The difference between Caesar and God

The wisdom to know the difference between compliments and sarcasm can often turn the tables on a verbal attacker. Jesus proved his understanding of this fact in this encounter.

This is one of my favorite accounts in the Bible. It is a put-down so delicately crafted and so devastatingly effective that it ranks as one of the greatest of all time. It must have impressed the early Christians, too, for it found its way almost word for word into Matthew, Mark and Luke. There is reason to believe that what we call the Gospel of Matthew was actually written by an unknown author whom the scholars call Matthew Greek, who used the writings of Mark and Matthew the Apostle, and perhaps others, as a reference. Mark seems to have had access to Matthew's writings or to his sources, or both, so, in a sense, these two Gospels copy from each other. Luke, a physician and pagan convert writing the history of early Christianity for his friend Theophilus, copied from them both, and added results of his own research. All three of these writers thought this account was of sufficient interest to include it verbatim in their accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus.

In Matthew, it follows the story of the king who threw a big wedding feast to which nobody came. In Mark, it follows the parable about the absent landowner whose tenants killed his servants and his son which is pretty much the same story that precedes Luke's version. In all three cases, these parables are thinly veiled condemnations of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and the Herodians. Both groups understood the condemnation full well, and were mortally offended because, among other things, they had no defense. Everybody recognized that they were guilty as charged.

This account is not, however, a parable. It is a literal documentation of a confrontation between Jesus on the one hand, and the Pharisees and Herodians on the other. This was a case of politics making strange bedfellows, because the Pharisees were against Roman taxation and the Herodians were more or less for it, but both were united in their hatred of Jesus and in finding a way to discredit him. As it turned out, they failed utterly.

The flattery with which they tried to "butter up" Jesus was perhaps not so much to catch him off guard as it was to give the crowd of listeners the impression that there were sincere, and to appear conciliatory, on their part, after the humiliation of the previous parables. They were of much higher social and political status than Jesus, which they apparently felt it necessary to point out. But the question they posed to him was deadly. The people deeply resented Roman taxation and anyone (such as Matthew the tax collector) associated with it. If Jesus had said that they should pay the census tax, he would not only have lost credibility, he might have started a riot. Not good for public relations!

But the opposite position was equally as bad. To advocate not paying taxes was sedition, and would have landed him in jail, or worse. Also not good for public relations. (The issue of nonpayment of taxes to Rome became one of the focal points of the First Jewish Revolt (A.D. 66-70) that resulted in the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the temple.)

There is another element here which is much more subtle. To understand it, we have to examine Roman religion, such as it was.

Roman theology was unsophisticated. Like most of Roman daily life, it had developed out of Greek culture. The major Roman gods closely resembled their Greek counterparts. Their names and some of their attributes were changed to suit Roman language and sensibilities. But the Romans also had their minor deities, the gods of the home and farm and storehouse. The concept of god itself was not very well defined, but represented a being somehow not subject to the limitations of mortal men.

Julius Caesar found this looseness of theology a great advantage in consolidating his dictatorship in Rome. Caesar, you will remember, conquered Rome with the army he had organized to defend it against the barbarians, and became king in all but name. Because he was not actually a king, he found it expedient to encourage as a substitute the oriental practice of worshipping the head of state as some kind of god. He even had his home decorated to resemble a temple. His successor, Caesar Augustus, was the emperor at the time of Jesus' birth and the third Caesar, Tiberius, became emperor when Jesus was about 18. At the time of Jesus' public ministry, therefore, the emperor was a recognized deity. Educated Jews found it reasonable to hate him not only as a foreign ruler, but also as a pagan god.

The Herodians might not have realized the significance of this, but the Pharisees certainly should have. To assert that one should pay any kind of homage to Caesar was not only unpopular, it was blasphemous. Both groups would probably have been quick to report Jesus' condemnation of the tax to the authorities, but the Pharisees may well have been ready to declare him a blasphemer if he advocated paying the tax.

