“What Do We Owe
Caesar?”
Sermon by Rev. Dr.
Stephen Poos-Benson
July 4, 2010
Matthew 22:15-22
That’s when the Pharisees plotted a way to trap him into saying something damaging. They sent their disciples, with a few of Herod’s followers mixed in, to ask, “Teacher, we know you have integrity, teach the way of God accurately, are indifferent to popular opinion, and don’t pander to your students. So tell us honestly: Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”
Jesus knew they were up to no good. He said, “Why are you playing these games with me? Why are you trying to trap me? Do you have a coin? Let me see it.” They handed him a silver piece.
“This engraving—who does it look like? And whose name is on it?” They said, “Caesar.”
“Then give Caesar what is his, and give God what is his.” The Pharisees were speechless. They went off shaking their heads.
It is a lot of fun that we have the 4th of July on a Sunday. It only happens every 7 years and I think it’s a wonderful opportunity to take a Sunday and talk about what it means to be a Christian in a nation.
I’m a bit of a patriot. I love this great nation that we live in. I love its rocks and rills, its purple mountain majesties, sea to shining sea. All it takes is to travel outside the United States and you begin to realize what an amazing country this is. I’ll never forget when I traveled throughout Eastern Europe for the first time and all the hassles of traveling. When I went through customs on my way home, the Customs Agent inspected my passport and said, “Welcome home, citizen,” and I said, “You have no idea!!”
I love so much about this country. I love the cultures. They are so crazy and varied. The culture of the Pacific Northwest--Texas, Arizona and New Mexico has their own little nation-state! There’s New England, there’s the Midwest culture.
I love our democracy—our crazy political process. People are so out there about who they are and what they believe which leads me to the next thing I love about our nation: Our freedom of speech! In our nation, you can be openly and vehemently for or against anything and not worry about going to jail for your beliefs or being executed for your beliefs. There are so many nations on our globe where that is not the case. For me, the freedom of speech is the key thing that I celebrate. Every single Sunday, I get to say whatever I want to say; whatever I feel God is calling me to say without threat of anybody throwing me into jail for it. I just love this great nation.
I got to thinking, when I realized that the 4th of July was going to fall on a Sunday, what does it mean to be a Christian living in this nation? Do we owe, as Christians, anything to this nation? I started thinking about the scripture passage that I just read where the Pharisees are trying to trick Jesus. It’s a trick because they are caught in the middle of the Roman Empire that is excising huge taxes upon the Jewish citizens to support the Empire. The local citizens hate paying these taxes to the corrupt Empire. It’s a trick because if Jesus says pay taxes, then his local followers will be frustrated and disgruntled with him. But if he says don’t pay taxes, then he’s an enemy of the Empire and he’s going to be arrested, so he’s caught between the two. So he asks for the coin, he realizes the trick but he finds something unique. He asks whose image is on it? Caesar’s. He says render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s and render to God that which is God’s.
On the one hand, you might think that is like a separation of church and state. We need to separate our faith. I don’t think that’s it at all. Even in separation of church and state, that’s not to say that we as a church are to be completely separate from the state. Separation of church and state is to protect the state from the church so that we don’t end up in a theocracy or it keeps the state from creating a national church. That’s what the 3rd Reich did by creating the National Church of Germany. During the 3rd Reich, the National Church of Germany was nothing more than a political spokesperson for the 3rd Reich and the church baptized the political agenda. The separation of church and state is to protect both parties.
But that’s not what Jesus is talking about here. What I see here is that we have responsibilities in both places. We have a responsibility to Caesar. We have a responsibility to God. Somehow, as Christians living together in the midst of the nation, we have to discern what it is that we owe this nation.
I started asking people what do we owe this nation? I have had great feedback from folks. I posted it on Facebook. I asked people who read my Face- book: What do we owe this nation? Many people responded but I just picked up two.
One church member said, “We owe our country prayer. Respect and honor for our leaders. Love, understanding and acceptance of our personal differences. Can’t we all just get along? A reverence toward history and tradition. The flexibility to change and open mindedness to try something new. Follow the rules and laws of our country and accept punishment and direction when we make poor choices. Be honest with business dealings and treatment of people. Respect and be good stewards of our physical land, towns and cities in order to keep it clean for everybody’s use.”
Another person sent me a message on Facebook. This person is a member of the church who has chosen to be an American citizen after emigrating from another country and went through the process to become a citizen. He tells a very moving story about the process that he went through on his journey to become a citizen. He says, “After 37 years as a guest of this wonderful country, I finally took the step last year and became a U.S. citizen along with 52 others from 37 countries. I took the pledge; I was a mess. It was an incredible day for me and I’m so grateful for the country that has given me so many opportunities and has allowed me to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I cried through the entire process. With that said,” he said, “I am angry!”
It was powerful. What he talked about is how he feels as though, as a nation, we are not living up to our divine potential. That we are getting caught in a quagmire of so many different ideologies and political agendas and global issues. That this great nation is tripping over itself in so many ways. He listed all the different things that he felt frustrated with. He felt frustrated with the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, issues on immigration, issues on gun control, and issues of the economy. As he was going through this, it was really powerful to sit and listen and think about a congregation like this one where we are pretty equally balanced between blue and red, that these are huge issues that we are facing as a country. We do seem to be kind of tripping over immigration, gun control, and the economy. What do we, as Christians, owe the nation in regard to some of these thorny issues? I’ve thought about it. How would I answer the question?
