Holy Tuesday: What Belongs to God
A Reflection by Jesse Steven Wheeler*
Once again, Holy Week brims with theo-political significance. As such, we should file the following passage under: "It does not mean what we often think it means."
The legal experts and chief priests were watching Jesus closely and sent spies who pretended to be sincere. They wanted to trap him in his words so they could hand him over to the jurisdiction and authority of the governor. They asked him, “Teacher, we know that you are correct in what you say and teach. You don’t show favoritism but teach God’s way as it really is. Does the Law allow people to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”
Since Jesus recognized their deception, he said to them, “Show me a coin. Whose image and inscription does it have on it?”
“Caesar’s,” they replied.
He said to them, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”
They couldn’t trap him in his words in front of the people. Astonished by his answer, they were speechless.
—Luke 20:20–26 (CEB)
Too often, this passage has been used to promote a particular kind of sacred versus secular dualism such that even if God remains “lord of our souls” it is nevertheless Caesar who reigns over everything else. Yet, these hyper-spiritualized views result in a dualism that the biblical authors would never recognize. This dualism effectively defangs the prophetic witness, fashioning a lord other than God to rule over our socio-political and financial lives. It displaces the very lordship of God being asserted in this moment by Jesus. But, the creator of the universe does not reside in a spiritual box. For instance, the phrase, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God,” immediately begs the question: What doesn’t belong to God? As paraphrased by Christian ethicists Glen Stassen and David Gushee:
The second member of the parallelism . . . means “render everything to God.” It gives an ironic twist to the first half of the teaching: God has sovereignty over Caesar; we render to Caesar only what fits God’s will.
This is especially so as it relates to questions of our ultimate allegiance and upon whose altar we lay down our time, our resources, or even our very lives. For as Jesus tells us, “You cannot serve two masters.” So, within the politically charged atmosphere of the imperial occupation (soon to erupt in open warfare) the question of taxation was used to differentiate between rebel and collaborator. The religious leaders were attempting to trick Jesus into speaking open treason or blasphemy. Instead, Jesus turns the question back on them by highlighting their own complicity in the exploitative imperial system—holding as they were in the midst of the temple courtyard “the graven image of a self-proclaimed god.” Ultimately, the way of Jesus is neither bloody revolution nor collaboration. It is both wholly just and nonviolent.
Reflect
What does it mean to conduct your affairs in light of the reality that all things belong to God?
What would a commitment to justice on the one hand and nonviolence on the other look like in practice? Think of one step you can take this week that reflects Jesus's concern for justice and non-violence.
Pray
God, we worship you as the sole lord and sovereign of humanity, and render free obedience to you because your laws are just and your will is love. We pray to you for the kings and princes of the nations to whom power has descended from the past, and for the lords of industry and trade in whose hands the wealth and power of our modern world have gathered. We beseech you to save them from the terrible temptations of their position, lest they follow in the somber lineage of those who have lorded in the past and have used the people’s powers for their oppression. Suffer them not to waste the labor of the many for their own luxury, or to use the precious life-blood of men and women for the corruption of all.
Open their hearts to the saving spirit of a new age of freedom. Mature in their souls the unshakable conviction that all they have is but held in trust for a time till the heir shall claim his own. And when the people seek the ampler freedom and self-direction of personhood, may there be no blindness to the higher will and no hardening of heart by those who have ruled. Grant them wisdom so large-hearted that they may recognize the culmination of their task in yielding up their powers, and may use their gathered knowledge in guiding the liberation of the people in order and stability. Save them from the fear and hate which are the tyrants’ portion and from the scorn of coming generations. Reveal to them that all the higher joys come only by imparting the strength of our life to those who need it, and that a person’s life consists not in the things possessed, but in the love that flows out from them and flows back to them.
—Walter Rauschenbusch (1910)