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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Not all of you may be aware that this past week the City of Houston ordered five of its area pastors to turn over their communication with their congregation’s members—including sermons or speeches—about the city’s mayor, its gay rights ordinance, and “gender equality” issues. Opponents are saying the order violates the pastors’ First Amendment rights both to free speech and to the free exercise of religion, and one critic seemingly alluded to passages such as today’s Gospel Reading when he said, “Caesar has no jurisdiction over the pulpit.” Indeed, people often point to today’s Gospel Reading and its parallel passages (Mark 12:13-17; Luke 20:20-39) as if our Lord Jesus in them teaches the U-S Constitution’s separation of Church and State, but Jesus does not give a “precise theory of governmental authority” (Davies and Allison, ad loc Mt 22:21, 216-218) when He says, “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s”. What does Jesus give in the Gospel Reading? This morning we consider today’s Gospel Reading under the theme “The Things that are God’s.”
Today’s Gospel Reading picks up St. Matthew’s divinely‑inspired Gospel account right where last week’s Gospel Reading left off. Still on Tuesday of Holy Week and still in the Temple Courts, Jesus finished teaching the so‑called parable of the Royal Wedding Feast (Matthew 22:1‑14), and “then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle Him in His words”. They and King Herod’s supporters joined forces, as it were, for the first of a series of confrontations between the Jewish leaders and Jesus. (We will hear the last of the series of confrontations in next week’s Gospel Reading.) Disciples of the Pharisees and the Herodians flattered Jesus in order to try to catch Him off guard in a crafty and potentially destructive trap, which centered on whether God approved of their paying a specific tax to Caesar, the ruler of the Romans who occupied their land. But, Jesus, aware of their malice, rhetorically asked them why they were tempting Him and called them “hypocrites”. Jesus had them show Him the coin for the tax—a coin minted by Caesar, with the likeness of Caesar and an inscription about Caesar—and Jesus told them to “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s”.
What are the things that are God’s? Well, in some broad sense all things are God’s, but in this case Jesus seems to be speaking more narrowly of some thing a little more particular. The denarius had Caesar’s likeness or image and so was to go to him. People were created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27) and so are to go to Him. The image of God set people apart from other creatures and originally consisted of the right disposition of intellect and will, knowledge of God, the will to do only God’s will, and sensuous desires free from any ungodly inclination. But, after the first man and woman’s fall into sin, they lost that image of God at least partially if not completely, and those to whom they gave birth were in their image (Genesis 5:3). But, we nevertheless are still to be in God’s image and, as Jesus says, to render ourselves to Him. Part of rendering ourselves to Him is, as Str. Paul writes to the Romans, rendering taxes, revenue, respect, and honor to others (Romans 13:1-7).
Do you and I always render taxes, revenue, respect, and honor to the governing authorities as we should? Do we not often seek ways around rendering such things as taxes and revenue? Are not our thoughts, words, and deeds full of disrespect and dishonor to the authorities that have been instituted by God? To resist them is to resist God, who tells us to render to them the things that are theirs. Truly even we believers at times fail to render what we owe the governing authorities, just as even we believers at times fail to render what we owe God. We sin in these and countless other ways, for by nature we are sinful and opposed to God. Jesus’s call to render to God the things that are God’s includes repentance and faith. Do we turn in sorrow from our sin and trust God to forgive our sin? When we repent and believe, then God forgives our sin. God forgives our sin of failing to render to the governing authorities the things that are theirs, and God forgives our sin of failing to render to Him the things that are His. When we repent and believe, then God forgives all our sin, whatever it might be, for Jesus’s sake.
Interestingly enough, the inscription on the denarius that the disciples of the Pharisees and the Herodians brought Jesus said that Caesar was the son of god and the greatest high priest. Their having that coin in the Temple Courts was arguably as idolatrous as they thought to be blasphemous Jesus’s claiming to be the Son of God and the greatest High Priest. Yet, they unwittingly spoke the truth about Jesus: He was true, and He not only taught the way of God truthfully, but He also lived it. Jesus perfectly rendered to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s. Not when the Jewish leaders or others wanted but when Jesus knew the time was right, He gave Himself to death on the cross for you and for me. There, He gave God the things that are His. There, He was, our Hymn of the Day called it, a “Tributary” to death, paying our debt (Lutheran Service Book 940:4). To get to the cross, Jesus was falsely accused of forbidding paying taxes to Caesar (Luke 23:2), but He nevertheless submitted to the governing authorities, even as the Jewish leaders conspired with them to bring about Jesus’s death and to prevent His resurrection. Their intent was evil, but God’s intent was good (Genesis 50:20), and God used them for His purpose, just as in today’s Old Testament Reading God used the Persian leader Cyrus (Isaiah 45:1-7).
God uses means. God used Cyrus, He used the Jewish leaders and the Roman government, and, to give us the forgiveness of sins, He uses words, water, a pastor, and bread and wine. Jesus called the Pharisees’ disciples and the Herodians to Himself, but, the Gospel Reading says, they left Him and went away. We who repent and believe come to Him. We come to Him in His Words of the Gospel, the power of God to salvation. We come to Him at the Baptismal Font, where, with water and His Word, He works forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation. We come to Him in private confession and individual absolution, where we receive forgiveness from the pastor as from God Himself. And, we come to Him at this Altar and its Rail, where, with bread and wine, He gives us His body and blood and so also forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. In these ways God also renews in us His image (Colossians 3:10).
Through His Means of Grace, God renews in us the right disposition of intellect and will, knowledge of Him, a will do only His will, and sensuous desires free from any ungodly inclination. So renewed, we, like our Savior before us, render to God the things that are God’s, including rendering to our governing authorities taxes, revenue, respect, and honor. As The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther writes, we render those things regardless of the quality of the government and regardless of how intolerably it may tax us, although Luther certainly says government has no right to over‑tax. Still, we surrender whatever the government asks, except the Gospel, for, we must obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29; confer 4:19-20). We can rebuke evil government, but we passively bear it and leave its punishment to God. (See, for example, Luther as cited by Plass at #859, #1803, and #1813.) In these ways, like the Thessalonians in today’s Epistle Reading (1 Thessalonians 1:1-10), we wait for Jesus to come and deliver us from the wrath to come.
As we have this morning considered today’s Gospel Reading under the theme “The Things that are God’s”, we have realized that by nature we deserve wrath but that the Lord Jesus rendered to God His very life in order to save us from that eternal wrath. We have realized that Jesus rendered to Caesar the things that were Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s and so He through Word and Sacrament graciously gives to us the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. We have realized that through faith God renews His image in us and so brings about our rendering to Him the things that are His. Here and now people of good conscience may disagree on how we live as both citizens of the earthly government and citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, as some are saying the Houston pastors should not turn over the very sermons they have preached publicly, while others disagree. But, with daily repentance and faith, we live together in the forgiveness of sins until He comes to finally and completely deliver us. Come, Lord Jesus!
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +