Give Unto Caesar

Jesus is famous for saying, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and give unto God what is God's." But do you realize how hard it must have been to say it, and how hard to hear it?

Roughly two hundred years earlier, the Jewish people had been struggling to survive the rule of Antiochus, one of the kings who inherited the remnants of Alexander the Great's tremendous kingdom. Antiochus thought that he could solidify his rule over Syria, Judaea, and other mid-eastern provinces if he could blend all the various cultures into one. So he ordered everyone to follow the same religious practices. Considering that most people of the age practiced primitive sacrificial forms of polytheism, the Jews were completely unwilling to surrender their religion to this kind of forced ecumenism. In order to resist being drawn into this Greek super-state Antiochus had envisioned, Judaea put itself under the protection of the Romans.

Between this and Jesus' time, the Romans had switched from being benevolent benefactors to imperial overlords. It would grow even worse after Jesus. The Romans had installed kings and tetrarchs who aside from being brutal despots were not faithful to Jewish law, and were not men of good character, which Jews considered a prerequisite of leaders. Adding insult to injury, the Emperor in Rome sent a Latin-speaking foreigner, Pontius Pilate, to govern Judaea not from Jerusalem, but from Caesaria, throwing even more salt to the wound.

That in some measure is why the New Testament always seems to frown upon "tax collectors." Nobody was prepared to think fondly of anyone who worked for such disreputable governors. But when confronted with whether it was even legal to give money to tax collectors, Jesus asked those asking him to look at the currency. Whose face was on it? Caesar's, they answered him - the very symbol of the government the people felt had nothing to do with who they were. So knowing the context I've given above, Jesus' answer to them appears to tell them, "this money is a token of their world, their government. If it is theirs, let them have it."

This is the same respect we can give to our governments in our world. Our politicians often seem to be from another world from us, as well. Here in Canada, Prime Ministers are always lawyers, always seem to have some connection to the incredibly powerful hydro company Power Corp., and always seem to belong to an incestuous circle of lobbyists, a tier of connected businessmen, and political bagmen. As much as we're told that "anyone can grow up to be Prime Minister," nobody I grew up with ever will be, even though I grew up in Ottawa. You've got to be wealthy, connected, and a member of the Bar to have a hope.

But whose faces are on the money? The Queen who represents the Head of State, she who Prime Ministers minister to. And the Prime Ministers themselves are there, too - Laurier, MacDonald, Mackenzie-King - the predecessors of today's leaders. Sometimes that leader is someone I quite like - today's Prime Minister, Paul Martin, is someone I find to be earnest, likable, and dedicated to doing good. On the other hand, his predecessors, Jean Chretien and Brian Mulroney (I skipped over Kim Campbell), appeared to me to want the job because there was so much patronage to be handed out.

There are always going to be leaders I don't like, and leaders I do. But they govern over a lot less than they think. Does Paul Martin really govern over Lake Louise? It has been there for thousands of years, and will remain there a thousand more. Does he govern the storms of Lake Superior, or the endless forests of the Queen Charlotte Islands?

Jesus is right to emphasize, "Give unto God what is God's", because God governs so much more that human leaders. Let politicians govern over the wording of tax forms, UN resolutions, and pieces of paper with the faces of long dead leaders. God governs the stars, the seas, the galaxies, the comets, the quasars, the eagles, the whales... it is all His, and the praise and thanks we owe for witnessing it are due Him and Him alone. Someday every knee will bow, every tongue will confess - and the knees of even the proudest self-made leaders will be every bit as bent as yours, before the King of Heaven.