Who Do You Really Trust?
Mark 12:13-17
Tommy spent several days making a small boat to play with in the water. When it was finally ready for it’s maiden voyage, he carried it to the edge of a stream near his house. He carefully placed the boat he had made in the water and slowly let out the string he had attached to it. He was so proud as he watched the toy boat he had made sail smoothly along. He sat down in the warm sunshine, admiring the boat that he had built.
Suddenly, as he watched, a strong current caught his boat. Tommy tried to pull it back to shore with the string attached to the boat, but it caught on a rock and broke. The little boat, now caught in a strong current, raced downstream. Tommy ran along the edge of the stream as fast as he could, but his boat was moving downstream faster than his little legs could run. Soon, his boat vanished from sight. He searched for his boat all afternoon to no avail. When it was too dark to look any longer, he walked home filled with disappointment.
A few days later, as Tommy walked home from school, he spotted a boat just like his in a store window. He ran over to the window and saw – to his amazement – that it was the boat he had made! He ran into the store and excitedly told the manager: “Sir, that’s my boat in your window. I made it!” “Sorry son, but someone else brought it in this morning. If you want it, you’ll have to buy it.” Tommy ran home and counted all his money. It took every penny that he had, but he was able to buy back the little boat he had made. As he left the store, he hugged the boat to his chest and said, “Now you’re twice mine.” He kept saying it over and over again: “You’re twice mine.”
When he got home, his dad overheard him and asked, “Tommy, why do you keep saying “You’re twice mine?” Tommy said, “Daddy, it’s twice mine. It’s mine first because I made it with my own hands, and it’s mine twice because I bought it back.”
To whom do we belong? Are we first and foremost children of God, or Americans, or republicans or democrats or independents? To whom do we owe our allegiance?
As Jesus teaches in the temple courts, a group of Jewish leaders approach him and ask him a question. It isn’t an honest question. They don’t really care how he answers. It’s a question designed to get him to say something that will get him in trouble. And they think they’ve got the perfect question, because in their minds, no matter how he answers, he is going to make someone very, very angry. On the surface, it seems to be a question about paying taxes. But Jesus sees through their trap and takes his answer much, much deeper. Turn with me to Mark 12:13-17.
“Should we pay Caesar’s tax or not?” Seems like a simple enough question. Except that it isn’t. First of all, look at the groups of people involved in this trick question: the Pharisees and the Herodians. Two groups of people who couldn’t be more different. The Pharisees were ultra conservative and, as we have seen, had a very legalistic understanding of the law of God. But they were popular with the common people. Even those who couldn’t live up to the standards of the Pharisees admired them for their ability to so closely follow the law of God. And they hated the fact that the Jewish people lived under Roman rule.
The Herodians were the aristocracy. But there were two levels of authority in the Roman Empire. The first was each region’s Roman structure. Pilate was the Roman governor over Judea in the time of Jesus. Only Pilate could institute a death penalty, and anything that involved Rome’s claim over Judea was handled by him. Herod was the man who ruled over Judea as a kind of puppet king. He wasn’t actually a Jew, he was Idumean. Issues that were uniquely Jewish concerns that didn’t need to involve Rome were handled by Herod.
As their name implies, Herodians were either members of Herod’s royal family, or they were a member of his royal court or related to someone who was close to him. They accepted Roman rule and sought to capitalize on it by getting close to those with influence and power for political and material gain. We know that Tiberias Caesar and Herod, one of the sons of Herod the Great, had actually played together as children at a royal school in Rome.
Needless to say, the God-fearing, ultra conservative, legalistic Pharisees and the secular, more liberal, Herodians who didn’t place much stock in the law of God didn’t typically have a lot of respect for one another. But here they come together to question Jesus, united by their common disdain for him and desire to get rid of him.
Now, there were three taxes the Romans required the Jews to pay:
The first was a ground tax – a man had to pay to the government one-tenth of his grain and one-fifth of the oil and wine which he produced.
The second was an income tax – one percent of each person’s income.
The third was what was known as a poll tax – every male person from age fourteen to 65 and every female from age twelve to 75 had to pay pay one denarius – roughly one day’s wages – each year.
