretty darn brutal election season in the U.S.:

  

we must remember who is the God we serve.

As much as we in the U.S. put importance on who the elected executive of the U.S. may be,

 we do well to remember that no matter who is elected,

  no matter what the outcome is in 3 weeks,

   no matter who we perceive to be the "winner" or "loser"

    Jesus' words today are a stark reminder

     that we serve a far higher power

      than anyone who has the temporal power of government.

But more importantly,

 and more contextually,

  Jesus Christ Our Lord makes clear

   the dangers of the temptation of putting an earthly power

    in the place of God alone. 

Caesar, "the Son of God,"

 is sometimes far more easy to serve

  than the Incarnate Son of God

   who looks and sounds nothing like what we prefer to imagine him to be.

The Pharisees,

 and likewise WE,

  can so often get into our minds our perfect picture of Jesus

   that when the real Jesus actually shows up,

    we don't recognize him.

We look for ways to catch this imposter in his words,

 to get him in trouble with the authorities,

  and yet it turns out that it was in fact Jesus all along. 

Be wary, friends,

 and constantly practice repentance for the sins we unknowingly do,

  especially for worshiping our own conception of Jesus

   in place of the real Incarnate Son of God,

    who is Jesus Christ the Lord. 

And the way we stay wary of these temptations

 is to get to know Jesus Christ more and more each day.

Spend daily time in prayer.

 Read the Holy Scriptures that reveal the eternal truths of God in Christ.

  Know the will of God through the Word of God.

   And God will keep you and guard your minds in the knowledge and love of him.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.