Step In It.

This! Matthew 22:15-22

 I feel like I should have worn some canvas overalls to church today. And some rubber boots. I need an old flannel shirt and a mesh John Deere cap and a red bandana. Heh. At least, that’s what this city slicker imagines folks wear to muck out the stables or stir the compost. And I need a shovel. Maybe a piece of straw to hang out the side of my mouth. Anyway. We are going out into the pasture. We are going out into the fields. And we are going to step in it. Slimy, warm, stinking, swarming with flies. Or dried and cracked, crumbled and disintegrating. No matter its condition, no matter the state, no matter how far out we go or if we’re still following close to the fence line, we’re going to step in it today. So let’s just start with that assumption, shall we? Let’s just get ourselves ready. Let’s prepare ourselves to at least not be surprised when we step in it. It’s gonna stink. We’re going to track some into the house, even though we’ve left our boots on the porch. The smell will cling to our clothes and on our fingers no matter how many times we wash. It’s just the nature of the beast. We are going to step in it.

There’s just no delicate way to talk about faith and politics. There’s no way to both speak the truth and avoid the landmines. Because there are landmines everywhere. And everyone thinks they have a hold on what the truth is. And we have this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad habit of shaming anyone who doesn’t think the same way we do. And shame has never gotten anybody anywhere. Shame is just a shovel we use to try to dig ourselves out of a deep hole. The more we use this tool, the deeper we’re getting. 

So I was super hesitant to put out my yard sign during this election season. Now, I have a pretty strong conviction about who I think should be in office, about what I think the role of government should be, and about how we should interpret and apply the Constitution. So, it’s not that I don’t have opinions, I sure do; it’s just that I’m not so sure what a sign in my yard or a quote on my Facebook page is going to do to change people’s minds into thinking the way I do. So I left my signs bouncing around in my trunk for quite a few days. And then my kids saw them, took them out, and jammed them into the ground in both the front and the back yards. They’d made the decision for me. We were going to refuse to be shy about who we supported, about who we think will lead us closer, or at least not even further away, from justice, from peace, from unity, or from, what I call, the Kingdom of God. The kids needed us to take a public stand, to “step in it” so to speak, even though it might make our lives a little messy, it might divide us from others, it might offend. Our kids, I think, needed that assurance that no matter what, we were going to stand up for what we believed in, we were going to stand up for justice and decency and equality and freedom for all. 

This passage today has so often been used as an excuse for us as Christians to stay out of politics. Christians did it during the time of slavery. Christians did it during the Second World War. Christians did it during the Civil Rights Movement. Of course, there have been exceptions, but that’s exactly what they are, exceptions. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s” we say. Pay your taxes, follow the rules, obey the laws, toe the line. Stick to the status quo. It’s not our place as Christians to question authority. Now, I’m all for the separation of Church and State. We need laws and rules to protect each other from imposing our faith upon those who do not share it. Things get dangerously scary when we blur those lines. But I do think that we should not, in fact, we cannot, separate our faith from politics. Because our faith is an embodied, communal faith, and that means that our faith is, by definition, political. That’s what got Jesus killed after all. He was pissing off the political elite. He was threatening their power. And they needed to put a stop to it and make an example out of him. 

And they can feel it. They know it. In our passage today they are trying to trap him, so they have their minions pair up with their political buddies and decide that they are going to trip Jesus up. They’re going to make him step in it. There’s no right answer to their question. “Should we pay taxes to the emperor?” They ask, knowing that if he says “no,” then he’s in big trouble with the government and accused of sedition. If he says “yes,” then he not only angers the crowd that feels the weight of the oppression of these taxes, but also defies the law of God simply because he has to pay it with a denarius (or many denarii as the case may be…), a coin that carried the image of Caesar and the inscription that he is the son of God. If he says, “no, don’t pay the taxes,” then he has a date with the executioner. If he says, “yes, do pay the taxes,” then he has a date with a riotous crowd, and is condemned a blasphemer by the religious authorities. There’s no way for Jesus to maneuver himself out of this mess. 

Well, lots of scholars think that Jesus jumps, hops and skips right over these landmines. Through his deft and wily ways, he’s able to sidestep and weave his way out of this predicament. And I suppose, whatever he does, it successfully buys him some time. But I don’t think he does this by finding a clever way around the argument. Jesus is more than a brilliant defense attorney or skilled debater. Jesus steps in it. He goes all the way in it. He enters in. He goes through it. He names what they’re doing for exactly what it is, and then responds directly. This is no political pandering. He is not dodging the question. “Show me the coin used for the tax,” he says. Now this is awkward. Because they’re in the temple. They’re in the temple of God and they’re holding a coin with an image, an image of Caesar, and under this image is the inscription, “Tiberius Caesar, Son of God.” Oops. Now what are they going to do? He’s just unveiled their hypocrisy. He’s just pulled back the curtain to show the true “great and powerful Oz.” He’s revealed that it’s all smoke and mirrors. It’s all posturing and pontificating, and fighting over power. And suddenly, once the hypocrisy is revealed, it loses its power. It doesn’t really matter anymore. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s,” he says. Give to the emperor what belongs to the emperor. And what is the emperor’s? These coins that, in reality, mean, nothing. They’re simply a representation of wealth, but only because we assign that to them. They’re simply a symbol, a tool, an object that we assign value to. Like gold or diamonds or the one dollar bill I have in my wallet, they’re only worth something because we, as a society, have decided it to be so. Give the emperor the things that really, in reality, in real life, in the kingdom of God, have no value. Sure. He can have all the denarii in the world. Let him have it, because it doesn’t really matter. It’s not a real thing. It’s just a round piece of metal that we’ve all decided has meaning, but if we wanted to, we could decide right now that it’s worthless, we could decide right now that it is no longer our currency. We are not defined by our ability to produce more symbols which will then support the powers and principalities of our world. We are defined by something much greater, much more powerful. 

