"Render unto Caesar..." Nothing At All?

Sermon. 22 October 2017. St Michael and All Angels, Little Ilford.

Trinity 19 (Year A)

Matthew 22.15-22

Jesus says; “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Or as many of us will have learnt it, in and outside of church: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” [AV]. I think it is probably still - just - the case, that if you went up to a maybe-more-mature adult in this country, brought up in the medium of English (in whatever country) from childhood, and said: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” they would stand a good chance of still understanding the point you were making. 

Jesus said these words in the context of Roman occupation, a military dictatorship. In the earliest generations of the Church, the basic attitude of the Christian communities to that military dictatorship was to have as little to do with it as possible. Such was the risk of persecution or execution. Then, early in the fourth century, things changed. The then dictator, Constantine, was drawn to Christianity, some say cynically, some say sincerely. Whichever, it soon became safe to be a Christian within the dictatorship, and even advantageous, a “career move”. 

How did the Church adapt to this radically new situation. Well, in a variety of ways. But one way was certainly to build on this verse. It is found in Matthew, Mark and Luke’s gospel, in almost identical wording: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”  Already in the fourth century this was understood to mean: 

some things are the responsibility of the state, and we Christians must “do our duty” so that the state can do what it is called to do; other things are different, are spiritual, and when it comes to these the state must mind its own business. In these ways, both state and church can rub along together in peace, and mutual tolerance. 

If that sounds familiar, well, this is of course an attitude our own Anglican Church has further adapted and made its own. We are the established church in the country. We have bishops in parliament (in the House of Lords); indeed, we have the monarch. But we don’t expect the Church to govern the nation. We resist that. We just want to govern ourselves, through our synod. 

Now, what am I going to say next? I have my script, and so I know. But I confess that if I didn’t have a text, I would not be sure in what direction I was about to move. One thing I might do is question whether it really makes sense to divide up our lives (personal and collective) into the secular/worldly/temporal vs the spiritual. After all, if a person is on the point of dying of hunger, or seriously ill and cut off from all treatment, so that their only prayer is “Help!”, is that a worldly or a spiritual matter? Or if a person is so wealthy that they cannot even see their own privilege, is that a temporal or a spiritual problem? Do we not teach that they are imperilling nothing less than their own soul?

Good questions. But let us leave them and go back to the gospel text. I’ll give a literal translation: “Give back, then, the things of Caesar to Caesar and the things of God to God”. Actually, the word for “things” is not there in the Greek, and the text speaks about “the God” - these idioms work in the Greek in a way they just don't in English. But the real point is… one thing this cannot - simply cannot - mean is this: “the world and its resources can and should be divided up - some bits of it belong to the state and not to God, and some bits belong to God and not the state”. 

It is, I’ll say it again, quite impossible that that is the meaning of this text. It may still be a good argument. But it is not the meaning of this text.

First, we know the context; it has been presented to us in great clarity. The question comes from the Pharisees. Now, I’ve said often enough that the Pharisees are not the simply “baddies” in the gospels we have been led to believe. But the Greek here is unambiguous that on this occasion they’ve had a big meeting, to agree how they might set a trap for Jesus “in word”. The nature of the trap is evident:

• if Jesus says people should pay the poll tax to the brutal invaders, then he is siding with the enemy, a quisling; 
• if he says people should not pay the poll tax, then he is siding with the rebels (we might say “terrorists”), and is a threat to the Romans. 

Either way, he is undermined. 

Jesus, the text continues, is aware of his questioners’ malice. In fact the original is stronger than that: Jesus sees that this particular approach is “evil” (says the Greek). And his first response is: “Why do you test me?” The word is from the same family as that found in the Lord’s prayer - “Lead us not into temptation.” So, “Why do you tempt me?” And Jesus calls them (in this regard) “hypocrites”, for good measure.

So it is strong stuff. It is indeed a trap. The text leaves us in no doubt. So we are already set up to expect that Jesus must be (I don’t think it’s disrespectful to put it this way…) canny. Canny... and so he is! Think about it. On the surface, it looks like he has answered the question. It looks like he has said:

“Look, money has the emperor’s face on it. Just give it back to the emperor when you have to, and then get on with your life.” 

We can imagine that a passing Roman soldier would have heard Jesus as saying something like that. And we can further imagine that it would be hard for these Pharisees to convince the Romans that he had said something more challenging than that. But - make no mistake about it - he was saying something more challenging, radical and oppositional. 

What? Well, here is a question: 

• from Jesus’ point of view, 
• from the Jewish point of view, 
• from the Biblical point of view, 

what is there that does not belong to Gd? 

I ask again: what is there that does not belong to God? 

Show me something that does not belong to God? 

