I AM the Lord Your God, You Shall Have None Before Me

Homily for the Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

I daresay that everyone here this morning has heard or even used the quotation that we hear from the mouth of Jesus regarding paying the Temple tax: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” Everyone who goes to church today will hear this particular story from the Gospels as all of the mainline Christian churches use the same lectionary for their services. So, you might expect that ministers and priests alike will be preaching about the fact that we are all citizens of the world as well as citizens of heaven. I don’t think that’s what Jesus had in mind.

The first reading from the Prophet Isaiah introduces a character who was neither a Jew nor a Christian. Cyrus, king of Persia, was a pagan king. Despite this, Isaiah tells us that Cyrus is an anointed king. Because of this particular description, Isaiah is telling us that Cyrus is a messiah – not the Messiah but a messiah (spelled with a lowercase letter rather than a capital letter). Isaiah goes on to tell us that God has blessed Cyrus, subdued nations before him, and has opened doors for him. He is described as God’s anointed one. Obviously, he is not a man who has placed his faith in God. Why, then, does God choose Cyrus as his own?

Isaiah goes on to tell us that God has done all of these things for Cyrus for the sake of God’s people, the people of the covenant. The children of Israel had been enslaved by the Assyrians who led their young people, their army, and their important leaders into what has become known as the Babylonian Captivity. God chose Cyrus to defeat the Assyrians and instructed Cyrus to release his people back to Israel. God uses a pagan king to accomplish God’s work.

At the same time, Isaiah reminds the people, and Cyrus as well, that there is no other God besides him. These words are taken right from the very first commandment of the covenant: “I am the Lord, your God; you shall not have other gods before me.” It was the failure to obey this commandment that had led to their defeat by the Assyrians. Even though Cyrus does not know or worship the God of Israel, he obeys his directive to release the children of Israel nonetheless.

At the time of Jesus, another kind of captivity had gripped the children of Israel. This time it is the Empire of Rome that has taken possession of their land and has demanded that the Israelites pay tribute to the Emperor, Caesar Augustus. Just as the Egyptians and the Assyrians before them, the Romans have imposed heavy burdens upon the children of Israel. Just as they did when they were slaves of Egypt and of Assyria, the Jewish people chafed under the oppression of the Roman Empire. Consequently, the episode which we read from the Gospel of St. Matthew today must be set in that context if we are to understand the message. The Pharisees and the Herodians, two groups who are enemies of each other, approach Jesus and place a test before him. As the saying goes, “Politics makes for strange bedfellows.”

Immediately before this episode, Matthew has told us that Jesus used three different stories to insult and belittle the leadership of the Jewish people. We have heard two stories of vineyards and a story about a king giving a wedding feast. Each story was aimed directly at the elders and chief priests of Israel, claiming that they had failed in their responsibility to tend God’s vineyard, God’s people. Though they look upon themselves as men who are loyal to the covenant mediated by Moses atop Mount Sinai, Jesus has called them hypocrites. In an effort to insult Jesus and to belittle him in the eyes of the people, they place a test before him regarding the onerous taxes that have been levied by the Roman occupation of Israel. By way of an answer, Jesus says, "Why are you testing me, you hypocrites? Show me the coin that pays the census tax."

Without hesitation, one of them hands Jesus a Roman coin who then asks whose image and whose inscription is found on the coin. Of course, like every coin of that era, it bears the image of the ruler of Rome, Caesar Augustus, and an inscription that declares him a god. By producing this coin, they fall into their own trap. Just as Isaiah has reminded Cyrus that the God of Israel is the only God who has demanded that there be no graven images placed before him, Jesus’ question reveals that the Pharisees have betrayed and disobeyed the very first commandment of the covenant. Even if the coin had come from one of the Herodians rather than from one of the Pharisees, the Pharisees would have been at fault for consorting with men that they consider sinners. I suspect that Jesus had a telling smile on his face when they realized that they were guilty of doing the same thing that they had accused Jesus of doing – they were associating with sinners and tax collectors.

When Jesus tells them to render unto God the things that are God’s, he is also accusing them of not doing what God has asked of them. They are guilty of a sin of commission as well as a sin of omission. Because this took place in public, the Pharisees once again would have been shamed in the eyes of all who witnessed this conversation.

In St. Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, he commends them for their work of faith and labor of love and endurance in hope. They are, in fact, living out the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. They have placed their faith in God, their hope in Jesus, and obeyed the commandment to love their neighbors as themselves. They are rendering unto God the things that are God’s. This is our call just as it was theirs. Consequently, while the Gospel seems to delineate between being a citizen of the world and a citizen of the kingdom of God, it really simply asks us to be sure that we place God before all else in our lives.