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And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Amen. Please be seated.
Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Well, you may have heard this saying attributed to everyone and no one at the same time, that no one should ever discuss politics or religion in polite company. And some of you are saying, “No problem, pastor, I don’t have any polite company.”
And it’s true that conversations about one or both of these—religion, politics—can often devolve into disagreements and arguments, shouting matches, maybe even some type of physical altercation, and these have the potential to result in fractured relationships among friends and within families.
Well, we’re going to talk about both this morning because that’s what we have presented to us in this text from St. Matthew. And the other night I was talking to my wife Carrie and I told her the text that I had and kind of how I was going to tee this up, and she said, “You better be careful.” And I said, “Yeah, I know.”
But I think if we constrain ourselves to the words of Jesus here, to his own words, we will really find there is no controversy here at all. And maybe we really don’t characterize it as politics and religion, although we will see there is certainly this political aspect to it, but rather we should think on it as the things of man’s earthly kingdom and the things of God’s heavenly kingdom—again right here in this text in front of us.
So we first kind of need to know how we got to this point of where Jesus is even having this interchange and this discussion. You should recall over the past few weeks that we’ve been hearing Jesus speaking in these parables, and he’s using them really to work against the Pharisees and their line of questioning. They know that he’s using it against them, and Jesus has frustrated and even angered them because they haven’t been able to paint him into a corner yet; they haven’t been able to get him to slip up and say something that’s going to stir up the people or the authorities there in the area.
So we know that the Pharisees and the Sadducees didn’t quite agree on all matters of doctrine on religious authority, but this disagreement didn’t stop them from teaming up from time to time to question Jesus and try to catch him in some sort of slip-up. We see this particularly back in time in Matthew chapter 16.
But Jesus has managed to pretty much silence both of these groups, and so the Pharisees, frustrated as they are, decide they’re going to go to plan B; they’re going to use this different tactic. They’re going to enlist the help of this group called the Herodians to do their dirty work. Now some scholars say that the Herodians were this sect or this political party, and they were in fact actually more closely aligned with the Sadducees in terms of their politics. That is, they were in fact more closely aligned with their Roman occupiers, pretty much putting them at odds with the Pharisees.
But like the Pharisees, they did want an independent Jewish kingdom and state, but theirs would be a kingdom under Herod, under Herod and his dynasty and his descendants, rather than seeking to reestablish the kingdom of David. So these Herodians, you might say, were kind of a middle-of-the-road political party, which, much like today’s middle-of-the-road people, tend to be despised by just about everyone.
But you may have heard it said, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” And so the Pharisees are more than happy to co-opt these Herodians because they have this shared objective of getting rid of Jesus. And so these Herodians, who, if you look at Luke’s account, he talks about spies in there—that’s probably who these guys are—along with this contingent of Pharisees, they come to Jesus. They approach him, and they begin to try to soften him up with these words of flattery: “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully.” Yeah, right.
Jesus knows what’s happening. He knows what’s coming next. He knows they’ve set a snare for him, so they then say, “Tell us then what you think. Is it lawful to pay tax to Caesar or not?” We ought to notice, I think, a couple of things here. First, they do ask Jesus what he thinks. Lots of times they’re putting words in his mouth or trying to put words in his mouth, but rather this time they want to hear directly from him so they can pin these words to it.
Second, they didn’t ask, “Should we pay taxes? Is it right to pay taxes?” They asked, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?” And it really doesn’t make sense for these Herodians to ask this question. They don’t care much about the law. They actually support paying taxes to Caesar because it would be Caesar’s government that supported the dynasty of Herod. They were dependent on him for financial support.
So the Pharisees are the ones who would be concerned about breaking the law, and so the question was put to Jesus not from this legal standpoint, but actually from a religious standpoint. And so Jesus has already managed to sniff out this hypocrisy—this very feeble attempt to flatter him to portray themselves as friendly to him, to maybe even pretend like they wanted to be his disciples. They call him “Teacher,” a title of respect and authority, although they give him neither of these things.
And they appear to have been well coached by these Pharisees, who are truly the ones who did want to ask the question. They’ve tried to place him again between the people and the authorities. They’re essentially saying, “Go ahead and pick one, Jesus. Who are you more afraid of?” Well, Jesus turns the tables once again. He calls them hypocrites and demands they show him the coin to pay the tax.
In doing so, Jesus has now set his own trap. One of them, it says, gives Jesus—shows Jesus a denarius, a small coin, probably about the size of a dime, worth a day’s wages in that time. We can almost imagine Jesus holding the coin up and saying and asking, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?”
And so Jesus has now sprung this trap because they are forced to answer, and they’re forced to answer, “It’s Caesar’s.” And in answering “It’s Caesar’s,” they have answered their own question. Of course, it’s Caesar’s coin, and their possession of it and their use of it is simple acknowledgment and acceptance of Caesar’s authority and rule.
And so Jesus really doesn’t even need to say anything more about this question they asked, but Jesus doesn’t just rebuke them; he wants to teach them. A couple of weeks ago, you might remember Pastor Wolf Miller talking about this—the parable of the talents—when it appeared Jesus was really angry with the Pharisees, and that’s really all we kind of look at sometimes. We think, “Great, Jesus is giving them a smackdown, they deserve it, good for you, Jesus.”
But in fact, as he pointed out two weeks ago, Jesus is correcting and rebuking them in love, and he’s doing the same here today. So Jesus says, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” and he could have stopped there. He could have stopped there and shut them down, and it would have been nothing but a simple rebuke. But he goes on and says that they are to render to God the things that are God’s.
