The Political Controversies of Jesus: Faceoff With the Pharisees and Herodians Luke 20:20-26 Englewood Baptist Church Sunday morning, Nov.

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1 The Political Controversies of Jesus: Faceoff With the Pharisees and Herodians Luke 20:20-26 Englewood Baptist Church Sunday morning, Nov. 28, 2010 When I was a boy, I would dream about the idea of catching an animal in a trap. I always had this child-like fantasy of standing behind a tree with a long string connected to that stick, which propped up the cage. I would wait silently as I chewed beef jerky and propped my shoulder against the oak tree. I would exercise the patience of a deer hunter and wait for that raccoon or squirrel to catch wind of the carefully laid bait. That critter would cautiously tread upon the grass, and then look both ways before proceeding. He would follow his nose to my well-constructed contraption. It would be the perfect ambush, a terrific trap. In Luke 20, Jesus is facing several groups that have conspired together to lay the perfect trap. These men hate each other, but they hate Jesus more, and they fear what will happen if he continues his campaign. His popularity was waxing; their pull with the people was waning. Something had to be done. Option 1: murder. They could always kill him, but this method seemed so uncivil and outdated. That s what they did to the prophets centuries ago. There had to be a more respectable way to destroy him. Option 2: frame him. Now this trap had some merit. If they could somehow paint him into a political corner, then they could tar and feather him. If they could just get him cut down Caesar and oppose the government of Rome. That would do it! Rome was extremely tolerant of religious groups, but rebellion was handled with cold steel across the neck. This was their tactic. Force Jesus to speak against Caesar. It was a political trap that they spent hours dreaming about. And so the background is provided in Luke 20:20. Now the question is: who are they? Who are these people who are watching him closely and pretending to be honest. Right here is a perfect reason why God gave us 4 gospel accounts. Each writer tells the same story and provides unique depth and insight to the event. Mark says this in his account: Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus. Mark 3:6 Now don t miss this! Let me tell you about these two political parties. Who were the Pharisees? Religious Nationalists

2 Were waiting for a messianic Jewish king to arrive and overthrow the government Had high hopes for the State of Israel They hated the Romans and their minted coins They detested the idea of paying taxes to a pagan ruler Would have been regarded among the Jews as Conservative and Right- Wing Who were the Herodians? Jews that had sided with Rome (The old saying, If you can t beat em, join em this was the mindset of these people. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. They snuggled up with Rome) Were regarded as sell-outs to the Roman rulers Would have been labeled Liberal and Left-Wing I say all this so that you can understand how crazy it was for them to sit in a room together and craft a common vision. Their parties had no overlapping platform. As Greg Thornbury would say, They had Zippy the Donut in common. But they did find agreement on one basic thing: Jesus was a serious and immediate threat to their politic agendas. If they didn t take him down, neither one of them would ever hold the microphone. With that knowledge look at what happens in the text. These snakes send spies and v.21 reveals Jesus smooth escape from their perfect trap Read Luke 20: I want you to notice, first and foremost, how these fakers perfume their speech with flattery. I love what Kent Hughes says about this. His commentary is so colorful: Flattery is the reverse mirror-image of gossip. Gossip involves saying behind a person s back what you would never say to his face. Flattery is saying to a person s face what you would never say behind his back. How ingratiating their language was like puffs from a perfume bottle: (squeeze) Teacher, you re always right. (squeeze) Preacher, you don t play favorites. You show us the true way. How sweet it seemed! --R. Kent Hughes, Preaching the Word Commentary Of course, Jesus had a knack for smelling a rat. The stench of their flattery went soaring through his nostrils. V. 23 says, He saw through their duplicity. Let me stop and make a note on the danger of evil speech. My fellow preachers and I spend many a Sunday condemning the practice of gossip, and we should. Gossip is murderous at the root. We want to destroy someone by muddying their name and character. And let me just say this. I m not going to win friends here, but this is truth. It is wrong for any politician to seek to win a campaign by tearing down the name and

3 character of his opponent. Whatever happened to a man winning an office by virtue and by introducing wise solutions for society s ills. What has our country come to when our best men spend their one minute on the microphone calling their opponent names and dragging their name through the mud? Do you know what that is? That is a spirit of vengence, and God stands against a vengeful spirit. Vengence is mine, he says. We should not murder men with our tongues. Gossip is wrong. But on the flip side of gossip is a more subtle form of sin: it is called flattery. Let me tell you what the Bible says about this: A lying tongue hates those it hurts, and a flattering mouth works ruin. Prov. 26:28 Whoever flatters his neighbor is spreading a net for his feet Prov. 29:5 Flattery is a form of deception. It is the act of dressing a lie in fine clothes, and Jesus would not allow the net to catch up his feet. He went on the offense and threw a question back on the table. They asked him, in v.22, Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not? And in true rabbinical fashion, Jesus returns a question with a question. V. 24, Whose image is inscribed upon the coin? Show the image of the coin. Now let me tell you about this coin. A denarius coin was made of 3.8 grams of silver. One side of this coin bore the head of Caesar with these appalling words: Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus, Augustus. This coin presented an earthly man as a god-sized figure and this coin was the exact amount that had to be paid by all adult men and women for the privilege of existing. This was price of breathing Caesar s air. You paid the tax with the coin that bore his image. So Jesus says, Anybody got a coin? And he held in his hand a piece of money that was a direct contradiction of the Second Commandment against graven images. As he held it, the Pharisees took a deep breath and they knew that he was about to fall upon his own sword and suggest that Caesar was an abomination. The silence had to be deafening as Jesus turned the coin over in his sweaty hand and weighed his words scrupulously. Whose picture is this? He asked. And the Pharisees said through clenched teeth, Caesar s. The Herodians spoke through a sell-out smile, Caesar. And this next sound byte of Jesus becomes one of the most profound and shaping statements that he ever spoke on the subject of religion and culture. Then give to Caesar what is Caesar s, and to God what is God s.

