Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity

1 Thessalonians 1.10; Matthew 22.15-22

Nobody likes paying taxes. It was as true 2,000 years ago as it is today. And the more money people have, it seems, the less they like paying taxes. And there are those who will go to any lengths to avoid paying taxes. And so it's with some amusement perhaps that we read a story out of the gospel of a former tax collector today, that's centred around paying taxes. I wonder of St. Matthew had a smile on his face when he recorded this story about Jesus and the chief priests and Pharisees.

The chief priests and the Pharisees come across in St. Matthew's gospel as the bad guys, amongst others. In reality they weren't rotten to the core as we might perceive them when we read of them. They were religous people, very devout and believed that their God and their way to God was right and true and good and holy. The trouble was, Jesus had come along, a man of their own religion, indeed a rabbi, a teacher and what he'd said had begun to turn their whole world upside down. He'd challenged them in ways they weren't accustomed to. He'd got them to think about their God and their religion in a different way. He'd said at the same time that He hadn't come to do away with it but to fulfil it.

But as with lots of things and people we don't understand, with things and people that challenge the way we live and see the world, the Pharisees and chief priests, like we do sometimes, felt threatened. They felt threatened by Jesus. What He'd done and said had been getting under their skin for a while and they didn't like it. And as time went by they liked it less and less, and liked Him less and less. Eventually they'd had enough. Jesus was too big a challenge. And we already know what the outcome was.

Along the way they tried to trip Jesus up here and there. They were very learned men, experienced and wise in their own religion. They were no part-timers when it came to living their religious life. They knew what they were talking about and not just from their books but from experience too. And maybe behind some of the questions they asked Jesus was a real struggle for them; things they had difficulty working through themselves. And I guess the question they asked Jesus, that we've read about today was one that they couldn't really find a satisfactory answer to themselves, whether or not they used it, as St. Matthew says, to entrap Jesus.

The point that this question reaches after is who do we pay allegiance to? Who comes first in our life? Who in fact do we recognise as having ultimate authority? Is it God, or the civil authorities?  And when there is a potential conflict, as the chief priests and Pharisees felt there was, because Roman rule was imposed upon the Jewish nation, who do you serve, ultimately? We still struggle with those sorts of questions today; especially when we might believe that the present government's policies are unjust or unfair to sections of the population. As Christians, do we speak out against the government, or do we keep quiet and go along with things? Do we recognise an authority higher than that of the government, in God Himself from where we get our sense of justice and mercy? And if so do we bring this to the notice of our civil authorities and in what way?

It was a trick question that the Pharisees put to Jesus. And their buttering Him up with flattery before they asked it didn't make it any less obvious. They'd hoped He'd condemn Himself as an outlaw by saying that as Jews, and bound by the Law of Moses, that it was unlawful to acceded to the demands of the secular authority and that they shouldn't do it. I'm not sure that the Law of Moses would have said any such thing. But anyway, Jesus sees through their little ruse and gives and answer that doesn't satisfy them but satisfies His predicament. 'Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor's and to God the things that are God's.'

Now we might think that Jesus was just getting Himself out of a spot and that there are deficiencies in His answer and that it was a bit disingenuous. But we might go to St. Paul to help us with this because we might remember, from his letter to the Romans that he said we should obey the secular authorities because they are put there by God. In this day and age we'd probably feel that that answer is quite a bit deficient. But at the very least, for the time being, every despotic and tyrannical government in the world, if it hasn't got God's approval, it has God's sufferance.

What I think we have to do is to look behind Jesus's answer to the question put to Him and see it from His point of view. He was bringing in the Kingdom of God, as the Church is today. And yet the Kingdom of God is already established in Jesus Himself. Paying taxes is a temporal thing, a thing of this world with limited significance as is every government of this and any age. All come and go within the eternal Kingdom of God the Father. And it's in that context that Jesus could answer as He did. He wasn't putting the emperor on a par with God in His answer, far from it. Paying taxes, and the workings of worldly kingdoms is quite insignificant compared to the things of the Kingdom of God. If we put the Kingdom of God first in our lives then the paying of taxes and obeying the laws of earthly kingdoms, providing they are just, fair and merciful is something we as Christians ought to get on with. And it's in that vein that Jesus could answer, 'Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor's and to God the things that are God's.' Or as Jesus had said, or something like it some time before, 'seek first the Kingdom of God and everything else will then fall into place.'