And sometimes I think we forget about that second half of this somewhat famous quote. You might hear people saying Jesus’ words, “Render unto Caesar,” anytime someone complains about paying taxes or complains about some type of government policy or intrusion. They might say, “Render unto Caesar, just go along with it.” Well, we ought to add the rest of that quote because we want to make the point that there are things indeed that belong to man, to the world, but there are also things that belong to God, and that’s just what Jesus was doing here. He turned the Herodians’ question—when they asked “is it legal or not”—he turned this into an “and” when he says “rendered to Caesar and to God.”
So it can’t be one or the other; it has to be both. You have to be—you must be—under the authority of Caesar; you must give him your tax and tribute. You must give him your fear and honor. But you must also give God the things due him: your faith, your love, your worship, your obedience, and everything else.
So Jesus acknowledges the authority of the state in his answer, but he answers it in such a way that makes clear by whom this authority is granted, and that is the most important part and point. And just three days later, Jesus himself would find himself in front of Pilate being questioned on trial for his life, with Pilate almost, it seems, begging Jesus to give him a reason to release him. Pilate asked Jesus, “Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” Jesus tells Pilate, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.”
So we see God will use a corrupt and a brutal and an evil government to accomplish his divine will. And I think we could easily take this passage from Matthew and we could turn it into some extended discussion about the notion of the separation of church and state, or we could have a discussion about the doctrine of the two kingdoms, but maybe y’all can just save that for lunch.
But for now, what we want to say is that these two must exist together. These two are parallel, but they’re not equal, and one does not displace or subvert the other. This did become a point of disagreement during the Reformation when the Pope and his bishops had assigned to themselves special privileges and responsibilities and authorities reserved for the state. And so in the confession, in the article on church authority, we confess that therefore the church’s authority and the state’s authority must not be confused. The church has the authority to preach the gospel and administer the sacraments. The state has the authority to restrain people with the sword and physical punishment in order to preserve civil justice and peace.
And this is mostly, it seems, a paraphrase of what Paul writes in Romans 13: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.”
So both authorities must be honored and acknowledged as God’s gifts and blessings. And as to temporal authority, Paul says, “Therefore, one must be in subjection not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience.” So therefore, lawful civil regulations are indeed good works of God.
But of course, as always, if they command us to sin, then we are to obey God rather than men. So I think we see we do have obligations as citizens. God has established governments, he has established rulers, and he has given authorities over us for our welfare, even though we might not always like it.
And I think and I hope that you notice in the prayers of the church for the third Sunday, we always pray for elected officials. We pray for those civil servants who care for us and for our welfare, even if we don’t agree with their political persuasion.
And I think this is kind of a unique struggle we have nowadays with this 24-hour news cycle and with this endless barrage and assault of pundits and prognosticators and partisans who want to convince us that to go against a particular political philosophy or particular movement will put us on the wrong side of history. That one side is inherently and completely good, and the other is inherently and completely evil.
Well, again, we see God uses evil men like Pilate to accomplish his will. In today’s Old Testament reading, we did hear this—we heard God speaking through the prophet Isaiah that he is going to use King Cyrus, this pagan Persian king. He’s going to use him as his tool to allow the Israelites to return home and rebuild Jerusalem.
And it’s just pretty interesting language used here. God will grasp Cyrus by the right hand. He’s going to call him by name, and he’s going to give him what he needs for the task, all despite the fact that Cyrus is a pagan unbeliever. And God will do this not just for the welfare of the people of Israel, but for his own glory, and then not just those people—that all people will know that there is no God beside him.
He continues to do the same today. So brothers and sisters, we should not place ourselves at either end of the spectrum or in the position of one extreme or another to choose politics or religion or vice versa, because as Jesus told those questioning him, it can’t be “or”; it must be “and.”
We can and should, with a good conscience, render unto Caesar those things that are Caesar’s because, in many ways, nothing has changed about the inscription and the image. We still have coins today, and they are even scribed, well, at least for now, “In God we trust.”
And so, brothers and sisters, again, you can pay taxes, you can vote, you can serve in the military, you can hold an office—not because I tell you or because Pastor Wolfmuller or Pastor LeBlanc or even Martin Luther or St. Paul tell you that it’s okay to do, that it’s right to do so, but because Christ himself has told us so. The words that also, and more importantly, call us to render to God the things of God.
And this is because Jesus has a likeness and an inscription, too. The likeness and image of God, because he is God. The inscription, an imprint of authority, that divine authority with which he healed the sick, he raised the dead, and he forgives sins even today. Who has God the Son rendered his life to God the Father in accordance with his will?
And we too have a likeness and inscription. We were created in the image of God, an image lost during the fall to sin but restored through Christ’s death on the cross. And we have God’s law written on our hearts, and we’ve been marked by baptism as ones redeemed by Christ crucified. We have imputed to us Christ’s righteousness through faith, given to us as a gift by God alone.
So today we thank God for all his gifts, especially for the gift of temporal authority and government, which provides for our welfare and orders our daily lives. We might not always agree with the policies, the priorities of those appointed to rule over us, but it is by the authority of God that they do indeed rule.
Today also, though, we give thanks for the things of God, the gifts of his holy kingdom, for calling us to faith and repentance by the Holy Spirit through his word, for the rebirth and the renewal of baptism, and for forgiving our sins and strengthening our faith in the most precious body and blood of Christ.
For loving us so much and in such a way that he gave everything for us that we might have eternal life. And for all this, Christians, we do render to God the things that are God’s: our praise, our worship, our thanksgiving, and our lives. Amen.
Now the peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