4 If you are here today and you are a lawyer, you have got to marvel at the wit of that wisdom! Jesus destroys their case with a single comment. And not only that, he shapes culture for centuries to come. Let s talk about The Profound Implications of Jesus Political Speech It wasn t a long speech, but in a single statement, Jesus says a lot. 1. Give to Caesar what is Caesar s. --There is a good purpose for politics and government. What Jesus implies here is the necessity of human government. The institution of government is a form of God s grace. Without the State, people run wild and society has no spine or sense of order. Like the book of Judges describes, each man does what is right in his own eyes. That is a recipe for anarchy. Are there abuses in the government? Sure there are, but Jesus says that a poorly run government is better than no government at all. The State is valid, even when it is controlled by a man who thinks he is God. And writes it on a coin, son of a Divine. So what does this mean for us today? Two passages I want to point your eyes to. The first one is this. Roman 13, Paul writes: Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. Romans 13:1-2 Let me break that down for you. Sometimes I drive on roads that have ridiculous speed limits. 30 mph? Here? Seriously? This is 4 lane, not a child in sight. How can the government expect me to travel so slowly? They must have more time than I do, because this is restricting my productive nature. And yet, I may not like the law, but my role is not to rebel against it. My role is to joyfully submit to my authorities. Because they are perfect and always right? No. Because they are established by God. Now, I can seek to have those laws changed in a civil way, but I cannot kick up dust and scream about it. Another passage Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, 12 so that your daily life may win the

5 respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. 1 Thess. 4:11-12 Paul says to Christians: Don t be a loud-mouth know-it-all. Instead, be respectful. Pray for those who govern, and seek to win their respect by hard work and honest living. And don t expect the government or anybody else to pay your way. Work with your hands and live exemplary lives as citizens. That s what it means to be salt and light in your community. The goal here, of course, is that those lost people who rule over us will eventually come to this conclusion: If this city had more Christians, it would be a far better place to live. What the world needs more of are these Jesus people. That s what we want them to say. Jesus says, Give to Caesar what is Caesar s. There is a place and a good purpose for the government. Now, before I move on to the second half of that profound sound byte, let me offer one important caveat. This is an excellent question and one that Christians may have to face in the future: Is it ever right to rebel against human government? The short answer to that is Yes. Christians can resist the government when asked to violate a clear command of God. In Acts 4-5, the disciples are arrested for preaching the gospel and they are ordered to never teach in the name of Jesus again. Of course, the disciples were prepared to die for the Gospel and they said, We must obey God rather than men (5:28,29). They did not obey the government, and it was the right choice. I hope I never have to make that choice. I hope my children never have to make that choice. But the Bible says that there are some hills worth dying on, and God s Word is one of those hills. Now, let s go back to Luke 20, and let s consider the second half of Jesus statement. Give to Caesar what is Caesar s, yes. But here is the bigger part of that equation. Give to God what is God s. 2. Give To God What Is God s? --There is a higher purpose for our lives than earthly politics. Jesus just sailed higher than Democrats or Republicans or Pharisees or Herodians. This command transcends all forms of human government as human beings have an accountability to their Creator. Jesus says, One day you will have to pay up that God and the thought of that event should soak up the majority of one s thoughts. Jesus just put Caesar in his place, without speaking a single word against him. How did he do that? Let me show you. The coin belonged to Caesar because it bore his image. In

6 the same way, human being belong to God because He has put His name and face on us. The Creator has seen fit to put people in a place of authority on the Earth. Look at Psalm 8 with me: 4 5 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. Psalm 8:3-5 There is a sanctity to human life that men must consider. God didn t have to do it, but He chose by His mercy to crown human beings with glory and honor. You have the face of God inscribed upon you and you belong to him. He has total ownership. And this is why the Bible says, God loves a cheerful giver. God loves it when you think it s hilarious to offer him money. As if God needed your coins. God asks you to share your coins with him! Ha! This is like the little boy who is asked to share his gigantic Lego set with his little brother. He turns to his sibling and hands him the smallest single block and says, Here. It s yours. He clearly doesn t understand what it means to share. And when God puts his stamp on you and says The earth is mine and the fullness thereof, He is implying that there is a far greater response than coinage. He wants more than my money, He wants the whole thing. God wants me. And this is why Jesus joined no political party. Because Jesus didn t come the first time to create the perfect government. He didn t come to unite people in Parliament. He didn t come to set society finally straight. Jesus came to die for those who bore His name. The Old Uncle Sam poster proclaimed, I want YOU and that white-bearded man sought your military service. Jesus came to the Earth for a much higher purpose than political power. He didn t come to enlist you. He came to free you, and to take your place on the tree of death. He came to set the Pharisees free and the Herodians as well. Look now at the final scene of this faceoff. V.26, They were unable to trap him in what he said there in public. And astonished by his answer, they became silent. And I must tell you today that one day soon, all people will see Christ with all the power of the universe in his hand, and they will not gather to debate government reform! They will be stand before God s Son, the future righteous ruler, and the mouths of men will be muzzled! And it won t matter what political party pin was pasted on your shirt. It won t matter if your nation was mighty or small. It won t matter if your flag had stars or stripes or moons or diamonds. At that moment, only one truth matters. Did you give God your

7 very soul? Did you love Christ with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. Have you handed everything over to Him?