THE EMPEROR'S CONTENTIOUS COIN
Westminster Congregational Church
Spokane, Washington
July 4, 1999
Good morning to all of you. I bring greetings from a congregation meeting in Copley Square in Boston Massachusetts who received the Benediction just about an hour ago. Linda and I are delighted to be among you. Susan and Joseph Kleis have been most hospitable as we forged our logistics for this trip to your beautiful city and what appears to be a splendid convention.
This being the fourth of July, I am reminded of one of my colleagues who received an invitation to speak on that occasion. The invitation read as follows: "May we invite you to be one of the speakers at our forthcoming Independence Day program. The program will include an address by the Mayor, recitation of the Gettysburg Address by a high school Student, your talk, and then the firing squad.
It's great to be here.
Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
On this 4th of July 1999, most people we know find themselves heading for the high country, the beach, or working those gas grills with hamburgers and hot-dogs. A few probably meet in the VFW halls reflecting on their years in the European or Pacific Theaters, their days in Korea, Viet Nam, or Iraq. Some of us, surprisingly enough, wend our way to church.
On this patriotic occasion, I thought we might consider just exactly where our loyalties lie. I've been intrigued, for instance, with the warm up for the Presidential election, still some 16 months away. This matter of religious and patriotic loyalties is already making its way into campaign Y2K. Albert Gore, for instance, in speaking to the Salvation Army a month or two ago, articulated his vision of the future, never hesitating to remind his listeners that his wife Tipper volunteered at a particular Washington Center called , "Christ House" for those struggling with substance abuse - and that it was time for Washington - not so much Tipper's Washington - but Capitol Hill Washington, to catch up.
He went on to inform his listeners that he and Tipper believed the current occupants of the White House to be "morally challenged," and sent the signal to all the world that he is not someone who simply shows up for church on Sunday, but someone who like his wife, "practices her faith and sees its power at work."
A. N. Wilson, a shrewd, gifted, British novelist and social commentator, once a devout Anglican - still a gifted novelist but now a caustic skeptic, following Gore's speech wrote a piece in the New York TIMES entitled, "God as a Running Mate." He suggests Albert Gore's speech makes fascinating reading. Wilson sees a speech purporting to explain why ordinary Americans are turned off to politics, suggesting a cure - a cure, he writes, "which happens to be Christianity." Wilson is satisfied with that. He scours history for the harsh and hateful consequences of theocracy and concludes that if there's too much religious campaign oratory, we might all get cynical about it, believing that usually, at election time "our public attitude has usually come down to this: 'In Go We Trust - but don't vote for him.'
So, do religion and patriotism, mix? We wrestle with an old question for Christians and politicians, churches and governments. I know Christians who refuse to attend church because the minister always talks about politics. I know - so do you - others who refuse to attend church because the common life of the church avoids the real world, where national loyalties, and political commitments tend to draw our interests. I recall on astute observer remarking, as he perused the election of 1996 between George Bush and Bill Clinton, that "If there were a merciful God, he would never have thrown us into such an election." And as we begin to anticipate the election in 2000 with God as the candidates' running mate, we might, like that observer, ourselves become atheists.
These issues of patriotism and religion, faith and politics, church and state, the sovereignty of the emperor, as our passage has it, or the sovereignty of God, confront us all the time. They involve questions of priority, they touch our deepest loyalties, they compel tough choices. We find the way riddled with traps, and we do well from time to time to wend that way carefully again, to reassess our priorities, to investigate our loyalties, to review our ultimate commitments. And what better day than Independence Day, the fourth of July?
I
The New Testament knows our dilemma well. Indeed, in this matter of faith and patriotism the evangelists set Jesus in a tricky, no-win position. Remember the passage we read just a moment ago? We see a high stakes, life and death encounter. Our Lord's enemies seek to trap him. They want to smoke out his loyalties. Representatives of the Herodian Party, known for their collaboration with the current, tyrannical Roman regime, see Jesus as a political radical they aim to eliminate. Representatives of the Pharisaic party, known for their religious fanaticism, see Jesus as a religious heretic they long to destroy. These parties, the Herodians and the Pharisees hate each other. But Jesus threatens each of them more than they threaten one another, and so, believing the enemy of my enemy is my friend, they join forces to ruin - and yes, to kill him. "Teacher," they begin, "You're a man of great integrity, we know. You're a shrewd observer of human life. We know you are wise. We have a question that perplexes us: are we to pay taxes to the Roman emperor?"
