October 18, 2015
Series: “Money” 3 of 8
“Render Unto Caesar”
Luke 20:19-26
Introduction
Death and taxes: two unavoidable realities of human existence (or so the old saying would have us believe). In this exchange between the scribes, priests, and Jesus we find a manifestation of the principle of last week’s text (Prov. 22:7): “The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender.” Pales-tine had in every way come under Roman rule—economically as well as politically and militarily; Rome had all the wealth and power and they ruled over their subjects. And while, as we saw in the story of Jesus cleansing the temple in John 2, local currencies like the Jewish shekel were still used for buying temple sacrifices and food for religious purposes, by and large trade was conducted in Roman currency, which of course bore the mark of Roman power; and in the Roman system the emperor, Caesar, was the center and symbol of that power.
I don’t like taxes. And I doubt any of you jump for joy when you see April 15th coming around again, or at election time when levies or other tax hikes are on the ballot. Everywhere we turn it seems the powers that be—like Caesar of old—are trying to get their hands deeper into our pockets—trying to get more of their money back. Yet, as certain as death and taxes were in Jesus’ day—and as certain as they still are today—I don’t want to make the mistake of preaching to you about the ethics of paying taxes from this text. Even though Jesus affirms it, that isn’t His point here. Well, what is His point? He’s His point! Just as spending money in the temple on Passover sacrifices wasn’t the point when the Passover Lamb Himself came claiming temple ownership, divine sonship, and centrality in worship; just as wealth and poverty, borrowing and lending in the human sphere aren’t the point when we as infinitely poor people serve an infinitely rich God who longs to enslave us as eternal borrowers of the infinite grace He lends us in Christ; so also paying taxes to human governments isn’t the point when we come face-to-face with the One upon whose shoulder the Bible says all human government sits.
We don’t know whether or not the scribes and priests believed Jesus was the Messiah. One could make the case that they really didn’t, but were baffled by how an untrained Nazarene carpenter could do and say such powerful things. One could also make the case that they did see Jesus as the Messiah but knew that His arrival meant the end of their prominence in Jewish society. Either way they’re jealous and want rid of Him; and, ironically, as much as they hate them, they see the Romans as useful in achieving that aim. So they come slyly with a question about money and taxes, and we see again how money (though itself morally and spiritually neutral) can, in the minds and hands of sinful, selfish people, become if not outright destructive then at least distractive. So, regardless of where you stand on the question of taxes—from no-tax Libertarian to tax-and-spend liberal—just as money and debt aren’t the point, taxes aren’t the point here; Jesus is the point!
Did the scribes and priests like paying taxes to Caesar? No. But what they didn’t like even more was Jesus and what His arrival meant. And what did Jesus’ arrival mean? Well, if He wasn’t the Messiah, it meant they had on their hands a really popular rival teacher pushing them out of the religious limelight. And, even more seriously, if He was the Messiah, it meant bowing to Him in wor-ship—it meant total surrender. That’s why the real touch-point in this text for us isn’t the ethics of paying taxes; it’s the hearts of the scribes and priests. It can be easy for modern day church people to assume that we have little in common with them because their eyes were blinded and their hearts were hardened to who Jesus really was. But while we claim to believe in Jesus, having our eyes and hearts opened, He’s still offensive to our flesh: our flesh still likes the limelight, and our flesh—like the scribes and priests—still, at times, resists Jesus’ call to total surrender. And sometimes money—even paying taxes—can be the point of distraction whereby we try to push Jesus aside.
What’s going on in the scribes’ & priests’ hearts?
Looking at the text I see at least three elements at work in the scribes’ and priests’ hearts: conviction, cowardice, and craftiness.
The first is conviction. In v. 19 Luke tells us, “The scribes and chief priests sought to lay hands on [Jesus] that very hour, for they perceived that He had told this parable against them…” The scribes and priests know the Old Testament well. They know Jesus is referring to their religious predecessors who had rejected prophet after prophet that the Lord had sent them. And they’re sharp enough to know that Jesus is talking directly to them when He talks about the tenants killing the vineyard owner’s son. They don’t like Jesus insinuating that they’ll be the ones to reject and murder the Messiah and they come under conviction.
When conviction comes into our hearts we can respond a couple of ways. First, we can respond with confession and repentance—agreeing with God that our will has been at odds with His, and deciding to comply with His will. This pleases Him and gains His forgiveness. Or, we can harden our hearts in pride and respond in any number of ways that further distance us from God. In this text, I see this playing out two ways in the hearts of the priests and scribes.
