Putting our Eggs in the God Basket

Matthew 22: 15-22

October 16, 2011

This past week I spent some time working on the Nov. 13^th Veteran’s Day observance.  In the midst of thinking about the service and program afterward, I pondered the need to balance a lot of disparate elements.  First and foremost I have to confront the inherent contradiction in incorporating a secular observance within a sacred worship service.  Second, the liturgy needs to speak to the reality that we are called to be peacemakers, yet we value and respect the sacrifice made on our behalf by those who fight wars that our elected leaders deem necessary and lawful to fight.  And last, we must be careful with the very word “sacrifice.”  Sacrifice on the battlefield is heroic and praiseworthy, but the battlefield will never bring about our salvation.  Only one man’s death on the cross can do that.

 I suppose that in a way I am trying to work out what we owe Caesar and what we owe God.  Somewhere in the midst of duty and devotion to country lies a higher allegiance and there must be always be an acknowledged tension in that intersection.

In the midst of planning and thinking about that special service, this week I heard an interesting interview on the radio with journalist David Wood.  David Wood has been covering global conflict for 35 years as a war correspondent.  Wood is writing a 10 story series for the Huffington Post called “Beyond the Battlefield” to tell the story of veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq with life-altering traumatic injuries.  He is constantly in life-threatening situations on the front-lines of war.  And he is a life-long practicing Quaker and registered conscientious objector.    He discussed with the interviewer the inherent contradictions in his personal position regarding, and his vocation of bringing to us the story of war and those who fight.

Here are his words:  On being a Quaker and a conscientious objector who has been embedded with troops on and off for the past 35 years.

“I got interested in telling the stories of people who were caught up in conflict. People who were fighters, people who were refugees, people who were victims — the vast number of people who work constantly to resolve conflict and to get sides talking. I never felt that by reporting the stories of people in conflict that I was endorsing conflict in any way. … Being a conscientious objector is a very personal thing. The way I thought about it: Do you want to spend the next several years killing people, or do you want to spend it doing something more productive? And that’s really the way I came at that.”

“I’m terrified when I’m out on a battlefield. Telling these stories, I think it’s important that people understand what it’s like out there, what people go through, who are the people who are doing this in Afghanistan on our behalf. Most of us have sat this war out. I want them to know what it’s like and who is in the middle of it and what the consequences are. Beyond that, I don’t really have an agenda. I think that’s really important, especially in a democracy. We need to know who is doing it and what it’s like for them.”[1]

I’ve never heard it put better.  And I think he is working out, in a most admirable way, what it is to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s. The issue is who we are and whose we are…to whom do we ultimately belong and where do we place our ultimate allegiance?  And can we work that out in a way that allows us to be faithful to our religious beliefs while being faithful to the country to whom we owe the debt of good citizenship?  If we do not feel that tension we are not really hearing the gospel.

The Herodians, of whom we know very little, are most likely supporters of Herod Antipas, who has been named king of the Jews by Rome.   So, they would have supported the tax paid to Caesar and even though Jewish themselves, most likely would not have been offended by a coin that bore the image of Tiberius Caesar, divine son of Augustus.  The Pharisees were committed to keeping the letter of the Jewish Law, and the law would have doubly disapproved of paying the tax with that particular coin.  It was a violation of the first and second commandments:  Thou shalt have no other Gods before me, and thou shalt not make a graven image or idol.[2]

The question as to whether it was lawful to pay taxes to the Emperor was not an innocent one.  If Jesus said it was lawful he was then open to charges of being a collaborator. If he said it was not lawful then he was guilty of sedition and treason before Rome.  Jesus’ surprising and confounding answer to a question designed to entrap, should speak to us today.  “Jesus was suggesting that his followers have a dual allegiance, both to the teachings and commands of God and to the government under whose flag and laws they live.  Christians have duties and obligations to both of those realms, and their challenge is constantly to decide: to what do they owe and to whom?”[3]

Confounding and compounding this tension is a reality faced by practicing Christians in this current age.  Rev. Dr. David Anderman, in a recent article in PRISM[4], identifies two factors that further muddy the waters.  The Church co-exists with and lives within a disenchanted and secular world.  Christendom is the old-fashioned world for what has existed since the time of Constantine…a Christian majority in the Western world.    That can no longer be assumed.  Second, there is the disenchantment that we see growing all around us.  Whether it’s ”Occupy Wall Street”, the Tea Party, or the general sense that government is off its collective rocker…disenchantment is a pretty good word  for what we feel.  The term generally means an unmooring of the individual from the ties that bind in society.  Disenchantment means that we are no longer enchanted with God, and have placed science or other values over God as an explanation for things.  Secular means that God is not at the center.  But it takes a busload of faith to continue to believe that the spiritual realm of God is at least as real as the earthly realm we see before us.

As we heard in our epistle reading, the Thessalonians had  only been waiting a couple decades for the realm of God and they were already restive, contentious and questioning their faith. We’ve waited a long time for Jesus to come back and make things right.   Caesar starts to look like a safer alternative.  And then we put all our eggs in the Caesar basket.   One consequence of putting all our eggs in that basket is that we start to trade peace for security.  Jesus is saying that we need to put our eggs in the God basket. 

 The issue we confront in this gospel passage is not whether or not to pay taxes.  Jesus as much as said that to the Pharisees.  As Scott Hoezee puts it, the modern day equivalent to his dismissive reply is “get a life.  Why are you bothering with these puny issues?”   The real question is:  where is your ultimate allegiance?  We must prayerfully discern what is right for us to do when our conscience tells us that any activity in which we are asked to engage, is at odds with that allegiance.  That discernment and the course of action that follows will look different for each one of us.  I wish there was an easier answer, but there it is.

The question of what is truly lawful is answered by Jesus, just a few passages later in Matthew.[5]  Jesus is asked which of all the laws is the greatest commandment.  He answers:  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and with all your mind; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.  Devotion to God and love of neighbor is the basket in which we should place all our eggs.  It is the only way to eternal life, the only way to true peace.