Sermon Tone Analysis
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Prayer:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Introduction
The Trap
Tell, me teacher, is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?
This is certainly a loaded question asked of Jesus and a no win one for him.
It was designed by the Pharisees with the aid of the Herodians to entrap Jesus.
The seriousness of this attack is shown by the fact that the Pharisees and the Herodians combined to make it.
Normally these two parties were in bitter opposition.
The Pharisees were the supremely orthodox, who resented the payment of the tax to a foreign king as an infringement of the divine right of God.
The Herodians were the party of Herod, king of Galilee, who owed his power to the Romans and who worked hand in glove with them.1
If Jesus answered no, then he would be in trouble with the Romans.
If he said yes, he would be in trouble with the Jews who did not want to pay taxes to the government who had conquered them.
Jesus did not respond in the way they had hoped or expected.
He simply asked to see a coin used to pay the tax and asked whose image was on the coin.
The coin produced had an image of Tiberias Caesar, the Roman emperor at that time and Jesus said, give to the emperor the things that are the emperor's and to God the things that are God's.
What things are the emperors?
There is some irony in Jesus saying, "give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's", because many in Jesus' day thought that Caesar was a god.
So, if a Roman heard Jesus' response he would have probably thought the two are one in the same.
A Jew, on the other hand, knows that all things belong to the one true God and that God raises up ruler.
But what Jesus is saying here is that some things belong to the emperor and some things belong to God.
He is sort of saying you have two masters.
In tension with this is something that Jesus said earlier in Matthew's gospel.
There Jesus taught that no one can serve two masters.
He said that anyone who tries will hate one and love the other or be devoted to one and despise the other.
He concluded by saying "You cannot serve God and wealth."
(Matthew 6:24).
Nonetheless, give to the emperor the things that are the emperor's.
What things belong to the emperor?
Jesus didn't actually say, but it seems pretty clear that money belongs to the emperor.
In the ancient days coinage was the sign of kingship.
As soon as a king came to the throne he struck his own coinage; even a pretender would produce a coinage to show the reality of his kingship; and that coinage was held to be the property of the king whose image it bore.
What else belongs to the emperor or the government?
The Bible tells us that authority belongs to the government and that we are subject to that authority.
In the book of Romans we read, Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God.
Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.
(Romans 13:1-2).
Our first lesson from Isaiah's writings, speaks of Cyrus the Persian king whom the Lord raised up to restore Israel.
It was he who gave orders for the rebuilding of the Temple at Jerusalem (2 Ch 36:23; Ezr 1:2; 5:13; 6:3), restored the vessels of the House of the Lord which Nebuchadnezzar had taken away (Ezr 1:7).
Nebuchadnezzar was the Babylonian king whom God had raised up to carry Israel into captivity.
Double Citizenship
It has been said that every Christian has a double citizenship.
Christians are citizens of the country in which they happen to live.
To it they owe many things.
There is the safety against lawlessness which only settled government can give and all public services.
Few are wealthy enough to have a electricity, gas, water, or a sewer systems of their own.
These are public services.
Further, there are services such as education, medical services, provision for unemployment and old age.
For these things we are under a debt of obligation.
Because Christians are honorable, they must be a responsible citizens.
Failure in good citizenship is also a failure in Christian duty.
Untold troubles can descend upon a country or an industry when Christians refuse to take their part in the administration and leave it to selfish, self-seeking, partisan, and unchristian men.
The Christians have a duty to Caesar in return for the privileges which the rule of Caesar brings to them.
But the Christian is also a citizen of heaven.
There are matters of religion and of principle in which the responsibility of the Christian is to God.
It may well be that the two citizenships will never clash; they do not need to.
But when the Christian is convinced that it is God's will that something should be done, it must be done; or, if he is convinced that something is against the will of God, he must resist it and take no part in it.
Where the boundaries between the two duties lie, Jesus does not say.
That is for each of us to test.
But a real Christian--and this is the permanent truth which Jesus here lays down--is at one and the same time a good citizen of his country and a good citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven.
He will fail in his duty neither to God nor to man.
He will, as Peter said, "Fear God.
Honor the emperor" (1 Pet.
2:17).
What things are God's?
What things are God's?
Before you go to bed tonight, I want you to take a close look at yourself in the mirror.
Look at the area of your forehead and see in you can see the marking of the cross that was placed there when you were baptized.
In baptism we place the sign of the cross and say, "you are marked with the sign of the cross forever."
Each of us who have been baptized have received the mark of God, the cross, therefore, render to God what is God's.
You have God's mark, and you are God's.
On a coin we see the mark of the emperor, which today we call the president or someone important to American history.
The coin belongs to the government so render to the government the things that are the government's.
But because all things belong to God, the coins also belong to God.
Some coins go to the government to support the work of the government and some coins go to do the work of God.
In the time of Jesus and in our time there were laws and penalties for not paying taxes.
When we give to the government we give from the head out of a sense of duty, legal obligation or even fear.
When we give to God, we give from the heart out of a sense of love and compassion and trust.
Danny Thomas
The late Danny Thomas was once on hard times.
He was out of work.
He and his wife, Rosie, had a baby on the way, and they needed money.
Danny worked at part-time jobs so Rosie could buy groceries.
He also borrowed money from friends.
It was a tough time in his life.
A week before the baby was born, Danny had the grand total of seven dollars and eighty-five cents to his name.
What would he do?
"My despair led me to my first exposure to the powers of faith," Danny would later recall.
On Sunday morning Danny went to church.
When the offering plate was passed he put in his "usual one dollar."
But something unexpected happened that day.
A special missions offering was taken.
The priest explained where the mission offering would go, and Danny felt he had to give something.
"I got carried away," Danny said, "and ended up giving my seven dollars."
He had given away all his money that Sunday.
What in the world had he done?
He walked up to the altar rail, got on his knees and prayed aloud.
"Look, I've given my last seven bucks," he prayed.
"I need it back tenfold because I've got a kid on the way, and I have to pay the hospital bill."
He went home with a mere eighty-five cents in his pocket--all the money he had in the world.
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