The Emperor's Contentious Coin

Sermon by James W. Crawford

November 3, 1996

Matthew 22:15-22

Last Wednesday, the retired Catholic archbishop of New Orleans, Philip Hannan, held a news conference. In that conference he declared it "a sin" for any Catholic to vote for Mary Landrieu for Senator or Bill Clinton for President because of their views on abortion. Conversely, he implied that a vote for Robert Dole for President and Woody Jenkins, as one commentator remarks, "arguably the most far-right senatorial candidate of 1996"--the Archbishop implied a vote for Dole and Jenkins would be in line with the will of God. The Catholic Bishops have since disavowed Archbishop Hannan's remarks, but Catholic Louisiana is up in arms. Although most respondents agreed with the Archbishop's outspoken perspective on abortion, many of them were infuriated by what one woman called, "the church's entering the voting booth." This particular woman, according to a column in yesterday's New York Times, added a magic-marker blurb to the bottom of a sign plugging Ms. Landrieu's election: "We're for Mary Landrieu," it said, "and we're Catholic."

Do religion and politics 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 others--so do you--who refuse to attend church because the common life of the church avoids the real world, a real world immersed in politics. And indeed, one wise observer, mixing religion and politics, contemplating the choices we face on Tuesday, remarked, "If there were a merciful God, he could never have thrown us into such an election." This campaign turned him into an atheist!

 The issues of religion and politics, church and state, the sovereignty of the Emperor, as our passage has it, or the sovereignty of God, face us all the time. They involve questions of priority, they touch our deepest loyalties, they compel our toughest 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.

I

The New Testament knows our dilemma well. Indeed, on this matter of faith and politics the three 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 one another. But Jesus threatens each of them more than they threaten each other, 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 for you that perplexes us: Ought we to pay taxes to the Roman Emperor?" See the crunch? If Jesus replies, "Yes, of course you pay your 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 dead.

So how does Jesus respond? How wiggle 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 even better, as the RSV puts it: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's."

Ever since Jesus said that, we have been trying to figure out just what belongs to God 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. We are always handling this contentious coin. This current election shows as much as anything our dilemma. We see it when President Clinton gets up in Newark's New Hope Baptist Church and presses its congregation, ostensibly, get out and vote. We see it as The Rev. Jesse Jackson stands next to Bill Clinton and introduces him to enthusiastic African-American congregations in Chicago, or nominates him for president in San Diego. We see it when Al Gore shows up in a Buddhist Temple to do some fund raising, or as he visits the New Zion Baptist Church in Louisville, KY, to assure its congregation that he and the President stand with them amid the terror of their burning churches. We catch the implications of the dilemma as Bob Dole diverts his car to the Lincoln Memorial, walks with his wife halfway up the steps, and under the eyes of the brooding Lincoln, as Dole describes it, reflects about America and about the Republican Party and has "a word or two of silent prayer..." We note the dilemma when Ralph Reed, the executive director of a political association called the Christian Coalition, predicts that religious conservatives will reelect the first Republican Congress in 60 years. We see it when Jack Kemp insists "The School Systems of American should post the Ten Commandments on every bulletin Board." It is evident when a major party candidate for the Governor of Washington calls her followers, "prayer warriors" and swears she will appoint only "Godly people" to her administration.

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 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 here in 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. As just a very 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 in the service of our country 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 world's mightiest temporal power with its position still rooted in faith and spiritual values." And Ronald Reagan stood in awe, finding it impossible to capture in words the "splendor of this vast continent which God has granted as our portion of creation." And there is more. Our currency affirms "In God we trust." Our pledge to the flag asserts we are a nation, "under God, indivisible." Herman Melville captures the ethos many of us live with when he wrote: "We Americans are the peculiar chosen people--the Israel of our time; we bear the ark of the liberties of the world. . .Long enough have we been skeptics with regard to ourselves and doubted whether, indeed, the political Messiah had come. But he has come in us, if we would but give uttering to his promptings. And let us always remember that with our selves, almost for the first time in the history of the earth, national selfishness is unbounded philanthropy; for we cannot do good to America but we give alms to the world." And according to a survey described in yesterday's Times, this unique universal mission continues to be claimed by a vast majority of our fellow citizens. Our national public life, you see, is awash in divine rationale.

And our response? How might we, who are Christian and also American, approach this matter? I think our passage this morning gives us a clue. It warns us: Be careful! Watch out! Easy does it! Matthew understands the perplexity of divided loyalties, and warns us 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? 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 whole peoples 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 have to face in pregnancy; religious crusades against the full humanity and human rights of homosexuals. We see religious crusades pushing for a religious test for public officials, or standing 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 consider the most treasured in the heart of God.

Oh, my friends, we may sing "God bless America" from time to time, but God judge America too; let God be transcendent, Almighty, standing not alongside "soccer moms," "Seinfeld," and "the stars and stripes" in the American pantheon, but above us, beyond us, showing us who we really are, magnifying not some perceived national and divine exceptionalism, but recalling us to responsibility. For, it is true, to whomever has been given much, of them much is required--drawing us out of ourselves, not to honor and empire, but to the way of risk and the Cross in a world already crammed to its throat with nations bloodied and in chaos as a consequence of chauvinistic, self righteousness and political messianism. Render to the Emperor what belongs to the Emperor and to God what belongs to God.

III

Just one closing word. On Tuesday we go to the polls. We go first as Christians who happen to be Americans. As we handle the Emperor's contentious coin, we offer our loyalty first to Christ. That loyalty drives us to engagement with issues of power, money, character, weapons, jobs, civil rights, the global economy, the United Nations. Out of the murk, the tug and pull of interests, some semblance of the dreams for a just, humane and peaceful human community may work themselves out. As we prepare for this election we need be careful not to confuse our own personal or national self interest with God's. Someday, I suspect, we may understand, as looking through glass darkly, Providence working through the frailty, illusions, good intentions and corrupt ambitions of the candidates and of ourselves. As loyalists to the cause of Christ we dare join this election, I believe, because we dare sing:

God the all Provident!
 By your great chastening, earth shall see freedom
 and truth holding sway;
Through the thick chaos your reign is still hastening;
You will give peace in your time, we pray.

How about it? Pay taxes to Caesar? You decide. And give therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.