Rev. David Williams; 10.19.14
It happens in cycles, it does, like the cycles of the seasons. We learn to read those signs, the ways that mark the arrival of a new season. In the spring, the little buds poke their heads out of the brown grass. In the fall, the air grows brisk, and the trees speckle themselves with a frosting of yellows and reds and oranges, a glorious dance of color that augurs us having to do a whole bunch of raking.
There are other seasons, like, say, hunting season, which isn’t that big a deal in and around Annandale, but I understand is a little more of a thing out here in Poolesville. On my way home from church late in the evening this week, I had to slow waay down for a little herd of deer crossing Partnership, and though I know bowhunting, muzzleloading, and kamikaze motorcycle hunting is in season, I chose to leave them for y’all.
Then there’s political season. Every couple of years, it rolls around, and you can tell its arrival by the signs that speckle the roadside with names and patriotic colors, and the ads that speckle every nook and cranny of our media experience.
Those ads are, admittedly, a little offputting. They tell us pretty much nothing, other than that candidate A is a fine upstanding American, who loves babies and America and American Apple Pie because America, and that candidate B worships Satan.
In this great democracy, most of our citizens have allowed cynicism or apathy to stand between them and fulfilling that basic duty at the polling booth. Some might say: why is that bad? Isn’t it our right to not vote if we so choose?
For a partial answer to that, let’s turn to today’s interesting tale from Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus is having yet another dust-up with the Pharisees, who are trying to get him into trouble. You’d think, Jesus being Jesus, that he wouldnt need any help getting into trouble, but they were doing what they could to move that whole thing along. So they compliment him, laying it on thick and piling it on deep. Then, they ask him a question. It’s a classic gotcha setup, because it’s one of those questions that they think can have no correct answer.
That question is simply this: Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar? Yes or no?
As Admiral Ackbar might say, it’s a trap, a landmine, one of those third rail questions that’s guaranteed to get you into trouble with someone.
On the one hand, if Jesus answered yes, it meant that he was saying he thought it was fine to use Roman money on which was inscribed assertions of the emperor’s divinity. For the zealots and the most radical among the Jewish community, that meant that you were saying Caesar was a god, and if you did that? You were betraying the God of Israel. It also meant you were supporting the hated occupiers of the Holy Land. So you couldn’t answer yes, or you were a traitor to all that was holy.
So of course, Jesus had to answer no. But no meant, in the way of binary logic, that you were on the other side completely. If you refused to pay taxes to Rome, it was a sure sign that you were a dangerous revolutionary, a threat to the Empire. The Roman authorities didn’t look kindly on people who refused to pay their taxes, and the Roman process for collecting back taxes with penalties made an IRS audit look like a trip to Hershey Park. So you couldn’t answer no, or you were a threat to Rome.
It was the kind of question that gives politicians nightmares, like that dude who stands up at a town hall meeting and..with all of the cameras on...demands a straight yes-or-no answer on your position on whether or not the Affordable Care Act should cover abortions for same sex couples when they’re traveling to Gaza to meet with representatives of Hamas.
Jesus was not so easily taken in. “You can only say yes or no,” said his opponents, but he was having none of that. He just told everyone to look at the coin, and see who was on it. It was the emperor, of course. So give him what belongs to him, and give God what belongs to God. It was a perfect answer, both yes and no, neither yes nor no. I’m not sure any modern day politicians could have done better. The trap his enemies had set for him snapped closed on empty air.
But as we hear his answer, we have to ask ourselves: what it is that we owe the emperor today? From this passage, we know that we do have a duty to the government of the nations we inhabit. We don’t have an emperor, of course. We’re not an Empire, and we’re not a kingdom. Here in America, we’re a Republic. That means we are the ones who rule us.
That means that sure, we have a ruler. Who is that ruler? We all are. What do we owe, when the “emperor” is us? What do we owe to the emperor when we the people are the emperor? We don’t just owe just our taxes. All that an empire needs is two things. First, people need to think of themselves primarily as taxpayers. You pay for protection, and whatever other services the emperor deems it fit to provide. Second, you obey. Failure to render tax and render obedience results in bad things happening. This is a consistent theme in empire.
But this is a democracy, and what a democracy needs first and foremost from its citizens in order to thrive is twofold.
First, there has to be participation. This whole thing doesn’t work if we don’t make sure that we’re engaging with it ourselves. Oh, sure, we want to be cynical about the process, and the way things are run makes it really really easy to give in to cynicism. The endless streams of negativity and spin that will come pouring out at us over the course of the next several weeks will make bailing on the whole mess really and deeply tempting.
Most of us do bail, just plain ol’ check out. It’s too negative, too bitter, and too pointless, we think. Which is why, in the typical midterm election, participation barely exceeds forty percent. In other democracies, countries like Australia and Belgium, Chile and Austria, Sweden and Italy, elections draw between 75% and 95% of eligible voters. If we think of our democracy as a group project in school, we’re not doing so well.
Our disengagement means...as one recent study found...that the only subgroup that does vote consistently are the loudest and most radical partisans, those who are most vigorously opposed to whoever it is they’re supposed to be opposed to. So we avoid voting because it seems so loud and angry and polarized, which means the loud and angry and polarizing people get a bigger say in who gets elected. This creates a feedback loop, and it ain’t a good one.
The duty of people of goodwill in a democracy is to pay attention and to be engaged. When we fail to do that, we fail to give to Caesar what Christ told us is his due. We need to hear this passage in that way in our lives as citizens of our counties, of our states, of our nation.
But if we fuse that with what we owe Christ, it becomes a different thing, one that just so happens to spin out the other thing that we really need to embrace if we’re to have a functioning democratic republic. If we recognize that rendering unto God what is God’s means living a life of gracious forgiveness, showing lovingkindness and mercy and forbearance even to...especially to...those who oppose us, we have to be citizens in a different way. We can stand firm on our political beliefs, but only if we are - first - standing firm on our faith.
That faith demands...radically and intentionally...that we commit ourselves to being compassionate towards and gracious to those around us. That’s true in our congregations, but it’s doubly true in our lives out there in the polis.
No matter where we stand as Christians, no matter what our political orientation, we are each of us required to view our participation and engagement in the processes of the republic as a central and fundamental duty. It’s our task to remind each other of this, and support one another in this.
It’s what we owe to Caesar, when Caesar is us.
We’re just a few short weeks away...so remember, as you vote and as you share life in this land with those who do not always agree with you...remember: what it is you owe, and to whom you owe it.
Let that be so, for you and for me, AMEN.
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