Scripture: Matthew 22:15-24
I need to start out this morning by going back to something I said in my sermon three weeks ago. I was talking about Elijah, and I was explaining that Elijah had gotten himself into trouble with King Ahab and Queen Jezebel by telling them that their plans for making war on Iraq were morally wrong. I was playing with the story, of course. A potential war with Iraq was not an issue in the Biblical story, and I was putting that position in Elijah’s mouth, just to illustrate the kind of thing that had gotten him into trouble…and to get in a quick anti-war plug. It was not a main point of that sermon. It is a main point of this one.
I remember three weeks ago apologizing sort of light-heartedly for several remarks that had a distinctly anti-Bush administration flavor to them. I want to apologize again today, more seriously, but I also want to be as clear as I can about what I am apologizing for.
I was three weeks ago, and am still today, opposed to the United States making a first strike military attack on Iraq. I do not apologize for holding that position, and I state it up front today in the interest of full disclosure. You deserve to know where I’m coming from, if you didn’t know it already. I deserve not to have to hide my opinions. But I do apologize for treating it in a sort cavalier manner in that previous sermon, using it as a device, just sort of lobbing it out into the congregation without any serious or prayerful attention surrounding it. It is not a light-hearted matter, and I know from prayer concerns offered over the course of many weeks now that it is a matter that weighs heavily on the minds and hearts of the people in this congregation. And so I have known from the moment I said my words out loud three weeks ago that I would have to come back to this and speak more directly and thoughtfully to the issue.
I also apologize if my casual remarks of three weeks ago implied in any way that I thought or assumed that the rest of the people in the room necessarily shared my views about the morality of a proposed war on Iraq. I did not and do not assume that and do not want to leave that impression. I do not assume that any right thinking person, any thoughtful Christian, any kind and compassionate, peace-and-justice loving person will necessarily oppose the idea of war as I do. I don’t assume that about people in the general population, and I don’t assume that about Sojourners.
Because I express a stance from behind this piece of furniture with a robe on, or because other Sojourners express their opposition to war plans during announcement or prayer time, does not mean, cannot mean, that there is no room in this room for people who find themselves in a different place. And so if I have contributed to an atmosphere in which people who are troubled and uncertain about making war on Iraq or who believe that such a course may be the lesser of evils—if I have helped to make an atmosphere where people who find themselves in those places feel unwelcome or unable to speak, then I apologize. I don’t know that this is true, or that anyone took my remarks that way, but it’s a danger I think we all know we need to be aware of at Sojourners, not to insist of any kind of theological orthodoxy, nor on any kind of social or political orthodoxy either.
Having said that, and trying to keep that understanding firmly in place, I have to speak. Granted the dangers of speaking, how can we fail to bring into our worship a matter that must certainly take up some significant amount of space in our spirits these days? And let me, early on this morning, bring in the scripture reading from Matthew, which again is the lectionary scripture. I think it’s relevant to both the content and spirit of the discussion.
This is one of those passages (there are a number of them) where some people who would like to have Jesus out of their lives devise some scheme to get him in trouble, come up with some question on the order of “have you stopped beating your wife” where anything he says is going to get him in trouble, but where in fact Jesus comes up with some clever answer that allows him to wriggle out of trouble one more time.
In this case, the story goes, the schemers come to Jesus and say something like this: “So, O Great and Holy Teacher Who Speaks Nothing But the Truth and Has an Answer to Every Question, we have a question for you. Should we pay our taxes to the Romans or not?” We know what Jesus said. We heard the reading; maybe we know the story. “Oh, o.k. You want to play games. I can play games. Bring me a coin. Who’s picture is on it?—Caesar’s—Well then, give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” End of conversation. Jesus goes on about his business. Schemers are foiled still one more time, and are left disappointed and amazed.
The people trying to trap Jesus may have been using the question about taxes just as a tool to try to get Jesus in trouble, but the reason they thought it might work was that it was a serious, a very pointed question. I don’t want to get too deeply into the historical context. It’ll distract us from our own context. But this was a hateful tax that Jesus was being asked about. Hateful because it was paid to the Romans who were a foreign occupying army, thought they were culturally superior, thought they could do anything they wanted because they had the power to do anything they wanted, believed that their emperor was divine or at least treated him like he was, even put his picture on their coins so that anyone who used the money was faced with a constant insult. On top of that the tax was hateful because it was a tax everyone had to pay whether they could afford it or not, and a great many could not. This was a tax that at every level reminded people and emphasized that the Roman people who were in control by force had very little regard or even sympathy for the Jewish people, didn’t care beans about their welfare, scarcely even recognized them as human beings. Essentially, the question put to Jesus was framed this way: “So great, wise, noble teacher. What do you think? Should we sacrifice everything we believe in and pay tribute to the Romans, or should we resist them, knowing that it will probably get us all crucified?
