Nobody Puts Jesus in a Corner! (Matthew 22:15-22)

Writer and educator Laurence Peter once noted, “America is a land of taxation that was founded to avoid taxation."

I think this observation describes our nation’s ambivalent relationship with taxes very well and shows us that looking at our history through the lens of taxation can teach a lot about our most formative experiences.

Take, for example, the American Revolution.

Feeling as though they were being taxed by a government in which their interests weren’t being represented, colonial Americans declared their independence from England two hundred fifty years ago. They even fought a war about it.

But when the new government raised taxes to pay the bills from that war, the colonists-turned-citizens rebelled again and tested the mettle of the Founding Fathers and the young nation.

That’s the story of the Whiskey Rebellion.

A few decades later, when Emancipation inspired white supremists to find new and creative ways to maintain their privileges, poll taxes became a popular way of denying black people the right to vote, even as those same taxes became a major source of government funding.

Imagine that! Paying for what should’ve been the common good with money raised through racist practices–there’s a lot of history to unpack there.

Then, in the early 20th century, as Prohibitionists worked to eliminate alcohol from the culture, along with the substantial tax revenue it generated, the 16th amendment to the Constitution established the federal income tax to cover the losses.

And to this day, as we’ve moved into the second quarter of the 21st century, questions about taxes, tariffs, spending, and debt still remain central to our elections and the body politic.

Learning who has the power to levy a tax, what they tax, and how the money collected from taxes is spent offers important insights into what we as a country have been, who we are, and what we hope to become.

It’s also useful knowledge for students of the New Testament.

This morning’s Gospel Lesson is about taxes. Specifically, Matthew 22 tells of a time in Jesus’ life, just a few days before he died, when two rival parties conspired to ask him a “gotcha question.”

The rival parties were Pharisees and Herodians and their question was whether or not a faithful Jew could pay taxes to the Roman Empire.

Not surprisingly, whenever the Empire raised taxes, people groaned and complained.

In Jesus’ homeland of Judea, however, a serious religious question added a unique wrinkle to the public debate.

The question in Judea was, “Could a devout Jew, in good conscience, pay a Roman tax with a Roman coin that bore an inscription praising the Emperor of Rome–or Caesar–as a god?”

Jews who welcomed and benefited from Roman rule were unlikely to have a problem with such a tax.

Among these were the Herodians.

Other Jews were less comfortable attributing divine qualities to a government and its leaders and took exception to what they saw as the Empire’s arrogance.

The Pharisees fell into this camp.

Despite these important differences, however, the Herodians and Pharisees were willing to work together to set a trap for Jesus.

It turns out he annoyed them more than taxes.

So these two rival groups came together to force Jesus into a corner.

One regarded not paying taxes to Rome as treason and the other thought paying taxes was idolatry, so they asked, “Jesus, which are you? A traitor or a blasphemer?”

“Tell us what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?”

We pick up the story in Matthew 22, verse 18.

But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me a coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” (Matthew 22:18-21)

So what can we say about this?

First, we can say that Jesus seems to concede that the tax should be paid. The emperor’s name was on the money so the emperor had a claim to it.

However, Jesus didn’t stop there.

The scripture says he continued and said, “Give also to God the things that are God’s.”

That phrase hits differently, doesn’t it?

It’s not difficult to imagine his opponents celebrating that he had taken the bait of their trick question, only to realize that he had deftly turned the tables on them.

Pharisees and Herodians thought they had stumped Jesus, but his response caused them to question themselves.

The Gospel even says, “When they heard this, they were amazed, and they left him and went away.” (Matthew 22:22)

Professor Christopher Bryan summarizes the predicament in which Jesus’ rivals found themselves.

What… bears God’s image, so that it should be owed to God? No Jew, Pharisee, or even Herodian could fail to know the answer to that. They themselves bore God’s image. They owed a mere head-tax to Caesar, because the coinage was Caesar’s. But they owed themselves to God, because they belonged to God...They have asked Jesus a question about their relationship to [the Empire] and he has answered it; but in doing so he has used the form of their question to challenge them with an altogether deeper and more dangerous question of his own, about their relationship to God. (Render to Caesar: Jesus, the Early Church, and the Roman, p. 46)

Jesus asks the same deeper and dangerous question of the Church, and the Church hasn’t always been up for the challenge.

