The Twentieth Sunday after Trinity
Isaiah 45.1–7; Psalm 96; 1 Thessalonians 1.1–10; Matthew 22.15–22
I probably need to get a little historical and do some explaining before we get into the gist of today’s readings.
In our OT reading from Isaiah the Lord has a message for someone called Cyrus and this Cyrus character is referred to as the Lord’s ‘anointed’.
Cyrus the Great was the pagan king of Persia (reigning from 559–530 BC). He is featured in the Old Testament as the ruler used by God to end the 70-year Babylonian captivity and allow the Jewish people to return to their homeland.
He is called "the anointed" (messiah in Hebrew) in Isaiah 45:1, making him the only non-Israelite ruler to ever receive this sacred title in the Bible.
Cyrus united the Medes and the Persians and conquered Babylon in 539 BC, and established a vast Empire.
In the biblical story, Cyrus is the literal fulfillment of divine prophecy. Roughly 150 years before Cyrus was even born, the prophet Isaiah named him directly, foretelling his exact role in God's grand plan.
3 OT books (Ezra, 2 Chronicles, Isaiah) describe the way God used Cyrus as an instrument of his justice to defeat Babylon and liberate the Jewish Exiles allowing them to return to Jerusalem. He also authorised and funded the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple and returned the sacred vessels and holy articles that had been stolen by the Babylonians when they destroyed the Temple 70 years before in 586 BC.
Let’s get all this into some perspective: Cyrus was not a Jew; God used a pagan king to carry out his wishes. God is completely sovereign; he doesn’t just rule Israel; he rules all nations and can handpick a foreign king to execute his will whenever he chooses to.
Isaiah says that God anointed and equipped Cyrus even though he did not know God. Cyrus did not worship the Lord but he was still commissioned to bring the Jewish people home.
Here’s what Isaiah says: For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name, I name you, though you do not know me. I am the Lord, and there is no other; besides me there is no god. I arm you, though you do not know me, so that they may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is no one besides me; I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity; I the Lord do all these things.
I think it’s important to let all this sink in. Almost every Jewish prayer begins with the phrase: ‘Blessed are You, LORD our God, King of the Universe’. God is in charge and he is able to direct world affairs as he sees fit. He is Absolute Sovereign; the King of the Universe; the Most High.
God can select any vessel he wishes to select to carry out his purposes, whether the vessel in question is Pagan, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Atheist, Agnostic, Occult, or any other persuasion.
And now to a pagan Roman vessel and our Gospel story.
It’s a celebrated passage from which centuries of Christian debate has been generated about how to balance our duty to the State against our duty to God.
The pharisees weaponise a question but not before trying to butter him up ‘Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?’
The question is designed to put Jesus in an impossible situation. If he affirms that taxes should be paid to Caesar he risks upsetting the vast majority of Jews who struggled under the weight of Roman taxation; if he denies that taxes should be paid to Caesar he risks offending the Roman and Jewish authorities that benefitted from the status quo.
We are told that Jesus isn’t fooled for a moment. He knows it’s a trap and perceives their malice. He asks them to hand him a Denarius on which there was an image of Caesar, and he replies: ‘Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ In the old language it’s much more poetic: Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s (Matthew 22:21 KJV).
Let’s focus for a moment on Caesar and on that coin.
The emperor at the time was Tiberias so it is his face that would’ve been stamped on the coin. He ruled from AD 14-AD 37. He succeeded Augustus, who succeeded Julius Caesar.
The inscription on the coin reads: Tiberius Caesar son of the divine Augustus.
The Roman Senate declared that Julius Caesar was God in 42 BC so Augustus adopted the title ‘divi filius’, meaning 'son of god', and Tiberias just followed suit declaring himself ‘Son of the Divine Augustus’.
There’s a delicious irony in the fact that what we have here is Jesus, the actual Son of God, looking at a coin on which there is imprinted an image of Tiberias, the so-called son of god.
And Jesus has no problem with the idea that there are 2 realms of power; 2 realms of authority to which we are to pay our dues.
This, by the way, is the traditional understanding of what the word ‘justice’ means. The virtue of justice is that habit in a person which leads them to give God and neighbour their due. So we give to Ceasar what is due to him and to God what is due only to him.
Jesus refused to give reverence to anyone but God. Remember when the Devil tried to tempt him by offering him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory he said, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’” (Matthew 4:7-10).
Remember also that when Pontius Pilate told Jesus that he had the power to release him or have him crucified Jesus answered, You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. (John 19:11)
It looks as though Caesar and Pilate and the whole Roman administration is comparable to the pagan Persian King Cyrus doesn’t it?
Where Cyrus was somehow anointed by God to pass judgement on the Babylonians and bring the Jews home without his being aware of it; Caesar is somehow anointed by God to pass judgement on his Son and bring the whole of humanity home without his being aware of it.
The coin belongs to Caesar so it is his due; but Caesar belongs to God and God will do whatever he pleases with Caesar. Caesar is not in control of the events unfolding before his very eyes; God is in control.
I hope that in some way we can all take heart from that.
We need to be reminded that God is sovereign at a time when paying our taxes has never seemed so futile; when we seem to be so badly governed; a time when our leaders have never looked so clueless; a time when the whole world seems to be headed for the kind of chaos that I haven’t seen in my lifetime.
We need to be reminded of the words in Isaiah 55: For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
We also need to be reminded that while Tiberias’ image is stamped on the coin that Jesus looked at 2000 years ago, Jesus’ image was stamped on him in the same way that it is stamped on us here today.
Each one of us is created in the image and likeness of God; that’s a basic tenet of our faith.
Ultimately we belong to him, whether we see that or not.
Ultimately every one of us will give God what is due to him, whether we are Cyrus or Tiberias, or a disciple and follower of Christ. And I suppose that the only difference between those two is that the disciple and follower of Christ makes a decision to give God his due here and now, in this life.
That’s exactly what we are doing when we gather here on a Sunday isn’t it? We give God the worship and the service that is due to him.
As St Paul says of Jesus: God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:9-11).
Every knee will bow and every tongue confess. We choose to do it now.
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