Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor

 © 2020, Dr. Tamilio

Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and render unto God that which is God’s.  Well, everything belongs to God, so that makes this passage a little difficult.  There is nothing that belongs to Caesar that does not truly belong to God.  But let’s stick with the logic of the passage.

The coin that is used in this passage has Caesar’s head on it, much the same way that our coins display the busts of Lincoln, Jefferson, Roosevelt, Washington, and Kennedy.  The idea here (at least on the surface) is that you return to the state that which belongs to the state.  If the tax is being collected, pay the tax — and use the money issued by state to do so.

One could easily jump to the conclusion that we are not to give the same thing to the Church: we do not give to God the things that belong to the state.  That’s not quite what Jesus is saying here.

Anyone who has ever been part of church knows that there is this little thing called the Stewardship campaign.  Each year we solicit pledges from our members.  It’s coming up.  We do so in order to construct a budget, which is the responsible things for any individual, family, or organization to do.  You do not want to live beyond your means, but you also want to ensure that you have enough money to do all the things that you need to do.  In order to do this, we need to take some of what we give to Caesar and give it to God.

But Jesus said give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.  On one hand, I think Jesus is being a little rhetorical here.  Doesn’t everything belong to God?  What do we possess that doesn’t?  Russell Pregeant agrees, saying that the point of this passage is that Jesus is showing “the Pharisees and the Herodians [that they] do not know what belongs to God.”[1]  That is a creative reversal!  In other words, maybe Jesus is actually saying that everything belongs to God by showing the Jewish leaders of his day that they were making false distinctions.

But don’t get excited too quick.  Maybe Jesus is saying this to us as well.  Maybe he’s telling us to look in the mirror.

A lot of people divide their lives into two halves: there is their secular-side and there is their church-side.  Let’s say that someone has a job that requires him or her to be dishonest in their dealings.  Maybe they are involved in advertising and have to mislead the public about their product.  Or maybe it’s something worse: they have to market a product that is for adults (like alcohol and cigarettes) to children.  This same person is a faithful church-goer.  He or she can be found in a pew every single Sunday.  You would think that this person sees a contradiction with their faith and what they do for a living.  Maybe they do, but maybe they don’t.  Either way, they have probably rationalized what they do this way: “What I do for a living is what I do for a living.  I have to do it to put food on the table and pay the mortgage.  That is totally separate from my religious beliefs.”  Is it?  Are we not the sum total of everything we do: work, play, worship, you name it.  If you are a Christian, then what part of you isn’t a Christian?  It sounds ridiculous put this way, no?

Everything we are and everything we have is due to the work of God in our lives.  You cannot subdivide yourself.

Let’s return to the whole stewardship idea for a moment.  We often use the words time, talent, and treasure when we talk about giving to the church.  We are saying that everything you have and everything that you are should be used for the building of Christ’s kingdom.

Many moons ago I delivered a stewardship sermon.  One of my parishioners was none too happy with me.  He approached me after the service and said, “You know, everything I have in my life I earned from the sweat of my brow.  No one gave me a thing.  I had to work hard and build my business to where it is today.  God didn’t give it to me.  No one gave to to me.  I achieved this myself.”  Every once in a while, you come across an angry person and you think, “I should probably just leave this one alone.”  You could probably guess what my response was: “I’m sure you worked very hard to launch and maintain a successful business, but who gave you the skills you needed to do this?  Who gave you the mind and the drive to make that business what it is?”

All that we are and all that we have comes from God.  Thanksgiving is right around the corner.  One of my favorite “Thanksgiving hymns” is “All Good Gifts Around Us.”  It’s words are scriptural.

All good gifts around us

are sent from heaven above;

then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord

for all his love.

Our time, talent, and treasure are to be used first and foremost to glorify God, to build Christ’s Church, and to spread the good news of the Gospel throughout this corner of God’s realm.

Here’s the other thing — the deeper, darker layer of this passage.  Roman leaders believed that they were not only appointment by God; they believed that they were gods themselves!  They would have seen the act of paying taxes as akin to worship.  Bruce Barton and his colleagues write, “Paying taxes, however, did not have to mean submission to the divinity claimed by the emperor…Caesar has the right to claim [the people’s] tax money but he had no claim on their souls.  The Jews knew that everything that belongs to God must be given to God.”[2]

Like the Jews of Jesus’ time, we live in two worlds: the physical and the spiritual.  We have to submit to the rules of this world, of course, but this passage challenges to put our priorities in order.  As Barton (et al.) writes, “While they lived in the Roman world, the Jews had to face the dual reality of subjection to Rome and responsibility to God.  Jesus explained that they could do both if they kept their priorities straight.”  He concludes, saying, “The tax would be paid as long as Rome held sway over Judea, but God had rights on eternity and on their lives.”[3]

There it is.  Get your priorities straight.  Know that God has “rights on eternity and on [our] lives.”  Give to Caesar that which is due to Caesar, but give the absolute best of your best of your best to God.  Amen.

[1] Russell Pregeant, Engaging the New Testament: An Interdisciplinary Introduction (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995),  216.

[2] Bruce Barton, et al., Life Application New Testament Commentary (Carol Stream: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2001), 97.

[3] Ibid., this sentence and the previous one.