Preface: This is political, you might not agree, but I must make two things very clear: The first is I am very grateful to be an American and as my distaste for all things America-First has continued to sour over the years, my gratitude for the ability to discuss my displeasure has only increased my thankfulness that I was privileged enough to be born here. I am grateful for the servicewomen and men who put their lives on the line every day for that freedom and I pray continually that one day we won't need to fight the wars that take the lives of my friends any longer.
The second is this. This article was not written out of hate so any hatefulness brought about because of it is a reflection of you, not me. All hateful comments will be deleted. If you want to say something, think if you'd say it at my kitchen table with my mom and my kids there and if you would, let me know, I'll invite you over. Here's the thing, my mom might not even agree with me, but she loves me more than she loves my opinions and for that I am forever grateful. So, here we go -
In our heightened political climate, the role of religion and particularly Christianity is continuously more and more tenuous as people use terms like “left” and “right” to nicely fit a person into either an enemy camp or that of an ally. It is, altogether, very un-ecumenical. People continually pick apart the Bible and point to stories that, in their minds, reflect their point, their opponent or their policies. Despite the fact the most modern book in the cannon was written more than 1900 years ago, the insistence that the stories can be applied to contemporary culture still exists, especially in the internet’s most sacred church; social media.
We must remember that if the Holy Scriptures are our story, the story of hope and failure and redemption and the God who relentlessly pursues the renewal of humanity, then we cannot make those words a rubric for pithy moral storytelling but instead a recitation of a hymn sung over creation in hopes of bringing peace and order from chaos. You don’t see people making the Kardashians out to be the sisters at the well when Moses shows up, you don’t get to place every political figure into whichever Passion Story character you want.
But if we are going to go down this road, I’m gonna go down it too because the current political landscape has brought to light a common text from the Gospels and fully taffy-pulled it out of context. In Matthew 15, in an attempt to trick Jesus into saying the wrong thing, the Pharisees asked Jesus if it is right of them to pay tax to Caesar. After pointing out the coins they paid their taxes with had Caesar’s name and seal on them, Jesus replied, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give to God what is God’s.”
Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.
So what does that mean? What belongs to Caesar and truly who is he?
In much of Western Christianity, we see the idea of Rome’s monarch as the evil villain in a Disney movie, veiled in darkness and plotting make our hero fail. But if Jesus is the Hero, we must remember that Caesar didn’t have anything against him. Herod, the de facto leader of the Jews, and the Pharisees, the religious fundamentalists, were in a conscious and multi-year plot to kill the Son of God.
You see, Caesar didn’t care because as long as they were paying their taxes, they could deal “with their own kind.” This was the Pax Romana, the Peace of Rome. It was a hierarchy that put pliable and weak-willed leaders in power that were willing to do the bidding of Rome’s whims. Whether that meant greater taxes to build monuments to the greatness of Caesar or to build armies to plumb the depths of conquerable lands to enrich the resources of an unstable empire.
Jesus didn’t want anything to do with that lineage, with the corrupt politics of Rome. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t political, being against corrupt leaders with their own wealth and well being as their primary concern isn’t apolitical, it’s a grassroots campaign that begins with the creation hymn as its anthem and “Love your neighbor” as it’s battle cry.
However over the years I’ve heard people use the idea of giving to Caesar as an excuse not to pay their taxes, as a tribute to the greatness of America (which is weird because they’re talking about Rome, which fell, badly, a couple times), as a reason to be apolitical, a reason to be overly political and as a reason to either glorify or demonize the current administration.
In fact, on March 9th, Jerry Falwell Jr., one of the most prominent voices in conservative Evangelicalism, tweeted the following to those criticizing Donald Trump’s border policies:
“You nuts attacking @realDonaldTrump for securing the border need to show me where Jesus told Caesar how to run Rome. Jesus taught personal charity but went out of His way to say render unto Caesar that which is his. Jesus never told Caesar to let barbarians illegally enter Rome.”
When Barack Obama was president, I heard more than my fair share of Evangelical Christians, via their Facebook walls and infowars posts, grumble about paying taxes and quote verses about giving to Caesar. They detested their certainty that every cent of their taxes was going to pay for abortions or legalize gay marriage. They spat “Caesar” as an insult to a man they thought to be the very personification of a tyrant: President Obama.
Not so many years later those same people chided anyone who disagreed with Donald Trump, his policies or opinions, because he was the elected leader as Jesus tells us to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s. I still don’t quite fathom how it is that those people don’t understand that in saying those words, they are admitting tyranny as a preferred nation-state, but I digress. Because truthfully, I do not believe that Barack Obama or George W. Bush or Richard Nixon or Gerald Ford or George Washington were ever Caesar. In that same vein, I do not believe that Donald Trump is Caesar. I believe America, and moreover the ideals of American Nationalism, are Caesar.