See the crunch? If Jesus replies, "Yes, of course you pay taxes to the Emperor. . ." - if he answers "yes" the religious fanatics who bend to no political authority of any kind will debunk him as a false prophet and leave his religious authority in shreds. If he replies, "No, refuse under any circumstances to pay the Emperor anything" - those Herodians - the political collaborators - will brand him subversive, nail him for treason and guarantee the death penalty. Either way, Jesus is a dead man.
So how does Jesus respond? How wriggle out of this death trap? He takes a coin of the realm. He asks whose image appears on it. He receives the reply, "The Emperor's." And with that answer Jesus blows the trap wide open. "Give therefore to the Emperor the things that are the Emperor's and to God the things that are God's." Or more familiarly, as the RSV puts it: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto the God the things that are God's."
Ever since Jesus said that, we have been trying to figure out just what belongs to God and what belongs to Caesar. Where lie our loyalties? To whom do we render what, and how much; choices fraught with ambiguity; choices made in fear and trembling.
II
But make these choices, we must. And in our country the issue seems always to be set before us. The Emperor's s contentious coin riddles our political life. We mentioned a moment or two ago, Al Gore's stepping up with "God as his running Mate." He's not the only one. Elizabeth Dole, making an appearance at a Philadelphia prayer breakfast last month confessed that she used to "keep God neatly compartmentalized. " But now it's a matter of total submission. "It was time to submit my resignation as master of my own little universe - - and God accepted my resignation."
George W. Bush, spoke with church folk in Houston recently. He told them something was missing from his life until an encounter with a Christian prophet enabled him, as he says, "To recommit his life to Jesus Christ." He closes his speeches with "God bless Texas and America."
Dan Quayle, after taking inventory of a vast number of social cankers insists the future of the nation comes down to belief in ourselves, belief in our families, belief in our country, but most important of all, "belief in the Lord our God, for he is our rock, our fortress and our strength."
Gary Bauer is eager to restore the freedom of the states of to acknowledge God and to post the Ten Commandments in public facilities.
New Hampshire's Bob Smith sees national moral rot and is sponsoring a Constitutional Amendment to put voluntary prayer in the schools.
Pat Buchanan, after excoriating secularists armed with the proposition that God is dead, blistering those who claim that God's law has no place in our courtrooms and God's name no place in our classrooms, leading to what he calls. "filthy art financed by tax dollars, television steeped in raw sex and romanticized violence, movies mocking religious faith, Rock concerts extolling lust and cop-killing, and supporting moral polluters that dump poison in the cultural well, - after all this Buchanan asks, "Why are we surprised that ours has become a stunted and sick society?" His answer to what he calls this reaping of relativism's poisoned harvest? It's restoring traditional-values patriotism, courage, decency, and the return finally of America to once again being "one nation under God.
And as a footnote, I recall, there was not so long ago a candidate right here in Washington who called her followers "prayer warriors" and who swore she would appoint only "Godly people" to her administration.
And most recently, though not spoken by a Presidential candidate, Tom DeLay, the house Republican Whip, speaking about the matter of Gun Control, issued a little piece called, "God not guns" and insisted that "Liberals demagogue tragedies like school shootings to push their left wing agenda. But the big problem in America is not gun ownership. The big problem is the abandonment of God in the pubic arena. In the battle for our culture," he continues, "we all need to understand that you cannot stand up for America - you need to kneel down for America and stand up for God."
What belongs to God? What belongs to Caesar? As Christians, as patriots and partisans we wallow in mixed loyalties. As much or more than any other Western people we confuse what belongs to God with what belongs to Caesar. We tend to confuse our destiny, our history, certainly our cultural and partisan preferences, our international status, our economic good fortune, yes even our military arsenal with God's benign purpose.
