My friend Doug Hyden provides today's post.
Well, April invited me to blog, so here goes. In Mark's gospel (my personal favorite), Jesus says, "Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's." A very famous saying and one that the Church has used to admonish us to be good children and pay our taxes, obey unjust laws, etc. ever since the church went corporate. With this response to the loaded question of whether it was lawful to pay taxes to Rome, Jesus neatly avoids falling into the trap the Pharisees set for him. Instead of using outwardly treasonous language, he uses language that no Roman could object to. To Rome, everything belonged to the emperor. Yet, how subversive this statement really was! Jesus would have seen Rome as the brutal occupying power that it was, whose very presence in Judea was illegitimate. To Jesus, everything belonged to God, and nothing belonged to the emperor. So when Jesus advised the Pharisees to give to the emperor what belongs to the emperor, what he was really saying was, "Hell, no! It's not right to give him a dime." This episode does not provide a good lesson in high school civics; it is a clarion call to revolution and opposition to what Walter Wink called "the Powers." Jesus was far more than a Liberal. End of today's Bible lesson, chillun'.
Not so fast. Are we to revolt against taxation. Are we to join the TEA party? Are all acts of the government unjust? If we to not to support a government we disagree with, are we to not support a church that does something we don't like? Where is community? Where is shared responsibility?
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Dan Fultz
Well, I don't think that is what it means, either. Jesus was opposed to unjustly imposed power, not all power. I don't think that Jesus implied or said that all governments are illegitimate--just the Roman Empire. Not all acts of government are just and vice versa. The point at which we stop providing financial assistance to the government comes at a tipping point that each of us has to determine for ourselves. It is up to us to help and support those things that will help establish what JD Crossan called the Empire of God. To the extent that government actions increase inclusion, decrease poverty, and promote justice, it deserves our support, when it falls away from these things, we have to decide when to stop. For Thoreau, it was the Mexican-American war. Other people have their tipping points.
ReplyDeleteToo, neither the government or the church provide the only mechanisms by which we can share responsibility. Don't get me started on the organized church; it has basically no legitimacy in my eyes.
One other thing: What do you think the story means, Dan? What property did Jesus think Caesar has a right to take from us, and why wasn't he up front about it?
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