In some cases, we’ve answered Jesus’ question by offering a nearly unconditional endorsement of the political status quo.

Pay your taxes, do what your leader tells you to do, and don’t cause trouble—that’s what good Christians are supposed to do because disobedience is a sin and Jesus is only concerned about spiritual things anyway.

This has always been the answer preferred by tyrants and the privileged, but it seems unlikely that Jesus took a self-serving gotcha question about Roman taxes as the opportunity to jettison the entire witness of God’s justice seeking prophetic Spirit in the name of a go-along to get-along version of the Gospel.

No. That’s not what’s happening here.

Neither is this an invitation for disciples to seize the power of the government to achieve their own, self-appointed ends.

State favored religion, so-called holy wars, faith in “God, Gold, and Guns,” but not necessarily in that order—disciples may find things like these tempting, but, truly, the only worthwhile debate about them is whether they produce a worse version of politics or religion, because it’s undeniable that they yield toxic versions of both.

For example, it’s hard to believe that Jesus wanted his very public and brutal death to show his disciples that what they really needed to do was take control of the state so that they could hang the right kind of people on crosses, but sure enough, just this week, a popular social media influencer shared with his millions of followers his belief that God must support state sponsored executions because Jesus had one.

That’s a position one takes when they just want God to bless the policies that they’ve already decided to support, not someone who is striving to seek God’s kingdom and to make Jesus the Lord of their life, but such is the confusion that occurs when we give more to Caesar than he deserves.

Jesus said, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

It’s easy to illustrate what it looks like when people get this wrong, but what does it look like when we get it right?

I think the only workable answer is that it looks like Jesus—the way he crossed barriers to show people that they mattered, the way he cut through the machinations of those who were set on malice and division, the way he embodied the Image of God and recognized that same image in others.

“Jesus is God’s politics incarnate,” note theologians Brent Laytham and Michelle Clifton-Soderstrom, and “God’s politics is a politics of forgiveness, compassion and mercy.” (Render Unto God)

The two writers conclude, “If we start with that as bedrock, then at least we’ll know who we, the church, are called to be as citizens of God’s kingdom.”

I like that perspective.

If we build our lives, our ministry, our witness on the bedrock foundation of Jesus, who is forgiveness, compassion, and mercy incarnate, “then at least we’ll know who we, the church, are called to be.”

There came a time in Jesus’ life, just a few days before he died, when two rival parties conspired to ask him a “gotcha question” about paying taxes. They wanted to box him into a corner–to turn him into a traitor or a blasphemer–but what he said left them amazed and confused.

We might not be as duplicitous as those who tried to entrap Jesus, but we still like to corner him and to try to make him say what we want to hear.

We want him to tell us that God will bless the positions we’ve taken and the policies we support.

We want him to say that the path of least resistance just happens to be the road God wants us to take.

We want to hear that we can keep the Emperor and God happy and satisfied and that it’s not going to cost us anything.

That might be what we want to hear, but no matter how clever the question, Jesus won’t be tricked into telling us that which isn’t true.

Nobody puts Jesus in a corner!

Instead, he sees through all our schemes, biases, and motivations and invites us to think about deeper and holy things–the things that make for justice, community, and love.

He avoids his rivals’ traps and our self-centereredness in order to share the Good News.

Caesar wants it all, but God already has it all.

Let us, then, build our lives, our ministry, and our witness on Jesus, so that at least we’ll know who we are called to be.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Image: Augustus as Jove, holding scepter and orb (first half of 1st century AD)

Leave it Behind (Exodus 32:1-14)

The time that Moses spent on the mountain with God discussing and receiving God’s covenant for the people is one of the most extraordinary and important moments in the Bible.

We’ve touched on some elements of that story in recent weeks, but it deserves a closer inspection this morning.

Moses’ mountain top experience happened,you may recall, while the Israelites were making their way out of Egypt and the physical, mental, and spiritual slavery that they lived with there for generations. Guided on the journey by God, the people had miraculously crossed the Red Sea, received manna from heaven, and quenched their thirst with water from a stone.

After about three months, the people reached what the Bible calls “the wilderness of Sinai,” a rugged and mountainous landscape that, somewhat confusingly, is within the boundaries of the modern nation of Egypt.

Entering Sinai, God revealed the divine intentions.

This is how Exodus 19 puts it.