So this is one of those, "Have you stopped beating your wife?" questions. There isn't any good answer.

So, Jesus simply doesn't answer it. What he does do is to turn the tables on his enemies so completely that all three evangelists report that they were "amazed," as well they should have been.

Catholics number the Ten Commandments differently than some of our other Christian brothers and sisters. Our Second Commandment against taking the name of the Lord in vain is their Third Commandment, and they combine our Ninth and Tenth Commandments into one that forbids coveting anything belonging to one's neighbor. Their Second Commandment forbids making images of anything or worshipping them, which we find in Exodus 20:4 and Deuteronomy 5:8, where the Ten Commandments come from. In observance of this commandment even today, ultra orthodox Jews do not use coins with images on them. Islam, which, like Christianity also has its roots in ancient Judaism, discourages the making of any kind of image at all! This is why mosques are decorated with elaborate geometric figures, but no pictures, and also why reactionary Muslims consider photography and television profane.

In Jesus' time, one would not be considered irreligious to have a bust or statue of a loved one or a public figure around the house, but a carved image of a pagan god was difficult to square with the prohibition against pagan idols. Yet that is what the Roman coins were. The denarius showed a profile of Caesar, a Roman deity. The image wasn't very good, coin making being what it was, but lest anyone question whose portrait it was, there was also Caesar's name, as Jesus was careful to point out.

Jesus made sure that someone else produced the coin, therefore implicitly demonstrating that it was they, not he, who were carrying the proscribed Roman idols on their very persons. He also seems careful not to touch the profane image himself. Not only that, but he makes sure that everyone knows that the hecklers admit that the image and inscription is Caesar's. This underscores the fact that they not only carry these idols around with them, but that they recognize what they are. Maybe they didn't actually realize that they are images of a pagan god, but after this encounter there can be no doubt that they at least admit the blasphemy, whether they understood it or not.

So there is so much more here than just an injunction to pay one's taxes. In fact the conclusion here is not about taxes at all. It is a demonstration of the difference between the sacred and the profane, the separation of what pertains to Caesar and what belongs to God.

The wisdom to know the difference would keep a lot of Christians out of trouble!

Our Founding Fathers were, generally, people with strong religious convictions. One of the freedoms that they wrote into the Bill of Rights was freedom to worship as they chose, without government restraint or constraint. They defined this freedom very simply:

"...no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States" -Article VI, September 17th, 1787.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." -Amendment I, December 15, 1791.

"I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State..."

They don't have the wisdom to know the difference!

Take Roy Moore, the chief justice of the Alabama supreme court. He essentially turned his government courthouse into a church with a religious monument that attracted hundreds of noisy worshippers in the rotunda, and then absolutely refused to remove it, even when ordered by a federal judge. He claimed that his religion required him to defy federal law!

Maybe so, but the chief justice of any court that calls itself "supreme" ought to be able to distinguish between a secular courthouse and a religious church. Roy Moore lost his job because he didn't have the wisdom to know the difference. He got it back, though, because Alabama voters tend to be good ole' Bible-readin' Christian God-fearin' folks!

"Gay marriage" is currently a politically divisive issue in the US. I don't know what all the hoopla is about. For the record, I'm for gay marriage, which is the lifetime union in love and fidelity between one gay man and one gay woman. I am also in favor of people who love each other to have appropriate legal protection of their relationship regardless of race, creed, color, number, gender, national origin, or previous condition of servitude. "Same sex" marriage is something else again. It was invented by people who gave over to the secular government in the United States authority over one of their few religious sacraments so they could avoid the Christian prohibition against divorce in Matthew 19:6-9 and Mark 10:9. Jesus didn't allow divorce, but civil judges do, so turning over religious functions regarding marriage to the judges (or mayors or ship captains) is now coming back to haunt them.