Let me explain.
Sure, Caesar was a man, but moreover, he was an idea. He was the lifeblood of Rome’s economy, prosperity, democracy, literacy and so on. Tiberius Caesar was divine, he was praised and worshipped first. His authority was pledged allegiance before any other God, so much so that it was on his money. Those coins which bore the image of Tiberius said “Tiberius Caesar, Divine son of Augustus.” His father’s coins read, “Augustus Caesar, Divine Father of Rome.” The back of Tiberius’ coins read “Pontiff Maxim,” and if your Latin is rusty, that phrase translated that imperial authority was primary to worship.
So let’s get this straight. Here are the people of the Roman Empire, Romans and occupied alike, whose very existence was dependent on these coins, dedicated to the God Caesar, demanding their trust in return for his coin. In god they trust.
Not only that but there in their hands were idols to false gods cast of precious metals. Money, the accumulation of wealth above all else was the goal of many because eating is nice but also think about the fact that a leader of the church, brought a coin bearing a false god, to the Son of God and asked if he could keep it instead of pay it back. (1)
We in America are so desensitized to the idols that surround us every day that we can call those leaders greedy and can’t seem to see the idea of income inequality that leaves 1 in 5 children hungry, as also greedy. I mean they are in America, shouldn’t they be grateful? They are watched over by laws and social conventions that further disparage the poor from finding their way out of poverty, but doesn’t living here mean you’re at peace? When moms have to rub their kids backs, coaxing them to sleep amidst the ache of hungry sobs, when people of color intentionally name their children “white-sounding names” in hopes of making it to the job interview pool, when poor towns have lead or natural gas in their water and oil spills contaminate sacred lands, we still demand gratitude in the name of One Nation, Under god.
The penniless of Rome didn’t care that Caesar wanted to build a new monument to his greatness, they wanted to be able to feed their families, and their animals and themselves without having to make it a rotation.
The grandness of the Empire made the surrounding world only notice its excess and either praise its greatness or plot it’s downfall, not for the equality of those whose poverty defined them, but to plunder the resources afforded to wealthy. And there was no room to argue the merits of such authoritarianism. The ideals of democracy had blinded leaders into believing that rich white men having a vote made things fair and anyone who had the audacity to question the cry of “Caesar is Lord” faced death, even death on a cross.
Which brings us to Holy Week. The first thing Jesus does as he enters Jerusalem on a colt is head to the temple, where they are trading in these very coins, and overturns the tables. The coins that were supposed to have been given BACK to Caesar were used to buy sacrifices to God. False gods buying supplication to God Almighty.
So as Jesus challenged the axiom of Caesar’s lordship, he was killed for it, as was custom. Because he challenged the grandeur of the idea that Rome was infallible, the greatest nation of all time and therefore unable to be objected. They were a superpower, Caesar was the figurehead of an arrogant nation-state, that discarded its poor, threatened its neighbors, conquered non-threatening lands, and did so in the name of peace.
Now I know I said I don’t like it when people force the metaphors to fit the stories of Scripture, but I’m this far, might as well wrap it up.
I don’t believe that Donald Trump is Caesar, I believe he is the criminal element produced by Caesar. In this story, Donald Trump is Barabbas.
He is infidel the people cried for because the one who said peace was greater than war wasn’t popular. He is insurrectionist whose fate was sealed by the audacity of his existence and crimes and yet was given ultimate freedom to silence the peacemakers, the believers, and disciples.
And before you ask, no I don’t think Hillary Clinton is Jesus in this scenario. Christ is the sober self-assessment that says that as a Christian, your allegiance is pledged to a King and Kingdom that does not cast out its neighbors, that does not put children in cages, that does not kill black people because they are black. It does not strip Indigenous peoples of their culture and rights and dignity for the oil beneath their grave sites. It does not blame women for the atrocities committed against them simply because of their gender and it does not make excuses for leaders whose violent rhetoric threatens the lives of the very people he was tasked with saving.
The Kingdom of God is ruled by the Prince of Peace, the kind of all-encompassing peace that does not fear being conquered because peace surpasses understanding, outwitting it’s opponents while simultaneously welcoming all within its boundless nature.
The rise of white-supremacy, racism, ableism, sexism and so on is perpetrated by a figurehead whose idolatry is only to himself and the heaviness of hatred.
So here we are, called to give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, handing back the idols we hoard. Something I have a really hard time doing, but I’m also aware of that fact. But the command goes further, give to God what is God’s. In other words, give back to God what bears His image.
In case you weren’t sure, that means you. And not only you but your neighbors, your co-workers, your children and the children across the border and across the ocean. Every person that draws breath has the image of the One True God emblazoned on them, our job is to recognize that image as valuable and give sacrificially in the name of the God whose image we bear.
(1) This is a paraphrase of an idea in John Gleason's 2013 blog article found here:
