Are Taxes Inevitable?

A sermon based on Matthew 22:15-22
by Rev. Randy L Quinn

Last week I began by comparing the parable Jesus told to a movie that none of us would want to see - yet I suspect lots of people would have gone.

Today's text sounds like the kind of TV shows that lots of people like to watch.  There is drama, there is tension, but in the end, the hero comes out the winner.  It's the plot that is used in most of TV's drama series' and to some extent most of TV's sitcoms.

But in many ways, it sounds like a re-run.  We've seen this episode so often that we know how it will turn out, relieving some of the tension for us.

In the text, two groups of people become unlikely allies in their attempt to trap Jesus.  One group, the Pharisees, is most concerned about the affairs of the temple.  They have an understanding with the Roman authorities that as long as they don't oppose the crown they can worship according to their own traditions.  While they publicly decry the Roman thumb of authority, they know that the alternative may be worse.  In other words they have a vested interest in the status quo.

The other group, the Herodians, are more concerned about the state of political affairs.  They, too, have an understanding with the Romans that as long as there is a sense of peace within the territory Herod's family can rule by proxy and the Herodians can have their prominent political positions of power.  They have a vested interest in the status quo, too.

But no one likes to pay taxes.  Ask anyone in Washington, DC, and they will tell you no one likes paying taxes.  Yet the vast majority of the people working in DC get their salaries directly from those taxes.

When they talk about tax cuts, there is rarely a simultaneous call for a reduction in congressional salaries.

The Herodians and the Pharisees team up to ask Jesus a question.  They begin by feigning approval of his ministry - a ploy Jesus and everyone else can see through - and then ask their question:

"Is it lawful" to pay taxes?

What kind of a question is that?

Ben Franklin is remembered for saying that there are only two certainties in life, death and taxes.  Whether it's lawful or not, we're going to pay taxes.

But the attempt here is to throw Jesus off balance.  If he says "no," he is opposing Rome and they can have him arrested.  If he says "yes," he is agreeing to the oppression of Rome and will certainly lose support in the public opinion polls.

By the way, in ancient Israel there were two taxes.  One was for the temple and one was for the King.  The temple tax was paid by each of the twelve tribes of Israel on a rotating basis, so that each tribe paid the expenses for one month a year.  The same system was set up for the royal house of David.

When Solomon became King, he changed the boundaries.  It was the first redistricting for the benefit of a few people at the expense of many.  The people of Judah - Solomon's home - were left out of the royal tax rotation and everyone else had to pay more.  Some scholars say this was the root cause of the civil war that ensued after Solomon's death.

In New Testament times, the Romans had their own taxes.  One of them was the "head tax."  A "per capita" tax on each person living in the land.  The larger your family, the larger your tax.  It was because of this and other Roman taxes that Mary and Joseph found themselves in Bethlehem.

The Romans collected their taxes through mercenary tax collectors that were allowed to set their own profit margins.  Needless to say, tax collectors were only a little less popular than the taxes themselves.

And as far as I can determine from my reading, there were still temple taxes to be paid.  But the tribes of Israel were no longer distinguishable, so a "worship tax" was instituted.  Taxes were paid for each worshipping family in Israel, but the "temple tax" was also required of those who lived in far away lands.  It was a religious obligation that was put upon the people in addition to the scriptural mandates.

Some clubs and organizations have similar taxes today.  They call them dues.  You pay dues to belong; you pay dues to continue your relationship with that particular organization, whether you attend regularly or not.  We may not think of it as taxation, but it is a form of taxation.

The "per capita" tax of Rome and the "worship" tax of the Temple were similar in many ways with one notable exception:  the Roman tax could only be paid with Roman coins, and the Temple tax could only be paid with the Jewish shekel.

It may sound like a footnote, but let me tell you a little about the Jewish shekel.

How many of you have ever collected coins?  I started a penny collection when I was in the fourth or fifth grade.  I still have it, in fact.

