Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's

 

 And the chief priests and the scribes that very hour sought to lay hands on Him, but they feared the people -- for they knew He had spoken this parable against them.

So they watched Him, and sent spies who pretended to be righteous, that they might seize on His words, in order to deliver Him to the power and the authority of the governor.  Then they asked Him, saying, "Teacher, we know that You say and teach rightly, and You do not show personal favoritism, but teach the way of God in truth.  Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"  But He perceived their craftiness, and said to them, "Why do you test Me?  Show Me a denarius.  Whose image and inscription does it have?"  They answered and said, "Caesar's."  And He said to them, "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."  But they could not catch Him in His words in the presence of the people.  And they marveled at His answer and kept silent.

 

- Luke 20:19–26 

 

Yesterday we read that, after disputing with the religious leaders over His authority regarding His Triumphal Entry, and also to preach and to cleanse the temple, Jesus began to tell the people this parable:  "A certain man planted a vineyard, leased it to vinedressers, and went into a far country for a long time.  Now at vintage-time he sent a servant to the vinedressers, that they might give him some of the fruit of the vineyard.  But the vinedressers beat him and sent him away empty-handed.  Again he sent another servant; and they beat him also, treated him shamefully, and sent him away empty-handed.  And again he sent a third; and they wounded him also and cast him out.  Then the owner of the vineyard said, 'What shall I do?  I will send my beloved son.  Probably they will respect him when they see him.'  But when the vinedressers saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, 'This is the heir.  Come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours.'  So they cast him out of the vineyard and killed him.  Therefore what will the owner of the vineyard do to them?  He will come and destroy those vinedressers and give the vineyard to others."  And when they heard it they said, "Certainly not!"  Then He looked at them and said, "What then is this that is written:  'The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone'?  Whoever falls on that stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder."  And the chief priests and the scribes that very hour sought to lay hands on Him, but they feared the people -- for they knew He had spoken this parable against them. 

 And the chief priests and the scribes that very hour sought to lay hands on Him, but they feared the people -- for they knew He had spoken this parable against them.  This verse refers to Jesus' telling of the parable of the Wicked Vinedressers, in yesterday's reading, above.  

So they watched Him, and sent spies who pretended to be righteous, that they might seize on His words, in order to deliver Him to the power and the authority of the governor.  Then they asked Him, saying, "Teacher, we know that You say and teach rightly, and You do not show personal favoritism, but teach the way of God in truth.  Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"  But He perceived their craftiness, and said to them, "Why do you test Me?  Show Me a denarius.  Whose image and inscription does it have?"  They answered and said, "Caesar's."  And He said to them, "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."  But they could not catch Him in His words in the presence of the people.  And they marveled at His answer and kept silent.  My study Bible explains that this question on taxation is a trap designed to catch Jesus one way or the other.  A "yes" answer will turn the Jewish people against Him.  A "no" answer can bring a charge of treason by the Romans.  But the way that He chooses to answer is a defeat of the trap, and those who designed it.  What it shows is that a believer can render the state its due, while serving God (Romans 13:1-7).  My study Bible explains that as the coin bears the image of the emperor, and is properly paid to him, so each person bears the image of God, and therefore belongs to God.  Conflict arises in the instance when the state demands that which is contrary to God.

Jesus' brilliance in dialogue is always striking, and it teaches us something powerful about argument.  As the religious leaders "spar off," so to speak, against Jesus, what we witness is not a battle with munitions and soldiers and armaments of all kinds, but rather a battle for truth.  This is because it is essentially a battle at the deepest levels of human capacity for awareness and understanding, and it's a battle for truth at the deepest root of what truth is.  This is, in effect, a kind of spiritual battle, and it's one where the battleground is hearts and souls and minds.  It is a battle in the place where we are to love God, according to what Jesus has called the "first and great commandment" -- "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind."  He coupled it with the commandment to love neighbor as oneself, and proclaimed that upon these two hang all the Law and the Prophets.  See Matthew 22:36-40.  But this place of the heart, soul, and mind is the place where this conflict between Christ and the religious leaders is really taking place, and so, at this stage, it takes place in debate, in words, in Christ's expression of the truth that finds loopholes in all of their arguments, and reasons beyond their capacity to grasp in the first place.  This is a battle waged by the very Person who is Logos Himself, and it is a battle for the hearts, minds, and souls of all people.  It is the very thing for which He has come into the world.  It is the light that He has brought into the darkness (John 1:5).  This is a battle for truth of the deepest kind, that lies most deeply within a person and unites a cosmological order.  In the modern world, we are used to the bandied use of words that whittles their meanings down to nothing.  We're used to loose language, that today expresses one thing, and tomorrow another.  We hear theories and slogans of all kinds that are often deceptive -- used to imply conclusions that the words themselves don't actually mean -- or twisted meanings that seem to link a political or social movement with some "good" things we know from the past, but used in fact to contradict the very things the words refer to.  If equality once implied a democratic meritocracy, or the measure of a person based on the content of their character, today we might hear slogans and theories claiming to be democratic but demeaning the whole concept of character at all.  Such assertions have even been made supposedly while evoking great figures of the past whose very words extolled the virtue of character as measure of a person, while effectively denouncing that very thing for which they advocated.  When language is used in such way for manipulation -- effectively telling lies in order to coerce others to follow for another's political or social gain -- then truth is absent.  It is a way to mess with hearts and souls and minds, and to destroy meaning itself.  But Christ is the Logos:  He is the spoken truth, the word, the logic and reason, the wisdom, the One who puts things in order and gives us the things of God that form the deepest substance of truth and reality.  Jesus says of Himself, "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6).  And in this debate in the temple what we have is essentially the Logos who comes into the world and teaches the truths that we need to hear.  He evades the traps of the religious leadership by brilliantly staking out His own ground upon which this battle takes place:  there is another way to answer the question which they can't possibly anticipate.  Let us note that for every parry and thrust of these debates in the temple, all the people are listening.  They are the ones whose hearts and minds and souls form the real battleground where this challenge for truth takes place.  It is Jesus who has taught us that to know the truth makes us free (John 8:32), and we must also carefully understand its opposite:  those who seek to mislead, to twist meaning beyond its truth, to misuse meanings and language, always seek to make others slaves in some sense.  One popular term for performed magic on a stage is "sleight of hand," and the manipulation of words is used in this same way, to distract from what is really happening.  If it is the truth that makes us free, it is clearly lies that bind us in chains and keep us in darkness, so that we cannot make choices which are best for us.  This is why we trust in Christ, the Logos, who comes into the world to bring us light and truth so that we are no longer slaves to that which seeks to manipulate, to lie, to coerce, and to make us servants to that which only seeks its own power, and not the well-being and welfare of human beings that Christ the Physician -- the One being condemned for healing on the Sabbath -- brings to us.  He is the One who has declared that the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27).  This is the One who proclaims the reality of God -- who is love, and healing, and the bedrock of truth; He is the One in whom we can trust.  My study bible explains that Logos can mean "wisdom," "reason," and "action" as well as "word," and all of these are attributes of the Son of God.  He speaks to us the realities of the Father (John 14:7), teaching us the truth that we are loved, worthy of salvation and effort of all kind to heal and to retrieve in loving embrace of our Creator.  Let us put our trust in Him, even when -- and especially then -- when all else seems designed to confuse and distract.  For worship belongs only to God, and all else is a false idol.