First is cowardice. When we fail to fear God, we will fear someone (or some-thing) else. Luke finishes v. 19 by telling us the scribes and priests “feared the people.” What people? The same people they feared would stone them to death if earlier they’d have said “from man” when Jesus asked them whether they thought John the Baptist’s baptism was from heaven or from man. They knew everybody thought John was a prophet; and they know most people think Jesus is too.
When God convicts our hearts of sin and we resist it, the fear that should’ve resulted in confession and repentance gets re-directed to whatever or whoever outranks God in our affections. For the scribes and priests, their own lives and the respect of the Jewish people were their gods. They had to maintain their position of power and influence, and they knew that taking Jesus by force just for offending them would lose them the peoples’ respect and might even cost them their own lives.
When conviction comes into your heart and you’re tempted to resist it, a good question to ask is who (or what) is outranking God in your affections—what do you fear losing, or who do you fear displeasing more than God? Fearing God is not cowardice, because God is Lifegiver to those who reverently fear Him. Fearing anything or anyone other than this life-giving God is cowardice, because no matter how much we value anyone or anything besides God, whatever or whoever it is can neither give us life nor sustain our lives.
But, as if cowardice isn’t bad enough, when conviction hardens rather than softens our hearts toward God, it leads to other things. For the scribes and priests conviction gave way to cowardice and cowardice gave way to craftiness. Look at vv. 20-22:
“So they watched him and sent spies, who pretended to be sincere, that they might catch him in something he said, so as to deliver him up to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor. So they asked him, ‘Teacher, we know that you speak and teach rightly, and show no partiality, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar, or not?”
Hear the false flattery there; hear the craftiness? Jesus caught it right away. They want Him to say, “No, it’s not lawful; it’s awful to pay taxes to Caesar.” This will give them grounds for accusing Jesus to the Romans of rebelling against Roman authority, thus getting Him arrested and probably executed. Of course, we all know that’s going to happen eventually anyway. But Jesus is not going to give the priests and scribes the satisfaction of taking Him publically; they’re going to have to come privately in the middle of the night with clubs.
What About Their Question?
But what about their question? Is there anything here for us, any lesson in Jesus’ answer, any truth about paying taxes? Of course, and here it is: pay your taxes! That, my friends, is the extent of my tax expertise and advice as your pastor. When I went back to seminary a few years ago, I earned a doctorate in Biblical Spirituality, not personal finance or tax policy. Whatever your opinion about pay-ing taxes, remember Jesus’ words: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” The fact remains that human, earthly, flawed government is ordained by God and serves an important purpose in His world until Jesus returns to abolish it and reign forever in righteousness. We certainly don’t have to agree with every activity or policy, but, on a very basic level, governments need some revenue to provide necessary structure and protection for their people. Can we at least agree on that?
Well, just exactly how much of what is Caesar’s are we to render unto Caesar? All of it! You see, wanting to keep some of Caesar’s things admits that we’re more attached to Caesar than we ought to be as God’s people. The scribes and priests were more attached to Caesar than they would’ve admitted. They saw the Romans as bullies, but they saw them as useful in getting rid of riff-raff like Jesus and preserving a status quo wherein their social standing as religious leaders in the Jewish community was maintained. Our situation is a little different than the Jews of Jesus’ day. For them, Caesar was a man they would never meet living in a city far away. But for us Americans, ‘Caesar’ stares back at us from the mirror; Caesar is sitting next to you in this room. In a government “of, by, and for ‘We the People’,” Caesar really isn’t George, Abe, or Benjamin; Caesar is us!
The scribes and priests may not have liked the Romans or Roman taxes, but they were perfectly willing to keep rendering unto Caesar that which was Caesar’s as long as Caesar kept rendering unto them what they thought was theirs: little religious thrones and little religious kingdoms of their own. It may not be religious thrones or kingdoms we want necessarily, but Americans who like and Americans who hate paying taxes are really after the same thing. We all want rendered unto Caesar (i.e., ourselves)—whether by way of keeping it ourselves or by way of taxation and government redistribution—more of that which is Caesar’s, all for the sake of building and maintaining our own little thrones and kingdoms.
Getting up in arms either for or against taxes reveals an attachment to Caesar’s things that is unbefitting the children of God. Caesar can only give us earthly things, not heavenly things. Caesar can only give us physical things, not spiritual things. So why do we care so much? This is why the most important part of Jesus’ answer isn’t the first part (“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s”) but the second part, “and render unto God the things that are God’s.”