Matthew 22: 14-23

At that point, the Pharisees debated on how they might catch Jesus off guard. So they sent some of their people to him along with a few Herodians to say, "Master, we know that you are honest and that you teach God's way without hesitation, that also you are impartial because you look for the real person not for appearances. So tell us what you think about this: Do you think it right to pay the poll levy to the Roman emperor or not?" Jesus had them figured out and knew what they were up to, so he said, "Why do you bother me, you fakers? Let me have the coin used to pay the levy." They gave him one of the silver coins. And he said to them, "Whose likeness is this? Whose name?" They responded, "The emperor." So Jesus replied, "Yes, well, pay the emperor his due with his own coin, and pay God in His own." When they heard his reply, they were stunned and retreated to regroup.

(Translated and paraphrased by Harry T. Cook.)

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Much quoted is the "render unto Caesar" line but without much real understanding of what was at stake. The Jesus Seminar people by majority opinion gave the old Red Letter treatment to it, suggesting that Jesus actually said it sometime somewhere. I would say any one of the Gandhi-like itinerant street-speakers might have said it. Certainly it has its subversive aspect. The saying appears in all three synoptic gospels and in Thomas. Its first known use was in Mark 12:17. Thomas adds "and give me what is mine." 

Both Mark and Matthew include the Herodians in the their versions, suggesting that they were Jews supportive of Herod the Great and would definitely want to satisfy the imperial desire that Caesar's likeness on a denarius be respected as legal tender for whatever toll or levy was being taken. The Pharisees would have blanched at the idea. Why Mark and Matthew group them together seems odd.

The query as to the Jewish law that would deal with the payment of tolls and levies asks if it was "legal" for a Jew to pay a tax in Roman coinage with the image of Caesar stamped upon it. (See Exodus 20: 4-5). The trap his interrogators set for Jesus was this: either he would say it was or it wasn't legal. If he said it wasn't, they would interpret that as his siding with the radical fringe in declining to pay whatever toll or levy was in question in any form of currency. If Jesus said OK to the denarius, then he would have been seen as giving in to imperial power. He couldn't win.

A clue is the use of two forms of the similar verbs διδωμι and αποδιδωμι, the first connoting the act of "turning over" as in payment due, the second meaning "returning" or "restoring." (It is a point of interest that Paul in I Corinthians 7:3 uses the latter in his counsel to married couples "to give" their bodies each to the other in mutual conjugal activity. In other words, don't withhold yourself.) The Pharisees and Herodians were wanting to know if they could "pay" the levy in Roman money. Jesus is depicted as saying that it should be paid (rendered) in the currency proper to the government. What is God's due should be paid (gladly returned) to him. Not an insignificant difference. All three synoptic gospels use the same verb forms.

How the "render unto" saying has been used in the life of the church is another story entirely. During the days of the Vietnam war, many of us were on the front lines of protest. The junior clergy made the senior clergy edgy. Contributions and attendance at mass were affected negatively in many places by the image of clergy protesting the war. Patriotism was at stake, and the much-quote "my country, right or wrong" did not help matters.

We who went to the barricades with our anti-war banners and placards were seen as provocateurs and dissidents. We were told to get busy saving souls, thereby rendering to God what was God's and to demonstrate patriotism, thereby rendering unto Caesar what was Caesar's.

We were hard put to explain that we thought the gospel witness against that war was a prophetic mandate and that we were, in fact, rendering unto God what the God disclosed in the gospel would want, were He to exist, viz. peace among people of good will. Plenty of good church-going Christians were not buying it. They wanted both to "support our troops" and hear about "the peace that passeth understanding" at the same time, with no suggestion that such a desire was contradictory.

Of course, it was contradictory and morally wanting. If Psalm 24:1 means to a bible-oriented theist what it says -- "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof " -- then striving for peace and justice and respecting the dignity of every human being is what the believer must do. It also makes sense. Hillel the Elder put it this way: "What you hate, do not do to another." Any non-theist, agnostic and certainly a secular humanist can see the wisdom in that.

Empire and theism -- represented structurally by the Church -- were effectively brought together under Constantine the Great in and after 312 CE. Theodosius in 397 CE finally and officially joined them at the hip in which condition they remained for the ensuing fourteen centuries until America's founding parents figured out that church and state ought to erect a wall between themselves, cooperating whenever possible, but keeping religion out of government and government out of religion.

So render unto the IRS what's owed it, and render unto your religious commitment (whatever it may be) that which you think it demands, hoping the two do not find themselves in opposition. However, if that becomes the case, "choose ye" as the legendary Joshua is said to have told his people - "whom ye will serve."

Earth to Christian believers: Yours is not an accommodating religion. Keep in mind what the Nazarene sage is said to have declared: "Ye cannot serve God and mammon" -- he meant at the same time.