Matthew 22

Matthew 22:15-22: Then the Pharisees went and plotted how they might entangle Him in His talk.

What say you? Which one will it be, the altar or the flag?
This either-or choice was a very similar choice that Jesus faced some two thousand years ago as the Herodians and the Pharisees attempted to trap Jesus. Let me be a little more specific. In today’s Gospel reading we read that the religious leaders approached Jesus and asked Him, “Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?” In other words, this question was attempting to put Jesus between a rock and a hard place. If Jesus would have said, “Yes, it is lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, to the Roman Empire!”, then Jesus would have been aligned with the Roman Empire, an empire that most people despised during that day and age. If Jesus would’ve said, “No, it is not lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, to the Roman Empire!”, the religious leaders would have then conveniently reported Jesus to the Roman Empire as one who was attempting to promote insurrectionist ideas against Rome, which would have gotten Jesus arrested.
My friends as we contemplate this question raised from today’s Gospel reading, we need to realize that the religious leaders were posing an either-or logical fallacy. In other words, they were attempting to pit both of these realms against each other and trying to make Jesus choose one or the other.
We too face an either-or logical fallacy when we pit the altar and the flag against each other, as I presented to you in the beginning of this sermon.
Jesus though, understands something that the religious leaders did not understand. He understands that both the realm of the state and the realm of the church are from God; they are both instituted by the Lord. Simply put, the flag and the altar belong to the Lord and are under the Lord’s authority.
Since both the altar and the flag are under the Lord’s authority and instituted by Him, that means that the altar and the flag are not adversaries, but serve each other. One protects, one grants forgiveness, for the mutual benefit of humankind. “Both are ordained, established and blessed by God, that all might come to know Jesus Christ and return home to their true heavenly Eden.”
Consider this for a moment. The Lord has obviously instituted the church, where the Gospel is proclaimed and the Sacraments are rightly administered. The church is not a manmade invention, but something that is put together by God. The church is where the Word of God and the Sacraments are present and where people are gathered for that purpose. We also see that God has instituted governing authorities, authorities that rule with the sword against injustice to keep good order. The state operates on the basis of the Law. It does not offer salvation, but is to be respected according to the Fourth Commandment, for when it runs smoothly it upholds God’s will and keeps society from sinful anarchy. Indeed, the church rules by proclaiming the message of forgiveness of sin and the state rules by the power of the sword, that is, force. The state curbs society and keeps order while the church proclaims the Holy Gospel. Both are instituted by the Lord and both are under God’s authority—for our good. They are gifts to you and to me, to bind and to loose.
Therefore, when Jesus said, “’render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's,’ he was telling us that Caesar and all government is God's instrument at work in the physical world.” He was also telling us that the church and state are not against each other because they are both under the Lord’s control and authority.
So, practically speaking, what does this means for each and every one of us? It means that each of us have two birth certificates. We have a birth certificate that was issued at our birth showing that we were born in a particular state at a particular time in a particular county. The birth certificate testifies that you are a citizen of the United States of America. We also have another certificate, and that is a baptismal certificate. Our baptismal certificate is a testimony that we are a citizen of God’s Kingdom. At your baptism, Christ claimed you as His own; the Lord delivered you from the dominion of sin, death, and the devil; He rescued you from a citizenship of demise and made you a citizen of the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, because you were physically born of a woman and spiritually born again by the baptismal font, because you have these two certificates—these two births—you are citizens of two kingdoms, two realms, at the same time.
As a citizen of God’s Kingdom of grace and truth, you have a heavenly citizenship. As citizens of heaven your beginning, end, life, movement, identity, and so forth is in Christ and the His Resurrection. As citizens of heaven the Lord continually bestows on you the gifts of salvation; washing, feeding, and declaring you forgiven of sin.
As citizens of the state, you are called to walk in the laws of our land and to be citizens of a community and country; as you pay your taxes, vote, do community service, work on the local school board, go to precinct meetings, follow speed limits, follow state laws, and possibly take up arms to support and defend your nation.
This means that as Christians you and I have one foot in the state and one foot in the church.
Therefore, you and I do not have to choose between two realms, two citizenships, as if they are diametrically opposed. The reason being, both are instituted by God and both are derived by God’s authority—for our good. They are gifts to us from a good and gracious Lord.
Like the church, the state is God’s servant. Whereas the church dispenses the Word and Sacrament, the state dispenses the sword upon wrongdoers so that we might have order in our society. The state keeps order while the church proclaims the Holy Gospel. Therefore, we “render to Caesar the things that are Caesars and to God the things that are God’s” and consider this all gift!
But what of the times where the flag overshadows the altar or even when the altar replaces the flag? What happens when church becomes the state and the state tries to become the church?
Tragically, these two realms can be confused at times or blurred, which bring forth a whole host of problems.
For example, the church is the church and it is not a mere political action group working within the state. Thus, we should not confuse the ministry of the Word and Sacraments with the political realm of the state. Listen carefully, we do not need: Christian judges, Christian policemen, Christian congressmen, Christian voters, and so forth. Rather we need judges who are Christians, policemen who are Christian, congressmen who are Christian, voters who are Christian, and so forth. The church is all about the Word and Sacraments, which means that the church is not the state, yet the church speaks into the state on basis of God’s authoritative Word.
Conversely, upholding the teaching of ‘separation of church and state’ means not that the church is kept out of the state, but that the state needs to be kept out of the church. History has shown us that when the state gets too close to the church that the church is typically the one that suffers.
The church does not rule by the sword but by the Word and Sacraments. The state does not rule by the Word and Sacraments but by the sword.
Thus, as Christians we give unto Caesar what is Caesars and to God what is God’s. This means that we engage within the realm of the state underneath our vocations as American citizens. As citizens who are blood-bought and baptized Christians, we are called to work in our culture to uphold and promote that which is right, good, and salutary according to God’s Word, if only in a small way. As citizens who are Christians, we are continually formed by the Word of God in the church so that we might advocate for what is correct and noble and helpful and true in the state.
Through our vocations as citizens of the state, we go as informed and redeemed Christians to speak into the culture. We don’t vote merely as uninformed citizens, but rather we vote as citizens who have been bought, purchased, forgiven, and informed by the Lord. Our conscience is bound to the Word of God, a conscience that is exercised in our daily lives within the church ‘and’ the state.
But what of the times when the state violates the Word of God? As American citizens—yes you baptized saints—you work diligently and faithfully to correct the problems of the state through running for office, demonstrating, and debating. In other words, when the state enforces laws upon us as citizens that purposely cause us to violate conscious and violate the Word of God, with all tactfulness we obey God rather than man and thus oppose the state. “The bottom line is our loyalty to God is always first. The Apostle says as much in the Book of Acts. When the governing authority overstepped its God given role, when the Apostle's were forbidden to preach and teach in the name of Christ, they responded, ‘we must obey God rather than men.’
--Matthew Richard

