Tuesday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time
In this well-known story from Mark, the chief priests, scribes, and elders send Pharisees and Herodians to “ensnare [Jesus] in his speech” or trap him. They ask him whether they should pay taxes to Caesar. The intended trap is the following: if Jesus says they should pay the tax then the crowd will be displeased as it would appear that Jesus is saying that the imperial rule of Rome is legitimate, and if he says that they should not pay the tax then the authorities will find him suspect for seeking to undermine the payment of the tax to the emperor. Of course, Jesus takes neither tack. Instead, he first calls them out for their attempt to trap him. Then he asks to see a denarius, the specific kind of coin that was required for the payment of this tax (the poll tax). He asks the men who were trying to trap him whose image appears on the coin. And they reply, “the emperor’s.” So, Jesus tells them to “give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and to God the things that are God’s.”
Two things really stand out for me in this passage. The first is that Jesus makes a point of telling the Pharisees and Herodians that he sees what they are trying to do. He sees their attempted trap and knows what they are up to. He doesn’t make a big point of it. But he nevertheless makes sure to make it visible. They might think they are very clever, very smart. But he sees, and he makes sure they and the others nearby see too. If Jesus is our model, then we should be challenged to make wrongdoing visible when it occurs.
The second thing that really stands out is the fact that Jesus’ answer to the question makes an important claim: there are those things that belong to the emperor, and there are those things that belong to God. And since we can’t give one thing to both the emperor and God, then we have to make some choices. Thus, in his answer, Jesus calls upon us to figure out what belongs to whom.
Of course, we don’t have an emperor in the US. But we do have people, like the president and others, who wield great power on behalf of the state, who exercise great power over us and who make big demands of us. In a myriad of ways, they tell us that something we have belongs to them or that we owe them this or that thing. That might be some of our money (via taxes). That might be our obedience to laws. That might be our loyalty to the state. That might be our vote. That might be our patriotism in war. That might be our assent to this or that policy.
Do all these things, in fact, belong to such people in power?
Perhaps we are helped in answering that question by asking another question: what belongs to God? If we are created in God’s image, do we belong to God? If our ability to reason is a gift from God, does it belong to God? If everything that we have comes from God, do our possessions belong to God? If God gave us His Creation, then does the Creation belong to God?
If our very selves, our minds, all that we have, and the glorious Creation we get to live in belongs to God, then it may be that people in power are (as they are wont to do) claiming more than what belongs to them. And while it is true that such people are in a position to demand a great deal from us, it is good to be reminded by Jesus that we must remain clear what does not belong to them. And, it turns out, a great deal does not belong to them . . . us, our minds, our Creation.
- Sue Trollinger