Render Unto Caesar
On the difficulty of thinking and writing and talking about our world
View
If you have read The Embassy for very long you probably have noticed that I don’t really talk about politics. I also don’t really talk much about any particular culture war issue, which is what politics has become, from any standpoint which would just be another shot in the culture war. Our cultural moment tends to fit everything into a partisan political or culture war framework. I think this is a mistake for a few reasons. The first is that people who do not share a partisan view tend to tune you out if you speak from that partisan view. The second is that people who do share that partisan view tend to accept it without thinking. The third is that there are better things to talk about. Why do I skip over political partisanship? Why nothing on elections? Mostly because I don’t think this is what is most important. It is easy to say that such discussions are inherently divisive and that I wouldn’t want to alienate any readers or potential readers. That is a true statement, but that isn’t what keeps me from such discussions. These discussions are inherently divisive and I would rather talk about why that is rather than be just another voice on one of the divided sides. I don’t want to alienate any readers or potential readers, of course, but sometimes I am sure I do. But if something I writes alienates a reader, I just want it to be about something more central than politics or the latest culture war position.
I want to engage in conversations about our world that are central and foundational - that reflect what will remain once this cultural moment passes (and they all pass). I want to engage with you about the transcendent, about what is true about us at our core and how that intersects with this world we are in. This is what The Embassy is about - even if I fall short of those goals. Politics is the easy button. It is an important civic responsibility, but it doesn’t take us very far down the path of redemptive movement. It isn’t really what changes the world, not usually anyway.
A lot has happened in the worlds of politics and culture in the last couple of months. I’m sure you’ve noticed - elections and trials and wars and accusations and recriminations. In my next dispatch, I may talk about the death of a CEO or of a rider on a train or of pardons or lots of other possible events. But I hope we engage these events in such a way that helps us see ourselves more clearly and helps us see our neighbor more truly and helps us engage our communities more redemptively. That may sound self-serving. Maybe it is, though I often fail. I just wanted to say that I don’t think this is how much of our world engages these issues. We take sides, we attack and are attacked, we win and we lose, we fight. Often, all of this activity merely serves to build or bolster the image of ourselves that we desire to have. We are the right people with the right positions saying the right things - and everyone else is an enemy. But, apart from a lot of other drawbacks to this approach, this doesn’t change anybody’s mind - it leaves everyone where they already were - attacking or defending. It certainly doesn’t change my own mind. It doesn’t change our stance or our actions … everything is self-justifying, so nothing needs to change. For all of us who get caught in that cycle, we are responsible for our own real world passivity and inaction, regardless of how passionately (and righteously) we communicate our position.
The Bible speaks very little of politics. There is the background narrative of some of the political machinations of the nation of Israel and some of its neighbors, from time to time in the Old Testament - but it is background. And all of the New Testament plays out with the Roman Empire as the political reality. Political factions or movements were outlawed and rare, and Jesus deals with them not at all. His presence and message transcended the political reality in such a way that we need to know nothing or almost nothing of it to understand him and his message.
But he was asked about taxes once.
Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words. And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone’s opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When they heard it, they marveled. And they left him and went away.
Matthew 22:15-22
Jesus’ enemies (his religious, cultural, and political enemies - basically the only kind of enemies he had) “plotted to entangle him in his words.” So they asked him a political question that they thought would trap him, drawing him into a divided political and cultural issue. They were attempting to lure him into saying something that would be unpopular with the people (yes, you should pay your taxes) or something that would cause him to be arrested (no, those taxes are illegitimate and you don’t have to pay them). Jesus knew what they were up to (always good to remember) and pointed out their hypocrisy. After all, they had not exactly weighed in on the question either - they were asking Jesus to do what they had not. In fact, they were counting on his integrity as a teacher and prophet - “we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone’s opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances” - as part of the trap. Don’t give us a no comment here or a non-answer answer, great teacher. This, of course, is what the kids call a “self-own”, since they are shown to care about everyone’s opinion and to be swayed by appearances. He then uses the coin of the Roman realm to illustrate his point. Holding the coin, Jesus tells them and us that we are to render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar - and to render unto God what is God’s.
Along with this teaching in the New Testament, the instruction to the early church that we find doesn’t give any political direction. It may nod in the direction of the persecution they may have been experiencing, but only as background for their redemptive movement within that environment, not as a way to fight against it. Fighting against it would be futile and temporary, redemptive movement is what ends up changing the world.
Paying the tax is just an ordinary duty of being a in that political arrangement in that time. Just as it is for us. There were taxes, you had to pay them - not because the political authorities were perfect, or even good, but because they were the political authorities, whatever you thought of them. We are to render unto Caesar what his his, but also the render unto God what is His. Why is this a perfect answer? Because everything is God’s, even that which we render to Caesar. Our political and civic and cultural life is part of what we are to render to Him - part of what we are to enfold in the redemptive movement he means to continue in our lives and, through us, to the lives around us. All political and civic and cultural activity that short-circuits this movement - whether it is short-circuited by our positions or by the manner in which we take them - must be forsaken, redeemed, transformed.
Calling for such a redemption of our political, civic, or cultural positions and activity is not the most popular thing one can do. It isn’t how you build an audience, a readership, a church, or a ministry - if we are measuring the building numerically. It isn’t what we want to hear. But it is what Jesus tells us.
