Saturday, February 27, 2016

Give to Caesar what is Caesar's: Like all the things that corrupt

Mark 12:1-17

In the year 1646 a Puritan minister named Roger Williams began a novel experiment in the colony of Rhode Island, which had just been founded for this purpose. He was testing out the separation of church and state for the first time in America—really, for the first time anywhere in the western world. He was a religious leader who sought to divorce the church from the government because the church, he realized, never made the state more holy; the state only ever made the church more corrupt.
            As Christians, we live in two worlds: the world governed by human beings and the world governed by God. Now, when I talk about the kingdom of God here I’m not talking about heaven—not exactly. I am talking about all the ways that God rules our hearts and minds and souls here on earth compared with all the ways that human beings govern us. The tension between these two worlds makes our lives very challenging, but Jesus is here in today’s reading to offer us some wisdom on the topic. He is asked about paying taxes to the emperor. It’s a trap of a question, obviously. To answer in black and white with a “Yes” it’s right to pay the emperor, or “No” it’s wrong, would leave a sour taste in somebody’s mouth, which is pretty much the point. People who ask questions like these aren’t trying to learn anything; they’re trying to condemn somebody. But unlike most of us Jesus doesn’t fall into the black-and-white trap. He doesn’t stumble over his answer or qualify it; instead, he sets the paradigm straight. The kingdom of man and the kingdom of God are set apart by virtue of what they value. His answer leaves even his critics amazed. “Give to the emperor,” he says, “the things that are the emperor’s and to God the things that are God’s,” or, maybe more familiar is “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”
            Jesus affirms the legitimacy of some form of government. People need to take care of one another in some fashion. The Roman Empire was hardly a model government. Jesus undoubtedly saw many, many flaws in it; in the end he is killed at its hand; but, ultimately, the question about taxes is not what defines us as human beings. The coin with the emperor’s face is just a thing, a thing we put too much stock in. The things that are the emperor’s are not as important as we make them.
Roger Williams, in Rhode Island long ago, could appreciate this tension. Government and the church serve one another best when they are kept at arm’s length from each other. The church can’t make the state more holy, no matter how hard it tries. This was not a popular opinion in Williams’ day, and, really, it’s not all that popular of an opinion today either. John Winthrop, who formed the Plymouth colony, excommunicated Williams for undermining the theocracy that they were establishing in America. America was to be a “city on a hill;” the “New Jerusalem.” It sounds great on the surface, right? A country founded not just on religious principles but also religious law; one nation, under God, ruled according to godly principles.
The problem with Winthrop’s idea was that, in spite of their intentions, the people in this city on a hill were still human beings, no matter how devout, and to be ruled according to God’s law only works seems to work for God. All the rest of us fall short of God’s glory, so to live according to God’s law is to be universally condemned. If the United States were governed this way every one of us would be thrown in jail on a daily basis. This is why the state regulates things in a way God does not. In God’s eyes we are all in need of forgiveness. The law of the land says we are “guilty” or “not guilty.” God says we are sinners and we are forgiven.
To craft a Christian nation is a noble goal that does not work in reality. Our beliefs impact our political actions; they always do, you can’t separate the two. But, ultimately, what matters is not the side of the aisle on which you sit, but whether or not you can admit that all we are ever doing is “rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.” Every policy, every practice, every time we try to justify ourselves with our words or our actions or our advocacy we are giving the emperor the things that are the emperor’s. Many of these words and actions and policies stem directly from our Christian faith. This is good and right! But the church remains set apart from the state because we still know that the church will never make the state more righteous and the state will always make the church more corrupt, because power corrupts every time.
            This is why we as a church do not support individual candidates and why we do not put up signs in election season on our front lawn. It’s not because we’re afraid of losing our non-profit status; it’s because we are better off being set apart from that. We are people who follow the cross first into the kingdom of God while our politics is at best guesses on how God would have us live our lives.
We live in the intersection of faith and politics, and it’s easy to believe that what matters most is who is elected president, but, mercifully, Jesus is not up for election, because if he was it would be the same as it was in the garden of Gethsemane. We would all be Peter, rejecting him alongside every other disciple and follower he gathered along the way. Jesus would not survive a primary, let alone a general election; in fact, he never would have been nominated in the first place. He would lose to Trump, to Bernie, to Clinton, to Rubio. To everyone. He is the least popular politician of all when it comes down to the nitty gritty, because his way is the way of death. Take up your cross and follow.
You do have a voice. Don’t get me wrong. So speak up in the political process. Use your convictions to advocate for what you believe in, but do so knowing this: The state will not make you, or anybody else, any more holy. Your actions will not make yourself, or anybody else, any more holy. That doesn’t mean we avoid it. It just means that you are not bringing God’s kingdom any closer with your holier-than-thou politics. That’s not how it works. Instead, we should enter into the political arena with an eye toward the things that Jesus would have us do—seeking to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, to heal the sick and visit the prisoners—but none of those things will make you righteous because it’s a tangled web we weave that leads to our own self-righteousness. You do those things as a response to the grace you have been given through Jesus Christ; not to make yourself (or anyone else) any more holy. Every candidate for president is self-righteous beyond belief. So were the Pharisees. So are all of us when we wade into the muck of political discourse. We have to do it, but it’s ugly. And the reason this church does not wade in alongside you is because we seek still to be some vestige, however opaque, of the kingdom of God so that you are reminded, even if just once a week, even if just once in awhile, that God’s kingdom is not that crap out there.
You won’t be made righteous by your politics, but you will by the cross. Give to America the things that are America’s—your passion for social justice, your love of liberty, your belief in the Constitution, your stance on human rights and healthcare, your views on education, your take on abortion and marriage, your feelings about immigrants and economic systems—give that to America. Then, give to God your life.
In politics you are just an opinion—another loaner of the emperor’s coinage—but in God’s eyes you are something different. More than a taxpayer, more than a economic indicator, you are a child of God. That’s something the state will never value properly. Which is why we are here. To remind you. To set the record straight. Children of God, you are not right or left. You are not an income tax bracket or a retirement account. You are not your party. You are made in the image of God. God’s Children: therefore heirs of a promise much better than anything the state has to offer.
You need that reminder, because it’s going to get even crazier out there. You are children of God. Don’t forget that. And so are those batty people on the TV. You see, give to the emperor his things, but do so understanding that those things also are God’s things. Play the games if you must, but know that they are just games. Live the life God would have you live because, ultimately, those are the rules not by which you are punished but by which you are set free. You see, Roger Williams was a very wise man, after all. He knew what government does—and he knew that the size of it didn’t matter, the guiding principles of it didn’t matter, none of it mattered when it came to God’s kingdom—because God’s kingdom is built on the cross. Foolishness to the rest of the world. Foolishness to all political authority.
The kind of foolishness to which we continue to cling, in spite of every message to the contrary.

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