Lutherans have made much of the two kingdoms – the kingdom of the left that is the world and its governance and the kingdom of the right that is the Church. I fear we have made too much of it all. Covid found us caught in the crux of a dilemma. The government was issuing rules about everything from masks to vaccines and we were afraid for our lives trying to find a way through it all. In the end, most churches complied and therefore admitted that the liquor store was more important to this life than worship. In so doing we ordered an allegiance to the government and this life even more than obtaining eternal life.
More than a few pointed to this passage as the authority. Jesus is telling you to render under Caesar what is Caesars. Well, that is what Jesus said. But what belongs to Caesar? Not you. Not your soul. Not your life. Not your time. Not your abilities. In the end, the only things that belongs to Caesar are your money and the laws that do not conflict with His. It is not that much. We are born without money and will die without it. That is true not only for money but for property. The only laws that have binding authority upon us are God’s and the rest must defer to His commands. This is the great contrast between the eternal which belongs to God and the things of this life that are temporary. But you are not temporary. Jesus is pointing to the passing loyalties of this world against the eternal claim of God upon you.
What that means to say is this. The shocking claim of Jesus is not that you owe something to the government. Everyone knew and knows that. You pay or you lose your property or end up in jail. The Pharisees had played this game and they knew the score as well. So the point of Jesus is not about paying taxes or living in two kingdoms. It is about what belongs to God. And what does not belong to the Lord? Maybe we could say that evil does not belong to God but He even claimed our sins upon the cross so that they are no longer ours but His. All things are God’s. That is the shocking thing that Jesus says.
You belong to the Lord. He has bought you with a price. You are not your own. You belong to Him. He did not pay for you with silver or gold but with the holy and precious blood and sufferings of our Lord upon the cross. You are His. That is the shocking part of Jesus’ words. You are God’s and everything is God’s. Even the government and those elected or appointed to govern belong to the Lord.
Jesus is not trying to get us to be obedient citizens. Jesus is confronting us with the raw fact that we belong to Him. We were born according to His creative will and purpose, rescued and redeemed by His steadfast love, and raised from death to life forever with Him. Who cares about the cost of taxes when we see what our Lord was willing to endure, to pay, and to suffer in order that you and I might be His own and live under Him in His kingdom without end? We have made a sport out of trying to deny the government as much of our money as we can but the real game in town is the way we deny ourselves to God when He has bought and paid for us all.
What Jesus is not talking about is the image on the coin but the image on YOU. It is not about surrendering to God some of the money this world finds so valuable. It is about surrendering to the Lord all you are and think and say and do because you bear His image in baptism and have been grafted into His vine by faith. The government wants only a part of you but God wants all of you – every bit of you. And not only the good things but He wants your sins so that He might take them as far from you as the east if from the west. He wants your death so that you will not die. He wants your life so that He might preserve it to eternity. No claim by Uncle Sam is as shocking as God’s claim on you.
Sometimes we need a powerful reminder of all of this. When we spend more time dreaming about what money can buy us than what Christ has purchased and won. When we worry about how long church is or if there might be something better to do that worship. When we let Scripture sit gathering dust while we complain that God seems distant to us. When we look at the offering plate and wonder why we should give money when we don’t necessarily know where it is all going. When we refuse to give our time for the work of God’s Church but gladly let others do what is our duty as well.
The Pharisees were better than we are at keeping the law. They gladly tithed and gave even more than 10%. They read the Scriptures until they knew them by heart. They were in the temple every time the door was opened. But what they found hard to surrender were their hearts. They lacked faith. We are different. We will gladly give God faith but we won’t give Him much else. We are so free from the Lord that we feel no guilt about doing evil and no shame about our failure to do good. The Lord’s response is this: Render to God what is God’s. This does not mean money first but hearts. If God has your heart, the money will come too.
Render unto God is not about changing what you do but seeing who and whose you are. It is not about money but about identity. Do you see yourself as the child of God whom the Lord rescued by emptying Himself upon the cross and then claimed in the baptismal water as His most precious possession? Because it does not matter what you do unless this is the beating heart of your identity as a child of God and your life as a child of God by faith.
In case you are wondering what God’s will and purpose are, we call that the Law, the Commandments, the Third Use. If you really do not know what God wants of you or wants for you, you have forgotten the commandments. Love Him with all your body, soul, mind, and heart and love your neighbor as yourself. It won’t earn you salvation but it will mark you as God’s own in a world that refuses His ownership.
Strangely enough, when those selfsame Pharisees delivered up Jesus to the High Priest and the Ruling Council of the Jews, they were giving God what belongs to Him. They thought it was the end of everything but God knew it was the beginning. You have been bought with a price. You belong to the Lord. So don’t bellyache about what belongs to Caesar. Instead begin to rejoice in what belongs to the Lord. YOU belong to Him. When we get that one right, the paltry stuff that the government demands will no longer cause us pain and the littlest things of this mortal life will cause us great joy. In the holy name of Jesus. Amen.
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