On the third new moon after the Israelites had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that very day, they came into the wilderness of Sinai…Then Moses went up to God; the Lord called to him from the mountain, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the Israelites: ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now, therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.’” (Exodus 19:1, 3-6a)

It might not give us a warm fuzzy feeling, but God’s language here truly is intimate. In fact, the passage reads something like a wedding proposal. In essence, God is saying, “Look, we’ve been through a lot together, I love you very much, and I’d like to make this official.”

Author Thomas Cahill elaborates,

the great God YHWH, who alone has dominion over all, here adopts the posture of a suitor, one who woos a demanding woman, patiently explaining how highly he values her and how exalted he foresees their life together. The people are being prepared for something more than they have already experienced. (The Gift of the Jews, p. 135)

That new beginning was a covenant relationship and what follows in the scripture is the disclosure of the new relationship’s terms and expectations–the Law of Moses, the Ten Commandments, guidance for worship and community life.

It’s a scene that ends with a really beautiful verse–Exodus 31:19.

[And] when God finished speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the covenant, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God. (Exodus 31:19)

“Written with the finger of God” Amazing, right?

Like I said, as far as big moments go, this is as big as it gets, but while Moses and God were having a heart to heart on the mountain top, down below, the people were sending flirty messages to their ex.

Frustrated that Moses had been on the mountain for so long, the people asked his brother Aaron to “make gods” for them, which he did by melting down gold they had carried out of Egypt and casting it into the statue of a calf or a bull, a form of an idol that was nearly ubiquitous in the places the Israelites had been and where they were going.

What happened, therefore, can be understood as a result of the same mindset that led the people previously to complain that it was better to have food and to be a slave than to be free, but hungry.

It was a mindset that revealed the people were willing to stick with something familiar, even if they knew it would hurt them, rather than take hold of that which was liberating, but unfamiliar.

Comforted, then, by the well known image of a golden calf, the people cut loose.

They rose early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being, and the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to revel. (Exodus 32:1-6)

Again, Thomas Cahill helps us understand what’s going on here.

He writes,

What follows is an orgy of prostrations, animal slaughter, feasting, drinking, and as the Book of Exodus puts it discreetly, “reveling”--that is, sexual indulgence in the manner of pagan liturgy.

He continues,

[The people] have mistaken [the Creator] for his creation…With a little ingenuity, we might even conclude that they succeeded in breaking all Ten Commandments–but even five out of ten is a pretty good average for so short a time. (p. 149)

The golden calf unleashed a stampede of debauchery, and it elicited an intense response.

First, God saw what was happening and was furious.

Moses successfully convinced God to calm down, but then lost his mind with anger when he went down the mountain and saw for himself what the people were up to.

He smashed the stone tablets upon which the finger of God had written.

He ground up the golden calf, put it in water, and made the people drink it.

And then he went back to God and basically said, “I hope you’ll forgive them, but if not, just get me out of here.”

And God said something like, “I’m not gonna lie. This is a really big deal, but I’m not giving up on my people..”

“Then the Lord sent a plague on the people, because they made the calf…” (Exodus 32:35)

By now you’re probably thinking, “Good Lord, Pastor, couldn’t you just tell us one of those stories about Jesus today instead?”

I will. We’ll get there. But first, as wild as this story is, we really do need to deal with the Golden Calf.

Maybe the way to begin is to note that while we call it the Golden Calf because of its association with this specific scene from the Bible, in the big picture, it really was just a golden calf, one of many such idols dotting hearts, minds, and religious landscape in that time and place.

All across the area that we call the Middle East, different cultures represented various gods in their pantheons as a bull or a calf.

Archeologists and anthropologists even have a name for this phenomenon. They call it “regional bovine cultic activity,” which is a great way to make worshipping a statue of a cow sound totally mundane and commonplace.

Usually, these gods were associated with thunderstorms, strength, virility, and fertility.

In Egypt–again–where the Israelites had lived for generations, there were at least three of these bull gods.

Now, did the Israelites think they were worshipping one of these Egyptian bovines? Maybe. Maybe not.

But were they mimicking habits and religious practices that they saw in Egypt or had heard about there? I think that’s clear, and I think that the impulse to reduce their extraordinary relationship with the God of the Exodus to the ordinary stuff of idols and revelry is the reason the golden calf inspired such a reaction.

That’s why the story ends with a plague.

