Sermons
19th Ocotber 2008 - Trinity 22
Persecution of religious minorities is often productive of striking witness; examples of heroic witness to the faith which is against the wall. Not that such persecution should be encouraged, quite the reverse. We tend to forget perhaps that our own country’s history is littered with all sorts of unpleasant persecution of religious minorities be it against Christians or Jews or Muslims or others. Easy also to forget how those liberties which we so cherish in the West have come and gone somewhat over the years. Consider blessed Alban whose statue we pray before, executed in this country for refusing to deny that he was a Christian, for refusing to follow orders from the Roman authorities. Persecution gives faith a sharp edge, it asks the question, is this something you might be willing to die to preserve?
English people have developed a fondness for keeping their religion rather private. 70% sign themselves up in this country as Christian in the census and about 5% come to church. So if there were to be a fresh wave of persecution would we find that the Christian roots of the country still run deep, or that they are planted in increasingly shallow ground? Would countless new saints, would an army of Christian soldiers arise, to defend the faith with their lives if it were under threat? Perhaps. Tony Blair didn’t do God (until he was safely out of reach of a voting public), but would he have done God if he had been violently persecuted for his faith (we would have to hope so)?
The trick question about tax in today’s gospel presents Jesus with a dilemma concerning people’s tendency to avoid the God question publicly, and to separate out their religious lives from the rest of what goes on. The Romans imposed direct rule on Judea in 6 A.D. and they had their own census, not to establish religious belief but to find out how many people they could tax at the standard rate of one denarius, or a day’s wages, per year. The oleaginous Pharisees, who have already signed up in favour of paying the hated poll tax sidle up to Jesus with their deceptive flattery ‘we know that you are sincere and show no deference to anyone…tell us then is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?’. In their insincere tones they seek to tempt Jesus into an indiscretion. If he opposes the tax he will be in trouble with the Romans and they might even get him arrested, if he comes out in favour, the more zealous Jews will accuse him of selling-out to the occupying power with its pagan Gods and unclean food.
Jesus asks to see the coin and it is a moment of great irony that Jesus, out great high priest, the son of God, eternally begotten of the Father stops for a moment in his earthly pilgrimage to examine this coin which would have had the head of Emperor Tiberius upon it with the inscription ‘Tiberius Caesar, august son of the divine Augustus, high priest’. The coin itself is blasphemous, it is a graven image surrounded by a false claim to divinity, it represents everything the fervent Jewish leadership hated. But Jesus does not cast it aside, he simply points out its origin, whose it is and to where it should be returned. He is not to be ensnared by this foolish aunt sally of a conundrum. Render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s and to God…’
There is an old Jewish joke about counting the collection and separating out that which is to be given to God. The Rabbi holds the collection plate in front of him and says, we must offer all of this to God - we will throw all the money into the air, what God catches, he can keep.
What should we render to God? We might think first of what Jesus offers to the Father, his very self. We might think of what Holy Alban offers to God, his life and witness, his loyalty and willingness to die for his faith. We might think of those Christians in our own day who suffer daily persecution for their faith, those who are forbidden to proclaim their Christianity but do so, those denied access to the scriptures or to meeting together for prayer and sacrament, those in situations very different to our own where the threat of persecution seems so distant. When we stop to think for a moment of the great cloud of witnesses that populates Christian history and present reality, when we think of brave Christians this day somewhere in the world witnessing to their faith under grave threats we might examine again that British reserve about things religious, we might question whether that diffidence is a cloak for something less appealing such as cowardice, we might think of using the tremendous freedom we enjoy to recommend the faith, and to work for the freedom for others to be able to live their Christian lives free from persecution.
The first Christians, like their fellow Jews were occupied, taxed and tolerated only if they caused no trouble. Their witness had a cutting edge, they were willing to die for what they believed in. Christians in England today are still taxed, but they are not occupied and they have the right to free expression of their religion. The danger is that under such benign circumstances our witness loses its cutting edge, we recline comfortably into a myth of diffidence about our religious view, we might protest about tax being too high or unjust but we stop doing God publicly. And if we stop doing God publicly, if we stop witnessing with our actions and our words then we are most to be pitied because God is not just for Sunday mornings, or for private consumption, God is to die for.