God Money

Propers: The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 29), A.D. 2017 A

Homily:

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Who owns you? That’s the question.

The Middle East of Jesus’ day looks a lot like the Middle East of our own. It is an unruly place, prone to riots and uprisings, full of religious zealots whom opponents call terrorists and supporters call freedom fighters. Western armies occupy the region, not because they find it desirable—in fact, they seem to hate it—but they do so out of economic necessity. Western prosperity demands stability, the rule of law, and free trade in order to keep money and goods flowing.

The Middle East lies at the crossroads between Europe, Asia, and Africa. And Rome will keep that crossroads open by any means necessary. This should all sound rather familiar.

Now, the Israelites of the first century are divided between those who benefit from the Roman occupation and those who would throw off the yoke of foreign oppression. Israel’s trump card in all this is the Messiah. You see, for hundreds of years, the Israelites have awaited God’s promised Messiah—the Anointed One sent from Heaven, who would liberate God’s people and return their nation to glory.

The Scriptures foretell that He’s due to show up right around the time of Jesus, His birth heralded by a Star! Thus, every so often, someone will arise amongst the people claiming to be the Messiah, he will gather a following out in the desert—and then the Romans will come and kill them all off, sort of like mowing the grass.

But then Jesus shows up. And He says things no one’s ever said before. And He does things no one’s ever done before. And people start to wonder, “Is this Him? Is this the Messiah we’ve been waiting for? Will He free us from bondage to Rome, as God once freed our forebears from bondage in Egypt and in Babylon?” And the Romans notice too. They could hardly fail to hear of Him. And they wonder, “How far do we let this go? At what point does killing Jesus become less dangerous than letting Him live?” And so the soldiers wait, and they watch, all the while resting their hands upon the pommels of their swords.

It all comes to a head in Jerusalem. After three and a half years of ministry, His fame and following ever growing, Jesus comes to Jerusalem, the Holy City, in order to celebrate the Passover. It is the most important feast on the religious calendar, and a time ripe for insurrection. The Romans know this, and have soldiers garrisoned in the heart of the city, right next to the Holy Temple. They do not want a riot. They do not want a war. Not because they’re afraid they won’t win. They will. But because rebellions cost money.

So if peace means letting Jesus live, they will let Him live. And if peace means putting Him down, they will put Him down. Nothing personal. Just business.

When Jesus comes to the city, He is greeted as the King—met with shouts of “Hosanna!” and with cloaks and palm branches laid before Him, hailed as “Son of David,” the true King of Israel returning to claim His father’s throne. Sounds like rebellion! But Jesus does something very clever. In the ancient world, a king approaching a city would reveal his intent by riding either upon a stallion or a donkey: a stallion for war, a donkey for peace. Jesus enters Jerusalem upon the back of a donkey, which means that He comes in peace—but also means that He comes as King.

This will be the last week of His earthly life. He rides in upon a Sunday; He shall die upon that Friday. Yet in the days left to Him, He teaches at the Temple.

He starts the week off by driving out the moneychangers, those who profit by exchanging Roman denarii for Israelite shekels. See, the denarius has a graven image. It is a pagan coin. On one face it proclaims the Emperor Caesar Tiberius, Son of the Divine Augustus, while on the obverse it says something like Pontifex Maximus, High Priest of Rome. This is no good for use in God’s Holy Temple. The moneychangers seem to be pious folk, facilitating worship, when in fact they are profiteers making their living off the poor. Jesus drives them out, dramatically, loudly. Yet the Romans do not intervene. He has the support of the crowd.

Then the Pharisees and Herodians collude together to set a trap for Him. These are strange bedfellows, mind you. The Herodians are Roman collaborators, while the Pharisees have the loyalty of the common folk in large part for their refusal to adopt Greco-Roman ways. By rights, they shouldn’t be working together. Yet what they have in common is that they both see Jesus as a threat to their power. So they present Him with a Catch-22, a no-win situation. “Teacher, tell us,” they ask Him before the crowd, “is it lawful to pay taxes to the Emperor or not?”

You see the trap? If Jesus says yes, the crowds will turn on Him as a betrayer, a false king. But if He says no, then the Romans will have no choice but to descend upon Him as an insurgent, an instigator of rebellion. Damned if you do ...

But Jesus is too wily for them. “Show Me the coin used for the tax,” He says, and someone brings Him a denarius, a coin worth one laborer’s daily wage—a coin, mind you, that they’re not supposed to have here in the Temple. “Whose head is this, and whose title?” He asks. “The Emperor’s,” they reply, Caesar Tiberius. And now He has them! “Therefore render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

See what He did there? It’s a brilliant bit of political theater. He turns the question back upon them, forcing them to show their own loyalties, to admit which god they would serve. Who, indeed, belongs to Caesar, and who belongs to God? Just like that, He lives to teach another day. They must be rid of Him some other way.

So what then are we to make of this “Render unto Caesar”? Some would point to the seeds of a separation between Church and State, but there’s more to it than that. Jesus’ answer convicts us as well. It forces us to reveal our own loyalties, which god we would serve. For what He is asking is nothing less than, Who owns you? To whom do we belong?

Think about that denarius, that simple coin. Think about what it represents. It is, in a sense, one day of your life. It is a full day’s labor fossilized in silver, minted in the image of the Emperor, who claims to be high priest and son of a god. I own you, Caesar is saying. I own the days of your life. I buy them and I sell them. I trade them and I keep them. Everything you purchase, everything you own, every ounce of sweat from an honest day’s work, all of that belongs to me.

We don’t own the money. The money owns us.

Now please don’t mishear me. This isn’t some screed against capitalism, the only system on earth that has lifted billions out of poverty. I’m not denouncing money as a medium of exchange, as though we should go back to a barter economy. But let us be aware of who our gods really are. It may be a President instead of Caesar on that coin, but the eagle on the back still holds a clutch of arrows in its claw. And we’re still in the Middle East, doing the same thing we’ve done there for the last 2000 years.

Ask yourself whom you would serve. Money, like fire, makes for an excellent servant but a terrible master. Every coin, every bill, every paycheck represents a piece of someone’s life, a moment of labor and sweat and toil. And every purchase represents a choice, a decision as to how we are literally spending our lives. If you would have your life spent for good, then spend your money for good. Use it to buy good and necessary things. Use it to help your neighbor and your community. Use it for the poor. Remember that you and I have a gift that the Romans did not have; we have a say in how our taxes are spent.

But do not let it own you. Do not live simply to accrue money, to fossilize your life in silver and paper and numbers on a screen. Give freely. Love freely. Let money be your servant, not your master. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Do not live only to consume. Do not let the belly be your god.

Jesus Christ values you far beyond any price. He has bought your life, not in coins but in Blood. And He has paid this gladly, so that in Him you may be free. Render unto Caesar, therefore, the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.