God was warning the Israelites that if they wanted to eat like slaves in Egypt and worship like slaves in Egypt, then they were going to end up like Egypt, far from the path to freedom and renewal that God’s Covenant made possible.

The scandal of the Golden Calf is that it revealed the people would stick with something familiar, even if they knew it would hurt them, rather than take hold of that which was liberating, but unfamiliar.

The question for us is, “Are we willing to make a different choice?”

Are we going to continue with lifestyle habits that leave us tired and depleted and expect to suddenly start waking up in the morning feeling refreshed and invigorated?

Are we going to resurrect failed blood and soil policies from history’s trash heap and expect that, this time, they’ll actually lead to a better future instead of tragedy?

Are we going to run it back with ministry models and ideas that have left the Church irrelevant, undisciplined, and unable to make disciples who are so firmly anchored to the rock of Jesus, his love, and his grace that they can resist the popular siren songs of the age?

Are we going to leave behind the familiar, but harmful in order to embrace God’s liberating mystery?

Now here’s that story about Jesus I promised you.

In the course of his ministry, at the time when the crowds were really starting to notice him, Jesus issued a famous invitation, “Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

I don’t think anyone who heard that invitation had a golden calf slung over their shoulders, but I have no doubt that many had been carrying far heavier weights for a very long time.

Griefs and disappointments, anger and rage, worries, fears, regrets, broken hearts, broken dreams—Jesus has a way of seeking out people who have been carrying baggage like this for so long that it’s come to define how they see themselves and what others think about them.

It’s the kind of stuff that does nothing for us, but we can’t imagine ourselves without—like the way the Israelites dragged memories of slavery with them into the wilderness.

To weary and heavy laden spirits like these, Jesus says, “Put down those burdens, leave them behind, and let me help you stand up straight again.”

He said,

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:29-30)

One of the hardest decisions people ever make is the decision to walk away from what’s familiar, even if they know it’s no good for them.

But Jesus says your freedom, your future–that you–are worth more than even all the gold that glitters.

So put down that burden. Leave it behind, and let him help you stand up.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Image: Poussin, Nicolas, 1594?-1665. Adoration of the Golden Calf, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt University Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.

Bold Lines and Bright Colors (Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20)

Keith Haring is one of the iconic visual artists of the 1980s. Gaining attention and refining his style as a graffiti artist in New York City’s subways, Haring–who died of AIDs in 1990–went on to earn international attention by pairing his art–which featured bold lines, hyper-saturated colors, and often faceless figures–with his passion for some of the era’s defining social challenges—causes like promoting safe sex, raising awareness and research funds to fight AIDS, and protesting South Africa’s apartheid regime.

One of Haring’s most famous images was a poster for the organization ACT UP. It featured three figures and the message “IGNORANCE = FEAR / SILENCE = DEATH / FIGHT AIDS ACT UP.”

He also designed the album cover for “A Very Special Christmas”--one of the decade’s great Christmas albums which included tracks by the likes of Whitney Houston, Bon Jovi, Sting, Madonna, and U2.

But given our ongoing series of readings from the Book of Exodus, it’s Haring’s version of The Ten Commandments that is on my mind today.

First shown in France in 1985, this series of massive, 25 foot tall canvases “ain’t your grandma’s version of the Ten Commandments.” as one reviewer noted.

Writing about the exhibition’s American debut in 2008, Jenna Weissman Joselit remarked, “Roman numerals or wisps of Hebrew phrases are nowhere in evidence. Instead, Haring’s Ten Commandments constitute a heady brew of television sets, dollar signs, x’s, phalluses galore, and the artist’s characteristically faceless stick figures.”

The series is wild and I’m not going to claim to understand all of its eccentricities or even to know which canvas depicts which commandment, but it is, without a doubt, thought provoking, and its color, movement, and arresting impact capture something of the Sinai story that we miss when we reduce the scripture’s message to words chiseled in sterile stone.

Weissman Joselit’s review continues,

Some say that Haring used the template of the Ten Commandments to challenge—and subvert—longstanding assumptions about capitalism, domesticity, and sexuality. Others suggest that in making his own version of the Decalogue, Haring took on the religious establishment with which he had an uneasy relationship at best….When seen from that frankly autobiographical perspective, Haring’s Ten Commandments might well be construed as an act of repudiation. Then again, maybe it’s an act of reclamation. (Rules Writ Large, Jenna Weissman Joselit).

