Taxes paid to Caesar
Key Verses: 11, 15, 21, 29, 30, 39, 45
When you arrived at an ancient wedding you were given a garment to wear and you put it on right away. To not put it on was a sign of rejection of the hospitality provided, even a rejection of the marriage taking place. Jesus tells this story as a way to describe the judgment that will take place on those who reject Him. The wedding garment cost the attendee nothing: it cost the host everything. Salvation costs us nothing: it cost Jesus everything.
Watch out when people throw out flattering words. Flattery often is a mask for something else. In the text the religious leaders want to trip Jesus up and use the fall as a pretext to arrest Him, silence Him, and if need be, kill Him. Is it right to pay taxes? Some would still argue today that we shouldn’t. In fact, half of Americans don’t pay any right now! They get the benefits of the taxes paid by other people. That isn’t fair! We need to give ourselves to God and not to the government. We are made in His image and likeness, not the governments. We give ourselves to God and some of our money to the government. That is the price we pay for the services we want and enjoy.
As I have traveled in other parts of the world I can see the advantage of national money paying for national roads. Countries that don’t do this rarely have a good road system. And roads have become the backbone of economic growth. And with economic growth came other services that help people live more productive lives. Our problem has been that we have often forgotten that the goal of these civic improvements is the giving of ourselves more fully to God. The promotion of the common good was simply a means to enable freedom of worship.
I have to pause and comment on the popular theology that says when people die they become angels. What rubbish! This passage says they become LIKE angels in the fact that angels are not involve in the act of marriage. Such a small word means so much. We remain ourselves forever. Angels are a class of created beings. We will always be human, just as angels will always be angels.
The competition for religious superiority led the Pharisees to try to trip up Jesus in what he said. The Pharisees were all about keeping the letter of the Law. They often did not love their neighbor as they should. They got the God part, but not the people part. Jesus aims right at their Achilles heel. Jesus call them to care about people as well. They prided themselves on their knowledge of Scripture, but they missed the significance of David, the king, calling the promised Messiah his master. A father would never call their descendent master, let alone call him YHWH, the proper name for God. But this is exactly what David did. He said the Messiah was the Creator God.
The Arnold Journey 