Politically, just about the only thing Pharisees and Herodians have in common is that they don’t like Jesus. So they hold their noses, put aside their many differences for a moment, and come together to pose Jesus a question that they hope will put him between a rock and a hard place: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” (verse 17)
If he answers that the taxes are lawful, he will give offense to the Pharisees and the many in the crowds who hate the empire’s constant meddling -- not to mention the poor who are especially burdened by this particular “flat tax.” On the other hand, if he speaks out against the tax, it won’t take long for the Herodians, who are loyalists to Rome, to take news of such seditious talk back to the powers that be. It is a well-laid trap, and all the more so because it is prefaced by a flattering reminder that Jesus has a reputation for fearless truth-telling, not political maneuvering (verse 16).
Jesus is not fooled by the flattery, but he does agree to answer the question. But first, he reframes the issue subtly by asking to see the coin used to pay the tax. This is a clever move because it allows all onlookers, including the reader, to see for themselves what Jesus already knows: Jesus is the one being put on the spot, but it is his questioners who are more deeply entangled with, and complicit in, the exploitative economics of empire. Jesus’ pockets are empty, but his opponents have no trouble supplying a denarius on demand.
When they produce the coin of the realm, Jesus puts off his answer another moment in order to make one more thing clear: “‘Whose head is this, and whose title?’ 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’” (verses 20-21).
The consensus at the time seems to have been that Jesus managed to wiggle out of the trap (verse 22), but it’s not clear that anyone yet has figured out precisely what he was getting at. Some people point to this passage as proof that God and politics should be kept separate -- that things like taxes have absolutely nothing to do with one’s theological commitments. Others say that this story proves that religion is a matter of the heart, and that Jesus doesn’t really care about mundane things like what you do with your money. And some have cited this passage as proof that Jesus taught that the law is the law, and our duty as Christians is to support the government no matter what. All three of these interpretations are dubious.
Like a lot of things Jesus said, these words are hard to pin down to just one meaning; they seem to blossom upon reflection into a surplus of significance. The more we think about this enigmatic saying, the more it shows us. The richness and subtlety of the answer is further enhanced when we remember that Matthew’s Jesus has already spoken on the subject of money and divided loyalties: “No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth” (6:24). Whatever Jesus is getting at here, he must not be describing a compromise that divides human loyalties neatly between YHWH and the emperor. By highlighting the physical features of the denarius used to pay the tax, Jesus gives us a number of things to think about. In the first place, the image of the emperor stamped into the coin’s surface, along with the blasphemous inscription with its claim to divinity, call to mind the prohibition against images in the Decalogue (Exodus 20:4). By pointing out that his opponents possess and display such an object within the Temple grounds (21:23), Jesus seems to raise, not lower, the stakes of the conversation about money and human loyalty. The issue at stake here is nothing less than idolatry. (And this is not a problem that we can solve simply by printing different words on our currency -- even words that confess our trust in God.)
Furthermore, when we think about Jesus highlighting the physicality of that denarius -- the coin stamped out by human hands for human purposes, and the image of Caesar imprinted on it -- it’s hard to ignore the connection to those words from the beginning of Genesis about what God said the first time God stamped out a human being: “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness” (Genesis 1:26).
Confronted with the question of human loyalty and the coin bearing the image of the earthly emperor, it’s easy to picture Jesus flipping that coin in his hand a few times, and then tossing it casually aside. In my imagination I see his eyes rising to meet those of his opponents, confronting each of them with an unspoken question hanging in the air: “And you, my friend: Whose image do you bear?” One thing, at least, seems clear: Jesus is not solving the dilemma by carving out separate domains of human loyalty. For every character in the story, and for each of us who still bother to read and ponder it, one absolute commitment subsumes and revitalizes all other commitments. Whatever we render unto Caesar, or to the retirement fund, or to the offering basket at church, we can never afford to forget this: we belong entirely to God. We may divide our budget, but we must never divide our allegiance. The coin of our realm bears the image of dead presidents, but each of us bears another. Our Emperor said: “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness.” We must never forget to render unto God the things that are God’s.
-- --Working Preacher

