Pocketing the Change
A seminary classmate of mine who pastors a church in Arkansas posted a sign on the marquee of his church this week that read: “So, what’s the proper tithe on $700 billion?” When I saw that thought-provoking question, I will admit that I was tempted to come over and change our marquee as well. A photograph of the marquee in Arkansas made it into the local newspaper and the newspaper’s editor added a comment below the photo that told readers that the tithe, according to Biblical sources, was $70 billion. My seminary classmate took issue with the editor’s comments and wrote a letter to the editor, which was published in the newspaper the following day. The proper tithe for $700 billion was not $70 billion dollars… though one might be forgiven for thinking that, because that is the traditional answer. In this case, however, the traditional answer is not the right answer.
The concept of a tithe of ten percent goes back to Abram giving Malchizedek, the King of Salem and Priest of the Most High God, one-tenth of everything in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis. This offering represented a gift to God for all that God had done in allowing Abram to triumph over the kings that he battled. Later (Numbers 18), the tithe came to represent the first fruits of the fields… given as a gift to God. Like the taxes due to the emperor or the gift of a vassal to a conquering monarch, the tithe was considered a requirement… a debt that was owed. Jesus, however, saw the relationship between God and humankind in a very different light and he redefined that relationship, taking it from a master-slave relationship of fealty oaths and taxes to a father-son relationship with family ties of love and loyalty. The question being asked here is not “what is the traditional tithe on $700 billion” but instead “what is the proper tithe on $700 billion.” To understand the difference, we need to reflect back on both of our Biblical texts for today.
In the text that Peggy Kenny read for us this morning, we hear these words: “For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction ... in every place your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it. For the people of those regions report… how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God.” (1 Thessalonians 1:4-9) The faith of the people of Thessalonica was such that there was no need to speak about it because they lived it out with consistency and integrity. In other words, they did have to say that they had turned from idols, for they lived in a way that that their lives proclaimed their relationship to God and God's lordship over them. That relationship pervaded everything they did.
It was not a relationship that the Pharisees, their disciples or the Herodians, questioning Jesus in our text today, understood, as indicated by a combination of two things that are often overlooked in ths story. The first thing that is often overlooked is that the setting of the story is in the courtyard of the Temple. (Matthew 21:23) The moneychangers whose tables had been overturned by Jesus (Matthew 21:12) were in the courtyard because coinage of the Roman Empire included images… such as the image of Caesar, the man who called himself "lord" when that title belonged only to God. Images of “other gods” were not to be carried into the temple of the God of Israel, because that was forbidden in the first of the Ten Commandments that were given to Moses. The importance of this information and the setting of this story become clear when Jesus asks these men for a coin.
The second point that is often overlooked is that, when Jesus asks the disciples of the Pharisees and Herodians who are questioning him to produce a coin of the land in that setting, they immediately produce a denarius. Do you see the problem? The very people who want to teach Jesus a lesson about devotion to God are those who have carried a coin with the image of Caesar onto the Temple grounds in violation of the Ten Commandments. This fills the story with irony that is not lost on the people who heard the story that day or those who hear the story retold in the years that follow.
Until the moment when the coin is handed to Jesus, Jesus was between the horns of a dilemma. If he said that paying taxes to Caesar was wrong… especially during the Passover season, in which countless pilgrims converged on Jerusalem to remember God's liberation of the children of Israel from slavery under foreigners… in that case, the Egyptians… Jesus would be provoking an insurrection against Rome… and the authorities would take immediate action against him. However, if Jesus said that paying taxes to Rome was right, those who were questioning him stood ready to accuse Jesus of disloyalty to Israel… and Israel’s God. Instead, Jesus showed them… and anyone who was listening… that they were bearing proclamations of Caesar's lordship into the very Temple of the God they claimed to be serving with such single-mindedness. When that coin appeared in the hands of the Pharisee’s disciples, Jesus won the argument… having avoided that difficult question entirely while still carrying the day against his critics.
But Jesus, having already won the argument, answered the question anyway. What he said might have confused anyone who was not steeped in the traditions of the Hebrew people, but it would not have confused any self-respecting Pharisee. Jesus said, "Give to the emperor what is the emperor's, and give to God what is God's." So what in this world is God's?
The biggest clue comes from the first words of Psalm 24, which any Jewish child could have recited from memory. The first verse of Psalm 24 reads: “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it; the world and those who live in it.” It's a claim that is even more sweeping than some people would have wanted to make as they said that the land of Israel and everything in it belonged to the God of Israel. But as far as it relates to the question Jesus was asked… the question of whether Israelites should pay taxes to Caesar… it boils down to essentially the same thing: What belongs to God is everything. And if we really take seriously the claim that God is the rightful Lord of the earth and all that is in it, the world and all people in it, then, what exactly belongs to Caesar… of which he is “lord”? Absolutely nothing.
That is the radical edge… and the liberating cry… of the claim that "Jesus is Lord"… one of the earliest affirmations of faith in the church and the only affirmation that matters. When we make that affirmation the central fact of our lives, no one else… and nothing else… gets to make the same claim on us. So when it comes to all of the worldly powers who would be our “lord,” there is nothing that has any rightful claim on us at all. That is the statement that grants us freedom… the freedom that Christ won for us when he redeemed us. That is the statement that allows us to give to God all that belongs to God… and to know that whatever we give is free of taxes that might be imposed by the state… for what we give, we give to God to whom all things belong… in this world and the next.
One final note on this story that has a twist all its own. The story does not say that Jesus returned the coin to the person who gave it to him. In a delicious twist, I would propose that Jesus pocketed the coin himself. That is the only way that the coin used in the illustration of this story would have ended up in the right hands… the hands of God himself. The men could not have demanded it back without drawing more attention to the fact that they were in violation of Jewish law by having the coin on their person in the Temple courtyard… something they figured out during the course of this discussion with Jesus. Of course, it was common knowledge that they were pocketing a significant amount of the money made by the moneychangers in the Temple, but they wouldn’t have wanted to draw attention to that fact either. But, if Jesus was the Messiah… the son of God… then even that which had the emperor’s image on it belonged to him… for “the earth is the Lord’s… and all that is in it.”
So, what is the proper tithe on $700 billion? Everything… for it all belongs to God… just as we belong to God, if we confess that “Jesus is Lord.” As we begin to think about the tithe that we will offer to our God in 2009, let us remember that everything we have belongs to God… and we are merely stewards of all the gifts that God has given to us. May God grant us the wisdom to use his gifts wisely. Amen. Matthew 22:15-22