Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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Little Johnny, sitting at the breakfast table drinking his mug of milk, asks mom, "Is it true God is everywhere?" "Yes, of course, Johnny, God is everywhere." "Is God in this room?" "Yes, he certainly is." A little hesitation, and then, "Is God in my mug?" Mom's getting a little wary at this point, but she continues with it, "Yes. Yes, he is." Johnny thinks for a moment, then suddenly clasps his hand over the top of the mug. "Gotcha," he says.

This morning we consider the famous story -- a favorite in the early Church -- where Jesus outsmarts those who would trap him into saying something politically incorrect (that the Emperor didn't have the right to levy taxes) -- outsmarts them by saying, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's". As we look at the story, let's be reminded, first of all, of a common and dangerous pitfall threatening all faithful people (and exemplified so well in those in this story who are questioning Jesus): that we should try to make God in our own image, catch him in our own mugs (so to speak), get him under our control, be sure he shares our political opinions, make him what we want him to be. I think that danger is a major theme in the "Render unto Caesar…" story. We should also consider the merits of the case, Jesus' words themselves (some things are Caesar's some are God's). But to do that we will need a little background.

There were political factions in Jesus' time, just as today, and one major fault line, dividing political opinion, centered on Israel's relationship to Rome, her hated overlord -- specifically, should the Jews have to pay Roman taxes. On one extreme were the Herodians, the family of Herod the Great -- that upstart and illegitimate dynasty of puppet kings, put in power and sustained in power by Rome. The Herodians, on every issue, kowtowed to Rome, their gravy train. Of course the Jews should pay Roman taxes, they said, and let's hear no more about it.

On the other extreme were the zealots. Today we might call them "terrorists." They sniped at Rome whenever they could, and argued passionately that Israel should demonstrate her independence by refusing to pay Roman taxes. (Eventually, by the way, about thirty years after Jesus died, the descendants of these zealots rose up in armed rebellion against Rome and brought down upon the Jews the wrath of Empire. Israel was utterly destroyed by Roman legions in 70 A.D, not to appear again on world maps until our own day.) But in Jesus' time, the argument about taxes was just bitter, not violent. Could his antagonists get him to take sides? Could they put him in a box and label him? Could they make him alienate the Jewish patriots, on the one hand, or the Roman Empire, on the other? Either way they had him.

He asks for a coin, and holds it up, "Whose image is on this coin," he asks. (Now, that's important, because images of any kind were idolatrous to the Jews -- remember the Second Commandment about making images of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath.) But this image, on this coin, was especially offensive. It was the face of the current Caesar, Tiberius, and under it the words, "son of the divine Augustus" (Divine? The emperors had started to think of themselves as gods, as do all men of power, sooner or later.), "pontifex maximus," it said, "high priest." Utterly appalling to the Jews. Yet this was the coin that, by law, the Jews had to use to pay Roman taxes. It was insulting all around.

Nevertheless, Jesus says to pay. But (making a deeper point), be sure you keep straight what belongs to God and what to Caesar. You can't play "gotcha" with me -- you can't make me into a Herodian or a zealot. You can't make me like you. Political distinctions will come and go, but people of faith will always struggle with the larger question: what, in my life, belongs to God and what belongs to this world. It was the right time to raise questions of loyalty, but taxes were the wrong issue. Think bigger.

Religion is not an end in itself. Jesus didn't say, "I have come that ye might have religion," but rather "that ye might have life, and have it more abundantly." There is a proper place in our faith for every day life, for the things belonging to Caesar, if you will. And Jesus acknowledges that when he says, "Render unto Caesar...". We have all known religious fanatics, whether they be of the foot-stompin' type, saying "praise the Lord" and "hallelujah" every ten seconds, and unable to talk about or think about anything else (John Wesley called them "enthusiasts."), or of the more traditional sort who fill every waking moment with worship, ritual and prayer. Often people say of them, they are "too religious." But, in truth, that's not the problem. They have missed the point of faith. They are focusing on the signs, the symbols, the language of religion, rather than living the faith itself. Faith is to instruct us, encourage us, comfort us in life. Air is provided so that we can live, and move and have being. It is an essential blessing, and marvelously important. But we do not focus on the air and make it our whole life, and think of nothing else. Otherwise, what would be the point? Not an easy line to draw, I know: what belongs to God and what belongs to Caesar. But there is a line, and looking for it sincerely in our own lives, often leads to a complete re-evaluation of ourselves, and to a re-birth. I've always liked that old, down-to-earth morning prayer: "Lord, I will be very busy today, and will surely forget you many times. Do not thou forget me." We have other things in our lives. That's o.k. But save a place for God.

Sometimes these same fanatics tell me that God told them to do this, or to do that. I never want to question anyone's religious experience, but one thing worries me. It seems that God usually tells them to do things they already wanted to do. As a general rule, in the Bible, however, God tells people to do things they don't want to do, things they dread, things they would not possibly have done without God's push. Paul would not have stopped persecuting Christians and joined up, Jonah would not have gone to Nineveh, Jeremiah would not have preached his message of doom, Jesus would not have gone to the cross. They didn't make God as they wanted him, he made them as it pleased him. We are not the subject. We are the object. It's the difference between eating and being eaten.

Another way we try to make God like us (and thus limit him) is to smother him in tradition. God can be present only in the mass. The Word of God can be found only in the King James version of the Bible. Church music can be played only on an organ. A young girl watching her mother getting ready to bake a ham, noticed that she cut off both ends. "Why do you cut off both ends of the ham," she asked. "Well, I don't know. My mother always did it. Let's ask her." But the grandmother said she didn't know either. She did it because her mother always did it. So they found the great grandmother, and asked her why she cut off both ends of the ham. "Because the pan was too small," she said. Most traditions made sense at one time, but times change, and situations change. Making a place for God in our lives (along with a place for Caesar), means allowing God to be God, not to bind him with our traditional ideas, not to trap him in our mugs.

In these next few weeks we will be undertaking a fund raising drive here at Oak Chapel, called "Find Us Faithful." It an opportunity for us to begin supporting, or to continue supporting, our new building project. (And, frankly, I have hoped and prayed that, before it was time to begin this campaign, we would see some signs of construction. I still believe that we will see such signs before the campaign is over.) I really don't have to talk to you about giving, my brothers and sisters. You have always been wonderfully generous. As you prayerfully consider your commitment, in the "Find Us Faithful" program, perhaps these words of Jesus would be a place to begin. There are things that belong to God, and things that belong to Caesar, and we have responsibilities in both realms. I'm going to ask God to help me know where that line should be drawn in my life, and I hope you will do the same. And, if we do that, God will bless us again.