Matthew 22:34-46:
But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.
35 Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying,
  36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”
37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’
38 This is the first and great commandment.
  39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
41 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them,
42 saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?”
They said to Him, “The Son of David.”
43 He said to them, “How then does David in the Spirit call Him ‘Lord,’ saying:
44 ‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at My right hand,
Till I make Your enemies Your footstool”’?
45 If David then calls Him ‘Lord,’ how is He his Son?”
  46 And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare question Him anymore.

Feb 24, 2022: Kentucky Today: FIRST-PERSON: Love your neighbor
Jesus, when asked by the Pharisees which is the great commandment in the law, answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

“The Lord’s reply is especially irksome, that the everyday routine works which people are commanded to do, namely, that they are to love God and the neighbor, supersede all other works, regardless of how they shine and glitter. The fact is, not only the Pharisees among the Jews, and the hypocrites under the papacy, have regarded human traditions as more important than God’s commandments; for there is a little monk that sticks in all of us from youth on. We, too, regard the ordinary works God has commanded as insignificant, but the special, diverse works done by the Carthusians, monks, and hermits, about which God has commanded nothing, as especially noteworthy.”

“However, our Lord God is averse to such distinction. He does not prefer one before another, nor does he exclude anyone from serving him, no matter how lowly he might be. Instead, he enjoins upon everyone to exercise love to God and his neighbor. Since God seeks nothing extraordinary from us and tolerates no distinctions, we must conclude that when a maid, who has faith in Christ, dusts the house her work is more pleasing in service to God than that of St. Anthony in the wilderness. That is Christ’s meaning here. This is the highest commandment: to love God and one’s neighbor. God is not concerned about the rules of the Franciscans, Dominicans, or other monks, but wants us to serve him obediently and love the neighbor. They may consider their monastic rules to be something wonderful and special, but before God they are nothing. The very highest, best, and holiest work is when one loves God and the neighbor, whether a person is a monk or nun, priest or layperson, great or small.”

“…We, therefore, must learn to think and answer like this: Not something extraordinary, but to love God and your neighbor, that is the best way of life! If I do that, I don’t have to be searching for another way. It is so very true that loving God and the neighbor is the greatest and best work, even though it appears to be so very ordinary and insignificant.”
Martin Luther, Luther’s Sermons, vol. 7, pages 75-6.

“You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind” (Matthew 22:36-37). The problem with many people is that they seem to love God only with their hearts. The truth about Christ never gets to their minds. We’ve been given minds enabled by the Holy Spirit to know God, as well as hearts to love him and wills to choose him. We need to function in all three areas to have a full relationship with God and to glorify him. I don’t know how it is with you, but my heart can’t rejoice in what my mind has rejected. My heart and mind were created to work in harmony together. Never has anyone been called on to commit intellectual suicide by trusting Christ as Savior and Lord.
-- —Josh McDowell

Matthew 22:37:
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

The spirit of intolerance and hatred toward so many people is such a great evil in our world. The Bible says to love God with all our heart, mind and soul and to love our neighbor as ourself. How very simple but so very profound these truths are. The well-known “Lord’s Prayer,” which ends with forgiving those who trespass against us and deliver us from evil, is the path to follow. How we need more of God’s love in our hearts and minds for one another, especially for such a time as this when our social structure, the way we knew it, is crumbling before our eyes.