And how can we avoid it? Our national fabric fairly reeks of destiny infused with Divine purpose - beginning right in my home town of Boston Massachusetts. As one commentator points out, "John Winthrop was the leader of a total society which he believed to have been brought about by Divine intervention and in which church and state, though different, were closely connected and in which Christianity informed the political as well as the religious structure." And later, our Presidents tend to identify their administrations and leadership with Providential blessings. Just a tiny sample: George Washington insisted in his first thanksgiving proclamation, "It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the Providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits and humbly to implore his protection and favor." Jefferson said he would need the favor of the God, who just as he delivered the Israelites from Egypt so he delivered the citizens on these shores. It was Lincoln who called us "an almost chosen people." Franklin Roosevelt announced in his third inaugural that "as Americans we go forward by the will of God." Dwight Eisenhower honored "the builders of America and their faith in a Provident God who supported and guided them . . . so that the nation they built stands as the worlds mightiest temporal power with its position still rooted in faith and spiritual values." Ronald Regan stood in awe, finding it nearly impossible to capture in words what he finally called the "splendor of this vast continent which God has granted as our portion of creation." And yes, even as he announced to the nation a month or so ago the closing of this Balkan catastrophe, Bill Clinton closed with a benediction, asking us to be proud of our country, proud of the men and women who serve it in uniform, asserting that in Kosovo "we did the right thing, the right way, and we'll finish the job.
Good night and may God bless our wonderful United States of America." Our national public life, you see, is awash in Divine rationale.
And our response? How might we, who are Christian, but also American, approach this matter? I think our passage this morning provides us with a clue. It warn us, "Be careful! Watch out! Easy does it!" Matthew understands the perplexity of divided loyalties and wants us to be alert. He offers not a red flag, but a yellow one; not a stop, but a caution sign. Do we mistake Caesar's will with God's? Danger,! Trouble ahead! Americans have sung to Christ while building empires; we have identified our economic system and much of its ruthless greed with Christian economics; we have wiped out a whole people on this continent and called it manifest destiny. And in these latter days, in God's name, we witness religious crusades against women and the tragic choices they may face during pregnancy; religious crusades against the full humanity and human rights of homosexuals. We see religious crusades push for a religious test of public officials, or stand against men and women of other lands and races, languages and cultures, creeds and colors as something less than children of God. The vulnerable, the powerless, the tragic, the poor, the outsider, the marginalized: we see in our own time religious crusades against the very persons the prophets and our Lord consider the most treasured in the heart of God.
Oh, my friends, we may sing, "God Bless America" - but God judge America too. Let God be transcendent, Almighty, standing not along side, "soccer moms, Seinfeld Reruns and the Stars and Stripes in the American pantheon, but above us, beyond us, showing who we really are, magnifying not some perceived national and divine exceptionalism, but recalling us to responsibility, drawing us out of ourselves, not to honor and empire, but to the way of risk and the Cross in a world already up to its throat with nations bloodied and in chaos as a consequence of chauvinistic, self righteousness and political messianism. Render unto the Emperor what belongs to the Emperor and to God what belongs to God.
And so today we celebrate Independence Day. We are, most of us, Americans. But we are Christians - and Christians first. As we handle the Emperor's contentious coin, we offer our Loyalty first to Christ. This loyalty inevitably drives us to a particular kind of citizenship - citizenship first of all in Christ's domain. It causes friction with Caesar's domain rubbing up against issues of power, money, character, weapons, jobs, human rights, the Global economy, the United Nations. But even more, it means we are citizens of the world, borders irrelevant, brothers and sisters of all God's children. It's a citizenship, no longer defined by national anthem or creeds, but by a universal choice, where finally this contentious coin dissolves and we sing as one global people, that great text of Miriam Therese Winter,
O For a world where everyone respects each others ways
Where love is lived and all is done with justice and with praise
O for a world preparing for God glorious reign of peace,
Where time and tears will be no more and all but love will cease.
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