The tax they questioned Jesus about is the poll tax – one denarius, one day’s wages a year. The Jews resented the tax, not just because we all hate taxes, but because many of them, God was the only king. To pay taxes to an earthly king was to admit the validity of his kingship and thus insult God.
The Jewish Zealots – even more conservative and radical than the Pharisees and much more militant and prone to violent uprisings against Rome – refused to pay the tax altogether because in paying it, they saw themselves as acknowledging Caesar’s domination overt them. People didn’t tend to openly identify as Zealots, by the way. Doing so was dangerous. They were a more underground type of movement.
The Pharisees resented the humiliation implied in paying the tax – the humiliation of being dominated by Rome. But they found a way to justify paying the tax because they didn’t want to deal with reprisals from Rome.
The Herodians actually supported paying the tax in principle. They had no problem with it.
And this is where things got sticky for Jesus. If he said, “Yes, pay Caesar’s poll tax,” the masses of people, many of whom hated the tax, would turn against him. And if he said, “No, don’t pay the tax,” he’d garner the attention of Rome and it’s likely he would be viewed as a rabble rouser and hauled off in chains to prevent an uprising. In their minds, they had him. It didn’t matter what he said. He was done.
Instead of answering the question, Jesus asked for a denarius, the coin used to pay the poll tax. When they found one and brought it to him, he asked them a simple question. “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” You see, on the front of Tiberius’ denarius was his image, along with the words “Tiberius Caesar, August son of the Divine Augustus.” On the back of the coin was the image of a female on a throne, wearing a crown, holding a spear in one hand and either a palm or olive branch in the other, and the words “High Priest” were inscribed there.”
You see, the Romans believed that Caesar Augustus, father of Tiberius Caesar and the Roman ruler when Jesus was born, was a god, and therefore that Tiberius was the son of a god, and thus divine, or at least partly divine, himself. Now, possessing this coin didn’t mean that someone was worshipping Caesar. But it did mean that they were acknowledging his authority over them. And Jesus didn’t question that. He simply said. The coin has Caesar’s image and inscription on it. It belongs to him. Pay to Caesar what belongs to him.
Jesus doesn’t fully flesh out a theology of the relationship between politics and theology, between church and state, here. More is taught about that in other parts of the Old Testament. Among them is the acknowledgment that human authorities are granted their authority by God, whether you agree with them or not, and therefore are to be respected.
In the early church, Christians benefitted from Roman roads and the relative peace and security that Rome brought into the world, especially protection along the roads as people traveled. Rome really sought to curtain bandits along the roads, although with only horses and men on foot they couldn’t do so perfectly. But Roman transportation systems led to the gospel saturating the empire in one generation. The basic principle was, if you benefit from government programs and institutions, pay the governments taxes honestly. “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.”
Freakonomics is a fascinating book by economist Steven Levitt that turns conventional wisdom on its head. On the subject of cheating, he calls it “a prominent feature in just about every human endeavor.” Although he doesn’t declare it part of human nature, he does note the prevalence of cheating among ordinary schoolteachers, wait staff, and payroll managers. While evidence for cheating is often hard to uncover, at times it is overwhelming.
Think about what happened one spring evening at midnight in 1987: seven million American children suddenly disappeared. The worst kidnapping wave in history? Hardly. It was the night of April 15, and the Internal Revenue Service had just changed a rule. Instead of merely listing the name of each dependent child, tax filers were now required to provide a Social Security number. Suddenly, seven million children – children who had existed only as phantom exemptions on the previous year’s 1040 forms – vanished, representing about one in ten of all dependent children in the United States.[i]
The cheating Levitt is referring to is cheating on taxes. Seven million children who didn’t exist. One in ten of all dependent children in the United States. Gone from the tax rolls overnight. Think some of those fake children existed on the tax returns of people who claim to follow Jesus? I think it’s pretty likely. Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. BUT.
