Give to Caesar what's Caesars!

GIVE TO CAESAR WHATBELONGS TO CAESAR, AND TO GOD WHAT BELONGS TO GOD

They came to Jesus… Pharisees and “Herodians” – meaning those who had investment in keeping the “system” as-is  (Herodians = those who were in support of King Herod, who was himself put in power BY the Romans… meaning Herod and the Herodians either wanted to be on the Romans good side at best, or were actually supporting the Romans at worst) – and they had this idea, not because they were “bad guys” per se, but because keeping the system as-is meant keeping the Roman occupiers off their backs.    If the Romans were happy, people didn’t die – meaning Jewish/Judean people didn’t die.   But if a rabble-rouser, trouble-maker, itinerant preacher stirred up the people, who knew what kind of trouble could develop?  And if trouble did develop, who knew how many Jews/Judeans the Romans would kill before it as all over!    So, better one itinerant preacher with potentially dangerous results should be taken out of the equation than a whole lot of innocent Jews/Judeans!   

So they came to Jesus – “we know how wise you are… and you are a faithful Jew and all that… etc. etc.” and asked him if it was right to pay the tax (meaning the one imposed by Rome!).   So he says to them basically, “You hypocrites, I know what you’re trying to do!  You’re trying to trick me!   Show me a coin used to pay the tax.”    When they show him a denarius, he asks them – “Who’s image and title is on this coin?”    They say “Caesars”    “So…” says Jesus, “give to Caesar what’s Caesars, and give to God what’s Gods!”  

It was a trick question!   There was no “right” answer.  He would have lost either way!

If he’d said – “YES it’s right to pay the tax”, the people would have revolted against him!  They would have seen him as condoning an oppressive rule from Rome – the tax was just the tip of the ice-berg!   He would have lost pretty much any moral authority he’d garnered up to that point.

If he’d said – “NO it’s not right to pay the tax”, he would have given the askers more ammunition to give to the Roman authorities (“Here’s a guy who opposes your Roman rule”  which more than likely would have meant immediate imprisonment and possible death). 

So he says what he says.   The problem for us since then has been trying to figure out what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God.   We continue trying to separate things out:

            “Caesar”… the world or politics, the world of material stuff, the “world”, the “flesh”, the non-spirit.

            “God”… the non-material, the spiritual, the sacred, the holy

This is our trick question!  Does ______ (fill in the blank) belong to the world?   Or does ________  belong to God?   The world of political power     or     The world of Miracles?    The world of human stuff     or      the world of the Spirit?

There was a movie about 15 years ago called Phenomenon.   John Travolta played a normal average guy in a normal average (small) town.   In the beginning of the movie he’s in a bar with his friends;  they’re joking, and laughing, talking, etc.   Then it comes time for him to go home, so he says his good-byes, opens the door and starts walking to the car.  On his way something from the sky hits him – like a zap, a bolt of lightning or something.    It wasn’t a physical thing, but it did knock him out for a while.   

He comes to, and shortly after – like in a few days or so – realizes things are not the same.  He’s somehow changed!    He develops some special powers, and he ends up using them; he heals some people (if I remember right), he finds a lost child, he can move things with his mind, etc.   And, he gets smarter too – his intellect increases as well.   Notoriety finds him for sure – you know small towns!   And soon enough, so does “science”.     He gets studied, tested, etc, etc.    And some of the tests check his brain – like MRI kind of tests.     And they find a brain anomaly – which warrants further tests.  

It turns out he had a fast advancing brain tumor.  It was the tumor that caused all this to happen to this guy.  And of course it’s inoperable, sorry, there’s nothing we can do.  And oh yeah, it’s terminal.   So he ends up dying at the end.   Sorry for the “Spoiler” there, but… hey, for cryin’ out loud, it’s a 15 years old movie!   Get with the program!

So back in the day, I’d just seen the movie, and was talking about it with another Chaplain (I was in the Army back then) and I’ll always remember what the other Chaplain said – “Too bad it was just a tumor!”   The idea being – it they hadn’t had some physical explanation for his special powers, they would have been miraculous with either spiritual or extra-terrestrial origin… or both.    But alas, it was all explainable!   Too bad – no miracle. 

So.. was it a miracle?   From God?   From the Spirit?   Or was it from the world of science?  Explainable?  Measurable?  And therefore NOT a miracle!

Another movie – A Mind Walk (I know, I know… I’m a product of my culture!   But this one NO action!   Yes I actually see movies that AREN’T action movies!!)   centered around three characters set in modern day France – Isle San Michelle.  A politician (Sam Waterston), a poet (John Heard) and a physicist (Liv Ulman) talk about life and reality from their own particular perspectives.    So there’s one scene where Liv Ulman is talking about quantum physics and she refers to our previous ideas that matter was made of smaller and smaller building blocks; molecules, atoms, protons/neutrons/electrons… and smaller still, neutrinos, etc.    We can still find smaller and smaller “blocks”, but the strangest thing is… the smaller you get, the more empty space you find between the blocks.

As an example she said – take an atom, blow it up so we can see it, so the nucleus is the size of a bowl of cherries, say.    So you have a bowl of cherries – they’re the protons and neutrons – the size of cherries.   The closest electron would be about half a mile to a mile and a half away… and it would be the size of a grain of sand.    And in between that bowl of cherries and that grain of sand you’d have… nothing… just empty space.     And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what everything is made of – mostly empty space.   Huge, vast stretches of subatomic empty space.

 So, why can you touch a chair?  Why can you “touch” anything?   Why doesn’t your hand just pass right through everything you try and touch?    And for that matter, how can you even have a hand to touch stuff with?   Well, the science answer has to do with strong electron bonds, electron shells and fields, etc.   The “other” answer has to do with the relationship between things.    It’s not so much the “things” themselves (i.e. the “ building blocks”) as much as it is the relationships between the building blocks!   It’s the different relationships between the subatomic particles that makes matter in its different forms.  

Look at   something as “simple” as you.   Are you a product of biochemical reactions and cell divisions?   Science?   Or are you a miracle?  No matter how you can explain it?

Maybe we have the wrong question.   Maybe we don’t have to compartmentalize our lives.   Is your work life the world of Caesar?  Or the world of faith?     Is your social life the world of Caesar or the world of God?   Is your family life… same question.     

I don’t think we think this consciously, but I bet most of the time most of what we do and how we think of it – unconsciously – is the world of Caesar.  It’s in the world of the explainable.

 If you have kids – how often do you see them as miracles?    How often do you see your friends as miracles?  How often do you see your life… or you as a miracle?

This is our trick question – to assume there are two different worlds – to live as if there are two different worlds.   Maybe or way out of this trick question is to see the world as Both/And

Both the world of the explainable, the world of science, the world of the measurable… the world of Caesar   And  the world or miracles, of faith, of God.

I wonder how different the world might look to us?