This coming Sunday is the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time. Jesus’ answer calls into question the basic presupposition behind their question, that there is an essential incompatibility between loyalty to the governing authority and loyalty to God. This was precisely Judas the Galilean’s position as explained by Josephus (War 2.118 and Ant. 18.23): to pay the tax was to tolerate a mortal sovereign in place of God. It was loyalty to God which was the basis for Zealots’ objections to Roman taxation, but Jesus, without reducing the demands of loyalty to God, indicates that political allegiance even to a pagan state is not incompatible with it. This is not a rigid division of life into the ‘sacred’ and the ‘secular’, but rather a recognition that the ‘secular’ finds its proper place within the overriding claim of the ‘sacred’.

It is possible to pay one’s dues both to the emperor and to God, to be both a dutiful citizen and a loyal servant of God. This principle, more fully expounded in Rom 13:1–7 and 1 Peter 2:13–17, has now been so widely recognized for so long that it causes no surprise to many of us in many parts of the world, but in first-century Palestine under Roman rule it was not at all so obvious. The theocratic basis of OT Israel, even if it had not been able to prevent periods of tyranny under unscrupulous rulers, had at least in theory held its rulers accountable to God. But the Roman emperor was not under Israel’s God, or indeed under any god—according to imperial propaganda he was a god. But Jesus’ response here puts him in his place: it is possible to be subject to the emperor as ruler, but at the same time to honor God as God

Jesus’ answer may also raise another, more subtle issue: “repay…to God what belongs to God.” The people of Jerusalem did not allow the Romans to carry Caesar’s image on a flag standard, but seemed to acquiesce to the coinage to a point. Some things are worth fighting for, some not. Why make an exception for money? Was it that important? By contrast, surrendering to God “what belongs to God” implied the surrender of all one was and possessed. In Jesus’ teaching elsewhere, possessions have zero value, and those who seek them are not ones who trust in God (6:19–34). Jesus is known as a poor, itinerant preacher carrying no coin – trusting solely on God. The Pharisees carry the emperor’s coin. It is clear in whom they place at least part of their trust. And trust was something that did belong to Caesar.

Image credit: The Tribute Money, Peter Paul Rubens (1610–1615), Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, Public Domain PD-US