Proper 24 :: Isaiah 45: 1–7 / Psalm 99 / I Thessalonians 1: 1–10 / Matthew 22: 15–22
This
is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker
on Sunday, October 18, 2020.
“SEPARATION”
(Homily
text: Matthew 22: 15–22)
The
back-and-forth between the Lord and His adversaries, the chief priests, the
Pharisees and the scribes that has been the focus of our Gospel texts for the
past few Sundays, is about to come to an end.
In today’s
appointed Gospel text, Jesus effectively does a “slam dunk” on the Pharisees,
who are out to try to trap Him with a question about paying taxes to the
governing Romans, so that they can turn Him in on some charge or another.
Jesus’
retort to the Pharisees is probably most familiar to us in an older
translation. In fact, it’s enough of a well-known statement that it has entered
our everyday speech. It goes like this: “Render unto Caesar….”
Let’s look
at the interchange between Jesus and the Pharisees from the perspective of
separation.
We’ll begin
with the Pharisees.
We would do
well to remind ourselves about the Pharisees, in order to better understand
just what their values were, and how they behaved.
The
Pharisees were a lay group of people who advocated strict observance of the Law
of Moses (Torah). They
attempted, by their own observance of the Law, to separate themselves from the
everyday world as much as possible. Our Lord describes them in very inglorious
terms, calling them “white-washed tombs”, who are full of dead men’s bones,
even though their outward appearance is quite pleasing. (See Matthew 23:27.)
But the
Pharisees were capable of setting aside their desire to be separate from the messiness
of everyday life when the necessity arose. For example, they harbored no love
for the occupying Romans. Neither did they particularly like the Herodian
family, who were the puppet kings that the Romans had installed many years
before. (After all, the Herodian family was of mixed ancestry, so – like the
Samaritans, who were also racially mixed – they were regarded with disdain by
the racially “pure” Pharisees.) However, in this instance, they partnered with
the Herodians (a party which allied itself with the interests of the Herodian
family) to try to trap Jesus with their question about paying taxes to Caesar.
Here, then,
is the irony: The Pharisees, whose outward behavior marked them as being
separate from the world, betrayed their inner identity, which was very much in
line with the values of the secular world they so much tried to avoid.
Jesus’
response, however, points to a different king of separation.
Taking a
coin that was used to pay the tax, He asks whose image appears on the coin. The
Pharisees answer, “Caesar’s”.
Jesus then
says that the things that belong to Caesar should be given to Caesar, and the
things that belong to God should be given to God.
What a
masterful response! There is no retort possible to the Lord’s answer.
The Lord’s
response points to separation, but to connection, as well.
If we are
to reposition the Lord’s response about the necessity of “rendering unto
Caesar” in a contemporary context, we might come to the conclusion that the
Lord is instructing us that we are to remain engaged in the world around us. It
strikes me that the implication in the Lord’s command informs us that the
everyday world is important to Him, and to the Father. Unlike the Pharisees,
who would just as soon ignore or deny their duty to be engaged in the everyday
messiness of life, Jesus instructs us to do our part to bring about the kingdom
of God, beginning with that everyday, messy world. After all, that’s what Jesus
did and does….He healed the sick, cared for the outcasts, and tended to the
everyday challenges of life. We, too, are called to do the same.
In so
doing, we are to keep our focus squarely on God, giving God thanks and praise,
giving of ourselves, our abilities, our talents and our treasures so that the
kingdom can come in all its fulness and power. That sort of separation from the
secular is critical, if we are to discern what God would have us do in the
world. Put another way, what we are to do is to look closely at God, discern
what God would have us to do, and then turn toward the world, armed with God’s
will.
So, if we
look back at the Pharisees’ actions, we see that they valued separation, but
were willing to set that separation aside if necessity demanded it. Their
willingness to compromise the mandates of Torah demonstrates
an unhealthy attitude toward God’s commands to live an upright and holy life.
Our Lord’s
example of separation, however, informs us of the necessity of remaining in
close connection to God, in order that our work in the world may be informed by
our focus on God.
AMEN.