This is how I end up answering the question. Out of our love for God, we desire to give God our very best and out of our desire to give God our very best, it is our desire to give our nation its very best so the nation can fulfill its destiny. You give to God your very best by giving your very best within the nation so the nation can achieve its divine potential.
This is where I got my idea on this. I went back and started thinking about this scripture passage where Jesus says render to God what is God’s and render to the nation that which is the nation’s. Think about this. What do we owe God? I went to the two great commandments that Jesus said: Love the Lord Your God with your heart, soul, mind and strength; Love your neighbor as yourself. You owe that to God. You owe God to pour into your relationship with God all this passion. But then there’s this unique thing that the Second Commandment does is that you can’t just love God because it pushes you back into loving your neighbor with that same kind of passion—with your heart, soul, mind and strength. So I took the other direction as far as moving toward other people.
Then I thought about what does it mean to love the nation? What do we owe the nation? Jesus, I believe, had a frustration with the Roman Empire because it was an oppressive Empire. It was not allowing the nation of Israel to achieve its own potential because the nation of Israel had a unique destiny to fulfill. When you read through the Hebrew Scriptures, you find that the nation of Judah/Israel was created by God for a divine purpose. It was to be a light to the nations. The foundation of the nation of Judah/Israel were the Ten Commandments and all of the ethical codes that broke off from the Ten Commandments were laws that the people were to live by and the basis of it was a sense of justice, a sense of peace, a sense of Sabbath rest for all people. A sense that every single citizen within the nation of Judah/Israel was to have equal access to the abundance that God gave to them. This nation of Judah/Israel was to be the shining light, different than all the nations of the Babylonian Empire that surrounded the nation of Judah/Israel. Judah/Israel was to be this beautiful, shining light of justice and shalom and rest and every single citizen from the King to the lowest peasant had a responsibility to work to make this nation of Judah/Israel everything that God had desired for it.
The Prophets Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Amos and the rest of the prophets were the social conscience of the nation that started speaking to the King, to the citizens, to the wealthy, to the middle class, to the lower class—speaking to them, saying when you’re not living up to your divine potential. It was out of this sense, if you believed in Yahweh God, that you would take your belief and you would live it in the nation of Judah/Israel. There was no sense of separation. You were going to take everything that you had and you were going to use it in such a way so that the nation of Judah/Israel could become and fulfill God’s divine purpose for it.
Then I started thinking about our country. I believe that God has a divine purpose for the United States of America. I actually believe that God has a divine purpose for every single nation that dots our globe but since this is our 4th of July and our holiday, I will talk about our nation. We have a divine destiny. I believe we, too, were sent to be a light on a hill. You know we have some pretty lofty ideals that we aspire to in our nation: A sense of democracy, a sense of freedom, a sense of empowerment of the individual to pursue dreams and passions, the ability for each person to live according to their own sense of calling to worship any way that you want to. Those are pretty lofty ideals. A sense where peace and justice is to reign. The only way that I believe these ideals are ever going to be realized is if each and every one of us, out of our faith in God, choose to give our very best within the nation.
Think about it—if we have this divine destiny as the United States—and many of you, as I look through this congregation, have served or are serving this country. Having had conversations with many of you, I know that you are people with opinions. You have political persuasions; many of you are wearing flags today. There is a sense of purpose that this nation has. There is only one way the nation will ever realize its divine calling and that is if we, as citizens, out of our faith in God, choose to give our very best in the nation.
We, as Christians, function much the same way as the prophets of the Old Testament did. We should be the social conscience of the United States. We should be the ones who are advocating for the poor, for the oppressed, those who have been left out and cut out of the bounty that the nation has to offer. We should be making sure that every single person is invited to the table and is able to participate at the political table, at the economic table, at the job table. Each one of us should be thinking about how we are giving our very best. How are you using your gifts right now to better this nation?
I’ve decided that I’m going to start using my gifts out in the secular world as much as I can. Right now, I’m working with one of our local cities to help them understand how they and their workforce can understand their divine potential. It’s been a real interesting discussion so far about working in a secular world using sacred language and trying to build this rickety bridge between church and state. I want to use my gifts in this way.
Dwight Rudolph, in his time off, uses his vacations and weekends volunteering with Destination Imagination, working with kids here in the city and the state and across the nation.
How are you? It’s one thing to be a patriot and to say I love this nation. I think it’s the next step to actually get involved. We do have some thorny issues: Immigration! Gun control! Politics! As a nation, we seem to be polarized politically right down the middle. Somehow, we’ve lost the ability to communicate and dialogue with one another. Actually, I think the extremes have lost the ability to communicate and dialogue with one another. Those of us in the center want to dialogue and we have to somehow figure out how to claim the space and the voice to do that.
What are you doing for this country? If you love God, you are going to give God your heart, soul, mind and strength and you’re going to love your neighbor as yourself. How are you doing that? When you light a firecracker or spin a sparkler this evening, I want you to think about your commitment to the nation.