You notice that Jesus didn’t answer the question. Some people seem to think he did. Some people think that what he said was something like, “Go ahead and pay the taxes because that’s a matter of politics and that belongs to a different area of life. You can be loyal to Caesar over there, as long as you’re also devoted to God over here. But if Jesus meant that we are to leave Caesar-like issues, such as war or taxes, to the government and that we are to stick to being concerned about God-like things, offering to God such things as prayers and hymns, if Jesus meant to say that…well, Jesus didn’t mean to say that, in no way meant to say that, not in my understanding of what he said.
What he did do was to enlarge the scope of the question. What he did was bring God into the picture. The original question had nothing to do with God. It was just about taxes—pay them or not pay them—a question of social strategy. What Jesus responded essentially was, as I hear him, “Wait a minute. There’s a bigger question here. This is not just a question of how we deal with the Romans. This is a question of how we deal with God, and what we owe to God.” And once God is in the picture we can’t take anything for granted, not death, not taxes, not anything. Go ahead and pay the Romans their taxes—or not—Jesus might have said. What we are about here is not just whether or not to cooperate with the Romans, but praying in and living in the reign of God. That’s what we owe God. This question of taxes and dealing with the Romans is just a small part of the big picture. And in the larger context, with God in the picture, it’s not even so clear what exactly it is that we are supposed to render to Caesar, if anything. I’m reminded of a poster I once saw that said, “We have discovered some doubt about what it is that belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God, and we have decided to give the benefit of the doubt to God.”
We have a pointed question addressed to us as a result of the course of events in our world and a course of action proposed by our government. I guess we could choose to ignore the question or pretend we don’t have to deal with it, but it would be hard. Do you or don’t you, Jim Bundy, support a war, if our government decides it’s necessary, on the nation of Iraq? It has the feel to me of the kind of emotionally charged, no-win question that was asked of Jesus. So, what do you think all you American citizens and people who fancy yourselves to be Christians? Are you in favor of starting a war, or are you in favor of being subjected indefinitely to the threat of biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons being used on just about anyone just about anywhere?
Those aren’t attractive alternatives. And when they are debated, it is usually on political, social, or military grounds. Has the president made his case? Does he have the support of the Democrats, the Congress, the American people? Does he have the support of other nations? How many other nations does he need the support of? How winnable is such a war? And how quickly? How much will it cost? What happens afterward? Will it make the world more secure? And so on. Important questions and ones that probably need to be answered in order to decide whether one supports or opposes such a war.
I have to say that for the most part, even when people representing a faith point of view enter this debate, it has been carried out on this level—making strategic judgments about what will or will not work. As I say such judgments need to be made and argued—but not by communities of faith, not by people of faith, not from within the Christian community. From where I sit, the Christian community (to speak only of my own community of faith) has lacked a prophetic voice on this issue, not because it has failed to speak out, but because it has not made sufficiently clear in it’s’speaking what God has to do with this. I also have to say that from where I stand, and I admit I can only stand in one place, but we all need to stand someplace, those who would defend the notion of war from a faith perspective have failed even more thoroughly to say what God has to do with their stance.
What difference would it make if God were in the picture, which is what I’m suggesting was Jesus’ point in the scripture reading? It’s a question that we ought not to give quick answers to, but two things occur to me for today.
In the past ten years somewhere between 500,000 and 1,000,000 Iraqi children have died preventable deaths because of such things as unclean drinking water and lack of medicines or medical equipment. One in seven Iraqi children die before they reach the age of 5. Some have said this is because of the sanctions that have been in place during that time. I’m not arguing that point today though. If the numbers I just quoted spoke of conditions in the United States, we would not stand for it. Is Iraqi life less valuable? The president says that Iraq poses such a threat that to do nothing is not an option. Why has that not been true when Iraqi children were dying by the thousands and tens of thousands, that doing nothing to relieve the suffering is not an option? Why is there not at least as much passion about the real loss of life that has already happened and that continues, as there is about the loss of life that may be threatened by Iraqi weapons? For me, when God is in the picture those questions need to be asked. It may be that there are weapons that threaten mass destruction and that this is not tolerable to God. Is the death of 500,000 children tolerable to God?
My second thought follows from this. What we are called to do is something more long term and difficult than opposing a plan for war, though some of us will be truly and sincerely and faithfully called to that task. But it is not just a question of opposing war. It is a question of building peace. If that is too hard a question for us—what is involved in building peace—then maybe those of us inclined to make war the issue, whether pro or con, will realize that in opposing war, or reluctantly supporting war, we have only done the easy part. If we can easily envision what we might do to oppose the war—call a presidential hot line, sign an on-line petition, stand in front of the Federal building with a sign or join a peace march on the mall—but if we cannot so easily imagine what we might do to build the peace, if those images don’t come so quickly to mind, then maybe we need to be at least a little troubled by that. Maybe we need to know that opposing war is just the beginning, and is the easier part, even in times when it may mean being in a small minority and being accused of not loving your country and things like that that are familiar enough.
We are called, as Christians, I believe, to be peacemakers. That allows for some rendering unto Caesar, and for some disagreement about how and when to do that. But it also reminds us of the larger task of rendering to God what is God’s, of building peace, of making justice, and trying as we struggle with those issues as best we can to care for each other along the way. Amen.
Jim Bundy
October 20, 2002