Jesus doesn’t stop there. He goes on. “… and to God the things that are God’s.” The Tiberius Denarius bore the image of Tiberius Caesar. That begs the question: What, or who, bears the image of Go? Certainly not a coin. Like I said, Jesus takes this deeper than taxes. You and I. We bear the image of God. Genesis 1:26-27 says, “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
Every human being who has ever lived – the good and the bad – EVERY human being – belongs to God. Why? Because just as the Tiberius denarius bore his image and therefore belonged to him, you and I and every human being who has ever lived bear the image of God, and therefore we belong to him. And those of us who follow Jesus. Well, we are twice his. Once because he made us in his image, and once because he bought us on the cross with the blood of Christ.
We are to give to God what belongs to him: ourselves. We can pay taxes to Caesar, but we are not to worship Caesar. We do not belong to him. We belong to God. Caesar represents any human government. There are governments and rulers that blatantly seek the worship of their people, as Caesar did. They set themselves up to be gods. Others aren’t so blatant. But anytime anyone human being or human government seeks or demands unconditional acceptance of their agenda or role, whether the demand is blatant or subtle, that government is usurping a position and role that belongs to God alone.
We do not worship our government. That means neither our government nor our political beliefs outweigh our commitment to Christ and our willingness to allow him to set our agenda and challenge our views, even if that challenge causes us to go against our preferred party at times. That’s what it means for Christ to reign supreme in our lives. And as followers of Christ, we are twice his. Once because he made us and twice because he bought us.
Psalm 100:3 says, “Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.” We are once his because he made us.
1 Corinthians 3:23 says, “you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” We are twice his because he bought us. That means that we place our faith, trust, and hope in Christ above all others. It doesn’t mean we aren’t engaged in human government. It doesn’t mean we withdraw from involvement in this world and its issues and affairs. It does mean that we don’t lose our minds when things don’t go the way we think they should go. Because we belong to Christ, not Caesar.
Mrs. Detweiler was created in the image of God. She worked at Murray Elementary as the special education teacher. It didn’t take her students long to recognize the image of God within her which made them feel special and loved. Even though she was a special education teacher, the students of Murray Elementary considered it a privilege to be invited to Mrs. Detweiler’s room. The walls of her small classroom were covered with stars made out of bright yellow construction paper. Neatly written in black permanent marker on the star at the top of each row was the name of one of her students.
As soon as a student finished reading a book, the title of that book was placed on another star that soon appeared directly beneath the star bearing the student’s name. The more books a person read, the more stars accumulated under the name. Whenever her students finished a book, Mrs. Detweiler made them feel like stars, themselves. Her ability to make her students feel special and important was a mark of the image of God shining through her.
Mrs. Detweiler bore the image of God. She loved her students – that was the image of God in her. She gave of herself by teaching them to read – that was the image of God. She believed in her students – that was the image of God.
But even as one created in the image of God, Mrs. Detweiler would be the first to say that she had her faults. There were times when she let her students down; times when she lost her patience; times when her mood affected her ability to respond to her students enthusiastically. Mrs. Detweiler wasn’t perfect, but she had been created in the image of God, claimed as God’s child through her baptism and renewed each day with the gift of forgiveness. As she gave God what belonged to God by giving of herself to her students, Jesus worked through her. Through Mrs. Detweiler, God’s love, acceptance and encouragement was shown to many students as they grew and matured into the people God had created them to be. As she gave God what belonged to God, God continued to give himself to her, revealing his love again and again through the sparkle in her students’ eyes.
You are God’s. You bear his image. When we look at one another, we see the image of God. Jesus said, “Give to God the things that are God’s.” You are God’s. Jesus says, “Give yourself to God.” But before you can even respond to Jesus’ call to give yourself to God, God gives himself to you. Even before you have a chance to respond to Jesus’ command, Jesus goes to the cross. Jesus goes to the cross to give to God what belongs to God. Jesus goes to the cross to give you to his Father in Heaven, who then blesses you with salvation and eternal life. Jesus goes to the cross for you and gives you life.
Give to God things that are God’s, remembering that Jesus has already given himself for you. Let’s pray.
[i] Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, Freakonomics (HarperCollins, 2005), p. 21
