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God and Politics

Ah, summertime!  Besides hot, humid weather, summer means vacation.  It means a break from the routine.  And this week, it means fireworks.  The 4th of July is coming up as I write this. So, all of these factors are figuring into what I have to say this week.  We just finished our sermon series on Ecclesiastes, so it seems logical to promote the new series at this time.  But I’m planning to be on vacation the two weeks following this one, so it doesn’t seem like a good idea to begin a new series, then interrupt it for two weeks.  So, I’m going to use this occasion to address a subject that pops up on the 4th of July—God and Politics.

 

One day a bi-partisan delegation of religious and political leaders approached Jesus with a controversial question: Is it right to pay taxes to Rome or not?  The tax in question was the poll tax.  A poll tax is a fixed sum that is levied on every individual.  Rome levied this tax, not on Roman citizens, but on the people they conquered.  Israel was among the conquered.  

 

Someone had to pay for the armies who had been sent to keep order.  The Pharisees were vigorously opposed to the tax, while the Herodians, who benefited greatly from the tax, were for it.  What did Jesus think about this tax?  No matter how he answered, he was bound to alienate half the people.  God or politics don’t mix, they thought.  You can’t take one side without alienating the other.  It was a foolproof plan.  Divide and conquer.  There was no way Jesus could survive this controversy. Or so they thought.

 

But Jesus seized the controversy as an opportunity.  He asked for a coin.  Then he posed a question of his own: “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” “Caesar’s,” they replied.”  In response, Jesus famously said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.”  This was a clever question. If Jesus had said:  “No true Israelite who loves and honors God should willingly pay the tax. Just look at the Roman coin. It bears the image of Caesar Augustus with all of his titles claiming to be divine—it’s blasphemous.  Don’t even touch that coin.”  If Jesus had said that, all of the common people would have said, “He’s right! What a patriot and godly man!” But Jesus would have been arrested for sedition. 

 

On the other hand, if Jesus had said:  “Roman occupation is a political reality. It’s not bad.  Rome brings stability and economic prosperity.  Let’s cooperate with the occupation and it will be good for us.”  If Jesus had said that, he would have immediately lost all credibility and the crowds listening to him would have completely evaporated.”

 

But Jesus gave an answer that they did not expect. In doing so he got out of the dilemma and exposed their blatant hypocrisy. It was an answer that silenced his enemies and amazed the crowd. But it was much more than a clever answer. In just a few words Jesus gave his followers a pattern for how to live a life of total allegiance to God, while at the same time living politically in the world.

That’s not easy to do.  Politics are tricky for Christians.   It’s easy for us to mix politics with religion.  But when we do, we make it difficult to distinguish what we owe to Caesar and what we owe to God.  We owe political allegiance to the government.  That means we pay our taxes and obey the law.  Some of us enlist in the armed forces, which may result in injury or even death.   You can love your country and even die for it.  But our ultimate allegiance is not to our nation; it is to God.