Sisters and brothers, I note that no one is getting out their purse or their wallet. You take the point. As we ourselves may say as a prayer over the gifts on the altar, ourselves quoting the Bible: 

“Yours, Lord, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the splendour, and the majesty; for everything in heaven and on earth is yours. All things come from you, and of your own do we give you.” 

What you may not realise is that this is very close to a biblical - a Hebrew-biblical - text - from 1 Chronicles 29. As such, it would be well-known by the Pharisees, who valued all the Hebrew Scriptures which we call the “Old Testament”. 

So Jesus’ Jewish questioners would have heard something the Romans would not have heard. They would have heard Jesus say this: 

“You are trying to trick me. 

I know this. You know this. 

I am not going to make a provocative statement just to fall into your trap. 

I will say that Roman money is the Romans’ own business, 

as if paying a poll tax to them means nothing at all. 

I will further say that it does mean nothing at all, but for this reason: 

because all even the Romans have is really God’s own property, 

and all even the Romans do is God’s own business. 

You are quite unable to attack me on this, 

because it is what you yourselves believe.” 

We may not be used to thinking of Jesus as “canny”, as saying things in code. But we should be. 


It is actually often what happens when Jesus speaks in parables, in stories. I know we are taught in Sunday school (for fair-enough reasons) that Jesus speaks in stories to make things easier to understand, for the simple folk. But that’s usually wrong. Actually, it is more to make things harder to understand. [Mark 4.12: Jesus speaks “for those outside, everything comes in parables; in order that ‘they may indeed look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand; so that they may not turn again and be forgiven’”. Citing Isa 6.9. Cf Matt 13.14f; Jn 12.40.] To put the questions we’d like to put to Jesus back to us. It has been put this way: in Jesus’ words, the world is made strange. Made strange in order that we wrestle with things more, so that we wonder more. Why should the life of faith not be about wrestling for the truth and finding wonder?  And is that not what happens in this reading? Jesus speaks a phrase which is apparently simple, meaningful and, yes, useful. “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s”. But if we pay attention, we come to see that instead it asks us important questions about 

• whether we think Gd’s power and sovereignty are limited; 
• whether there is anything that is not of Gd; 
• whether we too are ready to pray:  

“Yours, Lord, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the splendour, and the majesty; for everything in heaven and on earth is yours. All things come from you, and of your own do we give you.” 

Amen. 

Sermon for Trinity Sunday

Sermon 26 May 2013. St Philip's Camberwell

 Feast of the Most Holy, Most Glorious, Most Blessed and Undivided Trinity

This is a long sermon, even by my standards. I can reassure you that it is not what I said in situ, but what I wrote up after delivery. If anyone read last year's sermon on the Trinity (for Trinity Sunday), you will I am afraid see some repetition. It was, to be fair, for a different congregation. And I don't really mind 'banging on' about how the doctrine of the Trinity is as relevant as anything else in Christianity, relating to our right worship, so that we live aright. There, sermon over. Now for the sermon...

I must apologise if I offend anyone but I am going to be blunt. There is something that I hate. (Something, not someone!) I hate the old joke that goes:

On Trinity Sunday the preacher mounts the pulpit and says:

'In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Trinity! The Trinity... is a mystery!

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.'

And he sits down.

What I hate is the implication that the doctrine of  the Trinity is the one part of Christian teaching that your average Christian can't be expected to have any meaningful connection to.

It is for the experts only, or the real keenies.

I say: No! Don't get me wrong. I am not saying the doctrine of the Trinity is easy. The preacher is right. The Trinity is a mystery. It is a Mystery with a capital M. This means we will never - not even in eternity - come to understand or comprehend it fully, get the measure of it. My point is: Yes, this makes it hard to find the right words to use, but compared to what?  

What is there about God which is easy, which is not a Mystery?

You might say: Well, the really simple stuff like 'God exists'. But that is far from simple. What does it mean for an existing thing to exist? It must take up time and space. But God is outside of time and space. So it is extremely difficult to say that 'God exists' - and the Church Fathers knew this; this isn't some modern idea. To speak of God, we have to stretch our language almost out of recognition. Again, what of 'God speaks'. That may sound like a more authentically biblical approach, and so be easier. But if God speaks to us, God must use human language. And how can God convey divine truths using that hopelessly inadequate thing, human language, coming as it does from human minds and human societies? Or again, 'God comes to us'? But in what sense was God ever distant? Or can it make sense to say God is now somehow 'even nearer'? All the time, we are stretching language to convey something of the Mystery of God. So! If our preacher-friend finds he does have some things to say about God on the remaining 51 Sundays of the year,then, in all humility, he owes them some reflections on Trinity Sunday too!

God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and God is One. This indeed is Mystery. I cannot explain it for sum it up. What I can do is tell the story of the Trinity. Here is one version. After the Resurrection, Christians found it right to worship Jesus, to pray to and worship Him as the Son of God. They also found it right to honour the memory of his mortal life, when he himself prayed to and worshipped his Heavenly Father. So Christians found it right to pray to and worship the Father and the Son. And, over the centuries, while they were reflecting on this (yes, it took centuries), they also realised they had come to find it right to worship the Spirit moving among and through them. All this while insisting that God is One, Unique and Undivided. 

