The day after the first Palm Sunday tested Jesus to his core. He taught in the temple using parables, three that questioned how Israel’s leaders piloted the faith. They understood that Jesus taught a counter-reality opposing their power (21:45-46). The leadership grew angry and determined to silence Jesus. When he finished teaching, the leadership sent delegations to raise questions that might entrap him. The first of four questions focused on Roman taxation. Did the Mosaic Law allow for paying Caesar, the foreign, oppressive power?
Before we see what Jesus faced, however, we need to understand how the Lord’s answer—to Caesar, Caesar’s; to God, God’s—became a modern political theory foreign to Jesus. The separation of church and state developed after the bloody religious wars following the Reformation in the 16th and 17th centuries. Contemporary pluralistic societies require the doctrine to keep societal peace. Even so, we should recognize how values migrate. Justice, peace, the distribution of wealth, care for the poor, the dignity of life, human rights: these are religious and political issues, as challenging in contemporary times as they were in biblical times. Today, a society needs to separate the institutional church from state power, but values cross social boundaries. Christians and all religious people need to speak up for the values.
The Gospel text draws out the circumstances of the encounter between Jesus and the leadership. The Pharisees—a political/religious party championing strict observance of the Mosaic Law—and the Herodians—the supporters of King Herod Antipas—came together to present the question (22:15-16). Violence saturated the moment. Jesus could have repeated the prophet Habakkuk’s lament: “Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife and discord. This is why the law is numb and justice never comes…” (Hab 1:3b-4). Jesus knew how the religious/political leadership tried to suppress his voice with violence. He knew how Holy Week would end.
In Jesus’s time around 30AD, the Romans ruled by the sword. Israel’s leadership collaborated. A growing opposition called zealots planned a violent revolution against the combined powers. Writing fifty years later around 85AD, Matthew saw the results: In 69AD, the zealots instigated an uprising. In 70AD, Rome brought in its army and crushed Israel. Rome destroyed Jerusalem and razed the temple. One million people died. Matthew looked back through the years to see how the Lord’s teaching might have saved Israel. Matthew recorded that teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus discussed anger (5:21-22), retaliation (5:38-42), and enemies (5:43-48).
What Jesus did in this scene is masterful. First, he caught the leadership in their hypocrisy. The first of God’s commandments forbids the worship of any other divinity (Ex 20:3) and the making of any image (Ex 20:4). The coin he asked for had an image of Tiberius Caesar and an inscription calling him divine. To have the coin in one’s pocket, especially while in the temple, was idolatry and blasphemy, both of which were punishable by death (Deut. 17:2-6; Lev. 24:13-16). When Jesus asked, the leaders produced the coin. Their sin and misplaced loyalty became public. Matthew records that they walked away (22:22).
A more serious hypocrisy emerges. Recall that the Pharisees and Herodians are full of hate, seeking to kill Jesus. Ask, then, what belongs to God. Jesus taught that God is love. And he taught the truth of Genesis that each person is made in God’s image (Gen 1:26-27). Hatred in the name of God is also hypocrisy and blasphemy. A true disciple must find God’s image in the Other. Anything that leads to hatred and violence does not belong to God.