One of the features of modern currency is the bust of a prominent person.  Most of them are Presidents, though Ben Franklin appears on some coins and several of our larger bills have pictures of statesmen as well as Presidents

The shekel was a weight of silver that became a coin.  But there was no engraved image on it because of the clear commandment about graven images.  There were only symbols on it, like candles or grain.  So strong was their understanding of the commandment that we find almost no pictures drawn of people from Israel's history.

In fact, the graven image commandment was used to interpret the first chapter of Genesis where it says we were created in the image of God.  That understanding of the image of God is the reason in Jewish law that murder was wrong.  It is destroying or defacing the image of God.

Clearly, it would be sacrilege to accept the Roman coin in the Temple because of the graven image of Caesar on it (not to mention the fact that there was also an inscription on the Roman coins saying Caesar was God.)  To a Jew, it was blasphemy.

So the Herodians and Pharisees challenge Jesus on a point of great interest - both to them and to us.  Is it lawful to pay taxes?  No matter how he answers, Jesus will no doubt rile someone's anger.

We can sense the tension that the crowd must have felt when Jesus is confronted with such a question.  And maybe we can sense how much of an indictment it was for anyone in that crowd to bring forth a coin with Caesar's image on it.

So we applaud Jesus for his marvelous response.

"Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's."

In other words, as long as there is government there will be taxes.

But can we sense the tension this creates for us today?  Do we hear our own indictment?

Take a coin out of your pocket.  I don't normally carry coins with me, and if that's the case for you, take a folded bill out of your wallet.  We have long since accepted the images without thinking in terms of the Ten Commandments.  But the Commandments haven't changed, only our understanding of them has.  We no longer see these graven images as idols.

But is that really true?

Look more closely.  On your coin or bill you will find the simple phrase, "In God we trust." 

It begs the question, do we?  Do we trust God or do we trust our money?  Who really is our God?  Who makes the decisions in your life, God or money?

How many of us have savings accounts?  How many of us have pension funds?  How many of us worry about how the bills are going to be paid this month?  How many of us put our trust in the bank?  or in the stock market?

 

How many of you wish I hadn't asked those questions?

Jesus isn't talking about the "separation of church and state" in his answer.  He is providing a rather caustic indictment on the system.  There is no separation for the Christian.  We belong to the Kingdom of God or we don't.  One or the other.  Not both.

What belongs to God is our life.  We were created in the image of God.  If the image of Caesar belongs to Caesar, then certainly the image of God belongs to God.

And the question remains, what are you doing with your life?

God is a creative God.  God created the heavens and earth.  How have you given your creativity to God?  You probably use that at work in some form or another.  You may use it at home for the benefit of your family.  But how have you given that to God?

God is a compassionate God.  God has compassion for the people of Israel and for all the people of the world.  How have you expressed that compassion in your life?  You probably have compassion for your family.  And maybe even for a few close friends.  But when was the last time you allowed the compassion of God to be seen through you by strangers? When was the last time you 'ate with sinners' and befriended them?  How and where have you cared for the strangers in your midst?  When was the last time you walked alongside a person dying from AIDS?

God has given us many gifts, including the gift of income and wealth.  How have you allowed God to determine how that wealth should be spent?  After giving to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, what have you given to God?  Or maybe the better response is after you have given to God, what is left to give to Caesar?

After hearing his response to their trick question, the Herodians and Pharisees leave Jesus in amazement.  Clearly they didn't care about the answer he gave.  They were only trying to trap him.

But if we are to be Disciples, if we are to claim the title of Christian, we MUST care about the answer and we must find an appropriate response.

We cannot simply walk away in amazement.

Christ is asking for a commitment of our lives.  Not just our Sundays, not just our devotional times, not just our prayer times.  God wants all of our lives to be returned as a living sacrifice.

The good news is that when we seek the things of God, when we offer our lives, God will meet our needs.  There is enough in God's Kingdom to meet our needs, but we only learn that when we give our whole selves to the master.

If you haven't done that before, today is an opportunity to do that.  God has done all that needs to be done, all you need to do is accept the gift of life.

Ben Franklin was wrong.  Taxes are inevitable.  Death is not.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.