And so, with that, Jesus steps even further in. He gets himself even deeper into the muck and dung and messiness of humanity, because then he says, “Give to God what is God’s.” He throws the coin back at them, the coin that shows to whom it belongs because it has his image. The coin belongs to Caesar because his face is on it. So, he says, whatever has God’s face on it belongs to God. Give to God the things that are God’s. And what belongs to God? WE are the coins upon which God’s face is inscribed. We are the currency that must be returned to God. We are the imago Dei, the image of God. We, all of humanity, all of creation, are created in the image of God. The image of God is tattooed on our skin, etched in our bones, carved upon our souls. We belong to God. And well, we’re messy, contradictory, confusing people.

Politics comes from the Greek word “politika,” meaning “affairs of the cities.” The word is connected to “polites”, which mean “citizens” and “polis”, which means city. Politics isn’t just about accumulating power; it’s about how we figure out how we live together, how we create a just and civil society of people of all kinds of backgrounds and beliefs and convictions that can support each other and live and thrive together. It’s not just about accumulating as many coins with our faces on it. Sure. Whatever. Give Caesar what he wants. That coin with his face on it does not define who you are. But the community of God, the kin-dom of God, that’s super important; that’s what defines who and what we are. Jesus is doing a both/and here. Politics are just about giving the guy in power the worthless tokens of his power. AND politics are about who we are and what we’re made of. It’s about the work we have to do, as a community, to promote justice and peace and hospitality and forgiveness so that we can live as the body of Christ. 

“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But give to God what is God’s.”

See, with this brief reply, Jesus says that politics and humanity have nothing to do with each other. Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s. Who cares about worldly power and wealth and the random tools we use to accumulate such wealth? AND he says that politics and humanity have everything to do with each other. Give to God what is God’s. True power, real wealth, the thing itself, not just the symbol, belongs to God. Politics is about what we, as a community, place our value in. Caesar’s politics don’t mean a whole hell of a lot. But God’s politics mean everything. 

Do you feel a little bit stuck in it right now? Does it feel a little messy and unclear and uncertain.  Can you hear the flies buzzing around? We’ve walked straight in to it. We’ve stepped on the landmines. We’re hearing the squish and gluck and sludge of trying to pull our boots out of the muck. Because we need Caesar and we need these symbols and we need some kind of law and order and taxes in order to keep our streets safe and our highways smooth and our libraries stocked. I mean, sort of. It’s the structure we’ve decided to function under. But more importantly, we need to realize that this has its limitations. The government is not going to bring about the kingdom of God because the government is not made in the image of God. We are. We can be part of the government, we can bring the image of God into politics simply by participating, by demanding justice and equality and respect for science and fighting for the rights of others. But we are not at the mercy of Caesar. We are not at the mercy of our government. We aren’t just coins with the president’s face branded into our backs. WE are made of greater stuff than that. 

And that means we need to step in. We need to step in to the muck and the mess of civilly disagreeing with each other. We need to step in to relationship. We need to step in to the stink of community, because that is what makes the ground fertile. We need to go further than the yard signs and the Facebook memes. We need to start getting to know each other’s perspectives. Because we all, Trump or Biden supporter, Democrat or Republican, climate activist or flat earther, we are all made in the image of God. And that is where our true value lies.

No matter who wins this contentious, tedious, and ugly election, the justice work must still go on. Nothing is going to be miraculously fixed once your preferred Caesar enters office. The work of the people must go on, because we are the ones who carry the imprint and image of God. Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But give to God what belongs to God. We do that by entering in. We do that by stepping in it. By making mistakes. By making messes. By hurting feelings, and saying the wrong things, and asking for forgiveness and trying again. We do that by seeing the image of God in the Other, in the guy waving the wrong flag or listening to the wrong talk radio. We do that by both taking a stand and making room for one another. Justice, real justice, has never come from shame. Real justice has never come from finger pointing and name calling. And real justice has never come from sitting on the sidelines, trying to avoid the mess.

There’s so much at stake this election. And I’m scared for the ones in our country whose humanity is not fully acknowledged and respected. I’m scared for the ones who are terrified for their lives depending upon how this election turns out. But shame isn’t going to change people’s minds. Only love can. Only by acknowledging the imago Dei in the guy with the tiki torch or the riot gear or the pockets full of Caesar’s coins, only then, will their hearts and minds ever change.

So yes, absolutely, put up your political sign. Slap that bumper sticker on the trunk of your car. Make phone calls and help people get to the polls. Vote on November 3rd. It matters. It’s important. We are voting to give them power. But remember, it’s Caesar’s power, not God’s power. Yup, that’s scary, that’ a lot of power, but only because we’ve decided so, only because we’ve decided to value the currency that they offer. We have to remember that we are God’s ultimate currency. We are God’s most valuable. 

As hard as it is to say sometimes, the guys running for President are both also made in the image of God. But they’re just guys. We HAVE to remember that they’re not the kingdom. No matter who wins, there is still work to do. And WE must do it. No matter who wins, we must still fight, tooth and nail, to give back to God what belongs to God. We must continue to step in it, step right in it, to take the risk, to see the face of God in the one who completely and vehemently and even violently disagrees with us. This is how we will help them to see the image of God in others, by showing them the image of God in themselves. That’s how Jesus did it. That’s what Jesus does.

Thanks be to God.