Matthew 22:15-22 15 Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. 16 So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. 17 Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not? 18 But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? 19 Show me the coin used for the tax. And they brought him a denarius. 20 Then he said to them, Whose head is this, and whose title? 21 They answered, The emperor s. Then he said to them, Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor s, and to God the things that are God s. 22 When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away. 1
10.19.2014 Heads I Win, Tails You Lose One of the things I enjoy about working in this church is the chance to interact with the other associate pastors. The way I communicate with them varies depending on their fluency with English. A few of the pastors speak English really well, and we can have in-depth conversations. A few speak almost no English at all, and so the burden falls on me to use my improving but still very limited Korean. Sometimes it s like playing charades, as we act out with our hands what we can t say with our lips. And then there are a handful of pastors who fall somewhere in between; they know about as much English as I do Korean, and so our conversations are a mixture of the two languages. The funny thing is: in these conversations I speak to them in Korean and they speak to me in English. We each make an honest effort. One of the pastors who falls into the last category has asked me to teach him some English idioms. An idiom is an expression that cannot be understood from the meaning of its separate words but that has a meaning of its own. I learned one Korean idiom this summer. This will come as a surprise to no one, but if you ve ever been to a restaurant and ordered jjgae you know that Koreans like it served hot somewhere between the temperature of molten lava and the surface of the sun. Even on a hot summer day Koreans still eat a steaming bowl of jjigae. I was told that the reason for that is 이열치열, or in English, fight heat with heat. You fight the heat of the day with the heat of the jjigae. The concept doesn t make sense to me in the summer I ll stick with mul naeng myun, thank you, but there it is. I m sure the Korean language has many more idioms, but English has more than you can shake a stick at. Shake a stick at. Yes, that in itself is an idiom [SLIDE]. You may not have noticed that idiom because it came out of the blue. Perhaps I jumped the gun. I hope it didn t rub you the wrong way. If it did, I may have to pay the piper. 2
As for the pastor who wants to learn English idioms, so far I have taught him two: It s raining cats and dogs, which describes a heavy rain, and to be dog tired, which means to be extremely tired, and which probably comes from the fact that dogs sleep about 20 hours a day. Those were the first two idioms that came to my mind, perhaps because I have two dogs. I m thinking of next teaching the pastor the idioms sick as a dog, let sleeping dogs lie, and every dog has his day. That way I could give him the impression that every English idiom involves dogs. I m talking about idioms today because the Scripture passage reminds me of an idiom: Heads I win, tails you lose [SLIDE]. Heads and tails refer to the two sides of an American coin. Normally, when flipping a coin to decide an outcome the arrangement is heads I win, tails you win. That gives both sides a 50% chance of winning. But someone who thinks they are clever may try to slip past you the phrase heads I win, tails you lose. This means that they ve arranged it so that whichever way the coin lands, they will win and you will lose. So the idiom describes a situation in which someone is set up to fail. That is how the Pharisees approach Jesus in today s passage. They have conspired a way to entrap him with words. They think they have come up with a question that he will have no good answer to. They can imagine only two answers, either of which will put Jesus at a disadvantage. Jesus, of course, answers them in a way that they could not have imagined. But before we get to Jesus response, let s take a look at what brought the Pharisees to want to challenge Jesus in the first place. We often think of the Pharisees as the men in black hats, the villains, the bad guys who are out to get Jesus. But we should remember that the Pharisees were the religious establishment. They were the defenders of orthodoxy. And they didn t take kindly to this Jesus person who was constantly challenging their authority, which he did as soon as he arrived in Jerusalem [SLIDE]. 3
Shortly before today s passage, at the beginning of chapter 21, Jesus enters Jerusalem. The Pharisees immediately see him as a threat. First, he is greeted like a hero, with people waving palm branches and shouting Hosanna to the Son of David! The Pharisees likely look upon the crowd s welcome with a mixture of envy and outrage. Who does this man think he is? What authority does he claim? We are the religious authorities! Their outrage soon turns to outright rage when they see Jesus clear the Temple of those who were buying and selling animals for sacrifice. How dare he disrupt the system that has served them so well! After the Temple incident Jesus tells a series of parables that are clearly aimed at the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. The one he tells just before our passage today concerns a wedding banquet that a king wishes to throw for his son. However, none of the invited guests show, so the king tells his servant to bring in strangers off the street. The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy, the king says. The Pharisees know that Jesus is talking about them that the king is God, that the ungrateful guests who are not worthy are the Pharisees, and that the uneducated crowds who follow Jesus crowds filled with sinners are those whom God brings into his fellowship. That does it! The Pharisees have had enough of this Jesus of Nazareth! They determine to put an end to his questioning of their authority and his calling out their hypocrisy. They need to find a way to stop him. And they think they have come upon it. The Pharisees devise a question to entrap Jesus. What better way to stop him than to force him to publicly choose between two terrible options? This is the dilemma they devise. They will force Jesus to choose between Rome and Israel, between the authority of the emperor and the plight of his own people. Either he will side with the emperor and therefore anger the people, who are forced to pay a tax they despise, or he will side with Israel and show himself to be an enemy of Rome and subject to arrest. 4