Now, if you don't start where Christians start, with worship of the Son of God, then the rest will not make sense. Indeed, to many religious people it doesn't make sense at all, but is rather a blasphemy. But if you do start where Christians start, then it makes more sense to say that we worship the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, One God, than to say other things, which might sound simpler, but (usually) turn out not to be. So the doctrine of the Trinity says: This is how we celebrate God-as-Christians-celebrate-God. 

The doctrine of the Trinity, then, is about our celebration, our worship, our awe, our exuberant praise of Living God and our silent contemplation of the One who humbled and humbles himself as Body, in Bread, in Wine. To stress this point, I have been known to get the congregation to sing along with me the chorus to the song, The Joys of Mary. Do you know it? The chorus is: 'Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost, through all eternity! Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost through all eternity!' I'll spare you more! The point is: God, Holy Trinity, is to be praised, and is worthy of our praise. Not to be examined or explained away. But also not to be denied, or diminished. 

Liturgy is the technical name for our worship of God Holy Trinity. It happens that I've been thinking this week about liturgy and Liturgical Time. Did you realise there was such a thing as Liturgical Time? I think there is. What makes Liturgical Time different from the time we think of as ordinary time is, well, it takes time! It moves slowly. Think about it. We have our Church Year, and none of it can be rushed. If we are used to coming to church, before long we realise that we are hearing the same stories. This is not because Christians are less imaginative than other folk. It is meant to be that way. We need to hear the same stories. And each year they will be the same. And each year they will be different. We will hear something or other differently, or make different connections.

So Liturgical time is not a straight line where we move on from one new thing, to another newer thing, to another even newer thing. But nor is it a closed-up circle, where we just revisit exactly the same old points, tediously. The best image must be of a spiral upwards. From the vertical vantage point, it is the same; from the horizontal, it is ascending. This is how it is meant to be. Because change does happen. But for most us, the real change happens slowly, incrementally, imperceptibly, as we inhabit and go on inhabiting the stories. Slowly. Liturgical Time takes time.

So what? Well, I want to say that this is a good thing. The contrast is with the world's time, when we are always in a rush from one point to the next. I don't just mean we are busy people; we may or may not be busy. I mean in ordinary time we are faced with so much that is urgent. Here is a problem, and it needs a solution now! We haven't got the luxury of inaction. We need an answer, even if it is a make-do answer and not the ultimate answer, because we need it now!

Brothers and sisters, isn't that precisely what the world is telling us today, as we deal with the horrible, hateful, sinful murder committed nearby in Woolwich? The media immediately wanted to know: What is to blame? Is it Islam? Is it political Islamism? Is it what our armies are doing in Afghanistan or elsewhere? Or it about gangs and knives and young men needing to be macho? Or poverty and disaffection? Or severe mental illness? We need the answer and we need it now (though deep down we know instant answers can't be found). 

But it is worse than that, for most of the media have already moved on from seeking an answer. They have given the answer: What is to blame is 'religious extremism'! It's a nonsense. Sisters and brothers, I know that most of us are - whether we use this language or not - 'extremely religious'. Are we somehow to blame? Or is it just people who are 'extremely Muslim'? Well, it happens that I spent Thursday in the company of some 'extremely Muslim' people, at a conference, and they were exceptionally gentle, kind, intelligent and open. So I just don't believe that. 

But the world just hasn't got the time to listen to such arguments. We need an answer and we need an answer now. Because something must be done. Because we must teach them a lesson! Bluntly, it is more important that we teach 'them' a lesson, than that we know with any confidence who 'they' are. Because this is urgent as that! Something must be done, even if it is the wrong thing. Because this is as urgent as that! Given all of that, is it surprising that, so often, the thing that must be done turns out to be violence of one sort or another, or coercion of one sort or another? 

The world's time, with its relentless urgency, is wrong. We do not need all the answers at once. We need the answers when we find them. And so we Christians can do the really radical thing. We can refrain from giving an answer. We can sit. Pray. Hope. Watch. (We do have to watch and discern - I am not for a moment saying that 'anything goes'.) We can draw strength from Liturgical Time, which allows real change - only as slowly as it needs to happen for it to be real, enduring, and healing. 

So, through slow, Liturgical Time, we praise Father, Son and Holy Spirit, One God. And we bear the pain of those who mourn and those in fear. And (if we are Christians) we bear the pain of those who turn to violence and may wish us ill. Pray. Hope. Watch. Because it is the loving worship of the Triune God-who-is-love which truly changes things. In God's good time. Mysteriously.

'Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost through all eternity'.

Amen.