What did they expect? Judges have to follow civil law, created by government legislators. Catholics are required to follow the law of God, however difficult. We are not permitted to be married by a judge unless he is also a Church representative who makes sure that the whole thing isn't some kind of perverted blasphemy. Such marriages are consecrated by the Church, not by the judge, and, once consummated (with a fellow Christian) (of the opposite gender), are recognized by Catholics as unbreakable, civil divorce notwithstanding.

You will never see two men or two women marrying each other in the Catholic Church, which performs religious ceremonies. Of course, there may (someday) be religions which consider marriage between persons of the same gender a religious act, but Catholicism is not among them. On the other hand, we definitely recognize that gay people have a right to enter into civil unions as an exercise of the same rights as other people have to have a family. I discuss this elsewhere, so I won't do it here. The ceremonies may look the same, but we know the difference!

The US Supreme Court struggled with the problem of defense of the civil rights of people to marry whom they choose, regardless of gender, with respect to the right of people in the business of decorating wedding cakes to exercise their civil right to refuse the artistry involved for what their own brand of religion considers morally repugnant. In this particular instance, the Court ruled in favor of the cake shop, holding that, by failing to act in a manner neutral to religion, the Colorado Civil Rights Commission violated the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

This was, however, a very narrow ruling, based on the specific and unique circumstances of the case. In a similar, but not identical case, the Court sent the question back for a rehearing, demonstrating that such questions are anything but simple. Other such suits are pending.

Another problem is school prayer. Students pray in school all the time, especially before exams. Their right to do so is guaranteed by the First Amendment, and there do not appear to be any cases in which a student has brought suit because he has not been allowed to pray in school. Plenty of them have maintained that they have been required to pray in school, and the Supreme Court has been busy for most of my lifetime trying to promote the wisdom to know the difference between the government allowing someone to pray, which is required, and requiring someone to pray, which is simply not allowed.

Recently John Eaves, a candidate for Governor of Mississippi, campaigned on a platform that included, among other incredibly stupid things, a promise to "bring back voluntary student-led school prayer to Mississippi schools and offer classes on Bible literacy." (I don't make this stuff up, folks. John Eaves made his millions representing foreign interests in lawsuits against the United States.) Imagine, he claimed that if he was elected governor of Mississippi, he would make Mississippi taxpayers liable for thousands, perhaps millions of hard-earned dollars to impose his own, personal religious beliefs on the masses. Most of this money would be paid to his lawyer cronies to lose a suit brought by the ACLU which has already been decided by McCollum v. Board of Education, Engel v. Vitale, Abington School District v. Schempp, Lemon v. Kurtzman, Wallace v. Jaffree, and Santa Fe School District v. Doe.

The scary part of this is that most Mississippi Democrats voted for him in the primary, proving once again that Mississippi still ranks #1 among the 50 states in ignorance (among Democrats, at least).

Catholics have long agreed that "we have an obligation to provide our children with the best education possible. But if our children do not have a moral foundation and if they do not believe they have a responsibility to something greater than themselves, our communities will fail." That's why we established Catholic schools, where we can teach our children what we want, not what the governor wants. We don't depend on "voluntary student-led school prayer" and "classes on Bible literacy," because we don't think that the students know what to say or what the Bible means. That's why they're in school! (DUH) We hire qualified teachers to teach them how to pray and what the Bible says. They don't have to attend if they don't want to.

We know the difference between religion and political posturing!

So do our Episcopalian and Lutheran friends, and they're Protestants! There's an Episcopal and a Lutheran school just down the road from where I live. They don't have a bit of trouble leading prayers in school or studying the Bible. Like us Catholics, they don't try to make the taxpayers pay for it.

They know the difference between "church" and "state!"

It would be interesting to see what would happen in the unlikely event that Mississippi kiddies were forced to say prayers and read the Bible in public school. Some kid might decide to lead a prayer to Satan or Ahura Mazda, for example. Another might say, "Teacher, it says here in Mark 10:11 and 12 that whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery. My dad and mom are both divorced. Does that mean that they're committing adultery?"