However we understand him and his work, Keith Haring reminds us that Exodus is a story best told with bold lines and bright colors.

According to the Bible, the Ten Commandments are, after all, a gift to a people whose lives were filled with violence, abuse, signs, wonders, miracles, chaos, deprivation, faith, and failure that emerged from an encounter between their one-time fugitive leader Moses and their plague-dealing God on a mountain top shrouded in smoke, fire, and lightning.

There’s nothing sterile about that!

No, this is a messy story that pulsates with life, mystery, fear, and hope.

Maybe Haring’s perspective has something to recommend to us, then, that is missing from our culture’s obsession with making monuments out of the Commandments or arguing about where and when it’s appropriate to put them on display?

Forty-plus years since its debut, Keith Haring’s Ten Commandments remain provocative, as evidenced by the words of a gallery curator from earlier this year.

This series encapsulates Haring's belief in art as a tool for social change, offering a visual ethic that transcends its 1980s origins to address timeless human struggles….As we continue to grapple with issues of justice and community, Haring's commandments remind us of the power of imagery to inspire action and empathy. (Keith Haring's Ten Commandments: Decoding the Street Prophet's Visual Manifesto)

In 1978, historian Thomas Lawrence Connelly published a book that criticized the sanitized and mythologized way in which noted Confederate Robert E. Lee is remembered in our country. Connelly called the book The Marble Man.

In much the same way, we could call these verses of scripture “The Marble Ten” because, while we get that they are important, we really don’t engage with them or meditate upon them in any serious way.

Rather, we file them away with those scriptures we like to apply to the behavior of other people, but, when it comes to ourselves, “No, thanks. We’re good.”

As the great preacher Tom Long remarked,

In the popular religious consciousness, the Ten Commandments have somehow become burdens, weights and heavy obligations. For many, the commandments are encumbrances placed on personal behavior. Most people cannot name all ten, but they are persuaded that at the center of each one is a finger-wagging "thou shalt not." For others, the commandments are heavy yokes to be publicly placed on the necks of a rebellious society. For such an understanding…a two-and-a-half-ton rock…is a perfect symbol.

But Long says this understanding has serious flaws.

Understanding the [Commandments] as a set of burdens overlooks something essential, namely that they are prefaced not by an order—"Here are ten rules. Obey them!"—but instead by a breathtaking announcement of freedom: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery".

While other groups of ancient people followed similar codes of conduct, this was a specific code for a specific people who were on a journey with a specific god—the One who brought them out of slavery in Egypt and was making them free.

Like a cloud of fire to guide them at night, manna in the morning to feed them, and water in the desert to quench their thirst, the Ten Commandments were not only a blessing that met the needs of the present moment.

These were also tools given by God to the people to help them build a free and secure future.

The Commandments are a reminder that leaving physical slavery behind in Egypt was the just first of several steps in the people’s journey to true emancipation.

Remember when things became difficult and the people said that they would rather live as well fed slaves in Egypt, than die as hungry free people in the wilderness.

What did God do then?

God met their needs with daily bread and showed them how to survive without submitting to their own oppression.

In giving the Commandments, God did the same and showed them how to survive without resorting to the oppression of others.

1. Then God spoke all these words: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.

2. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall not make for yourself an idol… Because idols are burdensome, but God offers freedom.

3. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God.

Because when you lie about what God is doing you will forget what God has done.

Keeping in mind the fact that when Moses came down from the mountain the people to whom he spoke were three or four months removed from generations of slavery, we really see the Commandments in a new light.

4. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work. Slave masters demanded work from you, but God will give you rest.

5. Honor your father and your mother.

They lived and died as slaves without knowing the freedoms you can enjoy.

6. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall not murder.

7. You shall not commit adultery.

8. You shall not steal.

9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

10. You shall not covet…anything that belongs to your neighbor.

Slavery devalued your lives, sex, property, even the truth and the ability to stand by your word, but as free people you will know, enjoy, and treasure these as precious gifts.

The Ten Commandments were never intended to be a burden to anyone, but a cause for celebration—the marks of a redeemed and free people.

They show us that life with God should be painted with bold lines and bright colors.

So let it be so with us today.

May God write the Ten Commandments on our hearts, not merely in stone.

May God set us free.

And may we always give thanks to God for this Good News.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Image: from The Ten Commandments by Keith Haring