The Pharisees will ask the question innocently enough. They will even show deference to Jesus [SLIDE]. Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with the truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality (Matt. 22:17). There s a word in English that describes the Pharisees insincere flattery of Jesus. Because we re in church, I ll just give you the abbreviation B-S! First of all, the Pharisees don t believe for a minute that Jesus teaches the way of God in accordance with the truth. If they did, they wouldn t be upset with him for clearing the Temple or for the content of his parables. Second, in saying that Jesus does not regard people with partiality they show that they don t at all understand his ministry. Jesus has clearly demonstrated partiality throughout his ministry partiality for the poor, for widows, children, tax collectors, the blind, the lame, and for victims of self-righteous religious authorities namely, the Pharisees. That the Pharisees don t see this just shows their blindness to the reality of the kingdom of God that Jesus brings with him. After the Pharisees think they have softened Jesus up, they deliver what they believe to be the fatal blow [SLIDE]: Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not? (22:17). The question is designed for Jesus to incriminate himself no matter how he answers. If Jesus says, Yes, it is lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, then he comes across as an apologist for the Romans, who are occupiers of Jewish land and conquerors of the Jewish people. The fact that Jews must pay a tax to the Romans is humiliating. Whatever favor Jesus has with the people will be lost if he sides with Rome. But the other option is no better, and perhaps even worse. If Jesus answers, No, it is not lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, then he will show himself to be an enemy of Rome. And remember who the Pharisees have brought with them the Herodians. Not much is known of this group. They are mentioned just once in the Gospel of Matthew, but their name provides a clue. The Herodians are named for Herod Antipas. Herod Antipas was the Jewish ruler of Galilee, which is the region of northern Israel where Jesus conducted much of his ministry. 5
Although Herod was Jewish, he was appointed to rule by Rome. Herod would not soon forget that fact because the name of his capital city, Tiberius, also happened to be the name of the current emperor. So the Pharisees have brought with them these Herodians, who will be quick to respond to any challenge to the emperor s rule. And this is where the story gets personal, and where Jesus brilliance and boldness come to light. He asks for a coin. Not surprisingly, Jesus is not carrying any money with him. Equally unsurprising, one of the Pharisees quickly reaches into his own purse and pulls out a coin. The coin is a denarius, which was equal to one day s wage for a common laborer. The heads side of a denarius would have featured the head of the emperor himself, Tiberius, as seen in this photo [SLIDE]. Jesus takes the coin, but he isn t interested in a coin flip heads or tails. Instead, he is going to flip the script on the Pharisees by answering their question in a way they did not imagine. Just as a good lawyer will only ask a witness a question that he already knows the answer to, Jesus asks the Pharisees whose head appears on the coin. Why, the emperor s of course, the Pharisees say, unsure of where Jesus is leading them. Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor s, and to God the things that are God s (22:21). Wait a minute! No fair the Pharisees must be thinking. That is not one of the two answers they were expecting [SLIDE]. As verse 22 records, When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away. Game over. The Pharisees, knowing they ve been defeated, walk away in silence. But why? What in Jesus answer was so amazing that the Pharisees could not manage to respond? And what do we learn from this? The Pharisees tried to force Jesus into a false choice: Do you side with the emperor or with the people? But Jesus rejects their premise. As verse 18 says, he is aware of their malice their evil intent. The Pharisees have no particular love for the emperor, but to maintain their position 6
of authority over the people they make peace with Roman authority, for that is where political power lies with Rome. Nor do the Pharisees show any particular love for the Jewish people and the cause of Jewish independence from Rome. To do so they would risk losing their authority, and that is not something they want to risk. So their only interest is forcing Jesus to incriminate himself. That s why the choice they present to him is a false one. Jesus rejects the premise of their question a choice between the emperor and the people. He chooses neither. Jesus first priority is not to Rome or to the people but to God. Notice that the Pharisees, who are known for their study and application of God s law, exclude God from their question. As they see it, the question they pose to Jesus can have only one of two answers: Jesus can side with Rome or with the people. God does not factor into the question. But Jesus answers the question from an entirely unexpected angle. He does not take the bait. He is not interested in whether the Roman tax is fair or just. That s because Jesus has not come to lead a political movement against the might of Rome, as some of even his own disciples wanted him to do. The Jews had a history of revolting against oppressive Roman taxation, but that is not a battle that Jesus came to fight. Yet Jesus does offer resistance [SLIDE]. In saying, Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor s, Jesus is actually making a striking claim against the emperor. He is saying, in effect, the emperor s reach is limited. He can reach into our purses and lay claim to our coins, but he cannot reach into our hearts and claim our love and our worship. Those belong to God alone. The Romans would have thought otherwise. That denarius that Jesus is holding, which bears an image of the emperor s head, also would have had an inscription that read: TIBERIUS CAESAR, SON OF THE DIVINE AUGUSTUS. Augustus is a title that means illustrious one. Illustrious literally means shining brightly. The emperor shines more brightly, not like a human but like the stars in the heavens. 7
Augustus, then, is a religious title. It also happens to be the name taken by Octavian, the first Roman emperor and the father of Tiberius. Thus, the inscription claims that the emperor is the son of a god. To that Jesus says, Nonsense! Well, not literally. He doesn t actually say the word, but that is the message behind his words, Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor s. And what might those things be? Some worthless coins. That s all they are. Let the emperor have his worthless coins, is in effect, what Jesus is saying. What Jesus is doing is applying a lesson that he already taught the disciples in the Sermon on the Mount, which appears earlier in the Gospel of Matthew [SLIDE]: 19 Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (19:20-21). And speaking of our heart, that is one of the things that belongs to God, as do our soul and our mind [SLIDE]. Later in the Gospel of Matthew Jesus will be asked, again by a Pharisee, Which commandment in the law is greatest? He responds, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind (22:37). Love the Lord your God. Our love that is what belongs to God. So give to the emperor the things that are the emperor s. Give him what? this molded metal, these lifeless pieces of silver and give to God the things that are God s namely, our love, our imperfect but full-bodied love, a love that is expressed through heart and soul and mind, through our whole being, a love that can know no other for no other can compare. 8