The phrase "all hell lets out for lunch" comes to mind!

Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, writing the opinion for McCreary v. ACLU of Kentucky, may have said it best:

"It is true that the Framers lived at a time when our national religious diversity was neither as robust nor as well recognized as it is now. They may not have foreseen the variety of religions for which this Nation would eventually provide a home... We owe our First Amendment to a generation with a profound commitment to religion and a profound commitment to religious liberty - visionaries who held their faith 'with enough confidence to believe that what should be rendered to God does not need to be decided and collected by Caesar.'"

- Sandra Day O'Connor, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, McCreary v. ACLU of Kentucky, 2004

Surely Jesus understood that paying taxes "to Caesar" would support not only the peace and order imposed on conquered nations by the Roman Peace, the Pax Romana, but also the atrocities committed by the same Romans. This included his own crucifixion for a crime of which he would be, in fact, adjudged "not guilty" by Pontius Pilate, the legal jurisdiction. As a conquered subject of Rome, Jesus had no authority to intervene in Roman administration, but he no doubt realized that it was appropriate to be subject "to every human ordnance of man", whether it be to the king as supreme or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the approval of those who do good, for it is the will of God that by doing good he might silence the ignorance of foolish people, and that a moral obligatory part of this submission was to pay his taxes.

Today we live in a world of amorphous moral reality, in which few, if any, good deeds are undertaken without some taint of evil intent or result. For example, virtually all large charitable organizations support abortion or use of artificial birth control, which the Catholic finds morally objectionable. Some of them promote beliefs at odds with other Catholic teaching as well. But for a contributor personally to be guilty of such associated evils, they must be foreseeable and the contributor must have the possibility of avoiding them. This is rarely the case in practice. Contribution to helping the poor or improving anyone's quality of life is good in itself, even if some of those involved in this endeavor undertake other activities to which we, with our admittedly different light, object. I say if the probable good outweighs the potential evil involved, go for it! Who wants other poor people to starve to death because he is against their use of condoms, Jesus or the Devil? If the Sabbath is the only time one might encounter a crippled man, it is lawful to cure him then (Mark 3:1-5). It is always good to do good!

It would probably be nice if everyone could live in a world in which everyone believed the same things that he did. But our world is not like that. Sometimes we just have to put up with stuff, and it helps to have the wisdom to know the difference between what is important and what is trivial, what one must avoid, and what one is forced to endure, whether it is on one side or the other of the "wall of separation between church and state."

There is a prayer that begins, "Lord, give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference!" I would add, "...the humility to mind my own business, and the good sense to leave well enough alone!" but this prayer illustrates the Christian, Jewish and Muslim belief that salvation is wrought not only by believing and doing, but also by enduring. The Church has always believed and taught that suffering patiently borne is ennobling, for it unites us more closely to Christ, and makes us more sympathetic to our suffering fellow sojourners in this "valley of tears."

A similar philosophy is shared by our Muslim brothers and sisters. The fundamental principle of Islam is that one achieves sanctity by surrendering to the will of God (the One and Only). "Islam," in fact, is an Arabic word which literally means "surrender." All those things that real, devout, educated Muslims believe and do, with which some Christians find it difficult to agree, are essentially means of subordinating one's own will to the will of God, the All-Wise, Beneficent and Merciful.

No matter how hard we try to eliminate evil from our lives, stuff happens, and we just have to put up with it. Death and taxes are evils we have to accept, and if we do it with courage and faith, we work out not only our own salvation, but also the salvation of all those of good will who look to us as examples of how to live a godly life, no matter how we define the concept of "godly."

So the dichotomy between Caesar and God reminds us to keep our priorities straight and our eyes on the prize, and not to waste our time trying to change things we can do nothing about. To fulfill our destiny as Christians, it is not enough to work to eliminate the evils over which we have control, or even to endure those over which we do not.

It is also necessary to develop the wisdom to know the difference.

John Lindorfer