Render unto Caesar: Sermon Preached on 22nd October 2023 (20th Sunday after Trinity)

Preached at St Mary’s, Potterne

Readings – 1 Thessalonians 1. 1-10; Matthew 22.15-22

“Paul, Sylvanus and Timothy, to the Church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace.”

“Paul, Sylvanus and Timothy, to the Church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace.” These words may not seem very significant, but it is likely that they are the earliest written in all the New Testament. St Paul dictated them in the year 50 or 51 to the Church in Thessalonica. Thessalonica remains very much a part of today’s world, the second largest city in 21^st Century Greece, roughly comparable in size with Bristol. In St Paul’s time, Thessalonica was also an important city, and a wealthy one, capital of the Roman province of Macedonia.

We are all used to hearing Paul telling off Churches in his letters for backsliding from his teachings. But there is no hint at all of this in today’s reading. Instead, the Thessalonians are praised for their faith, and the power with which they have received the Holy Spirit. It also seems obvious from the way Paul congratulates his readers on turning “to God from idols”, that this church comprises one of Paul’s first big successes in converting Gentiles to faith in Christ. In particular, Paul praises the Church in Thessalonica for its endurance, persisting in the faith “in spite of persecution”.

Why might these gentile converts, in a diverse Roman provincial capital, have faced persecution? Well, their faith in Christ would have meant that they no longer participated in important local pagan cults – for example, we know Thessalonica was the stronghold of devotion to Isis. Nor would they have participated in the cult of the Emperor. None of this would have endeared them to politically and economically powerful interests. When faced with a choice between Christ and Caesar, the Thessalonians chose Christ, and perhaps this most of all is why Paul is so fulsome in his praise of them.

“Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” This famous line from this morning’s Gospel reading may be more familiar in the King James Version, ‘Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s’.

We Anglicans have traditionally been very good at rendering unto Caesar, and perhaps not so good at risking persecution by Caesar, or even subtle social pressure, when that might be price of rendering to God what is God’s. One can’t help looking at the great state occasions in Westminster Abbey with all their pomp and circumstance, beautiful and enthralling as they always are, and wonder if this was really what the Carpenter of Nazareth had in mind when He spoke of the Kingdom of God.

Yet, I wonder do we sometimes overcorrect for this, and try too hard to be what we aren’t. Let’s face facts – the Church of England is, in the main, with notable exceptions, not generally a body made up of marginalised outsiders, and sometimes seems embarrassed by how bourgeois it is.

God needs Christians among all sorts and conditions of people, and no doubt God needs Christians among those who have power that can be wielded on behalf of the poor and vulnerable. Last year, I went on holiday to Armenia, one of the world’s most ancient Christian nations. Last month, 120,000 Armenian Christians in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh were driven from their homes in little more than a week. It was vaguely mentioned in news bulletins in this country for a day or two, before disappearing. I find myself wishing we had more Christians in positions of power, Christians who actually took an interest in the wider Christian world, and then the UK and other Western powers might have done more than shrug their shoulders.

Now, keep that in mind as we explore the setting this morning’s Gospel. It takes place in the Temple, in Holy Week, in the last days of Jesus’ earthly life. In Matthew’s telling, it comes two days after that other great story of Jesus with money in the Temple: the overturning of the money changers’ tables. It also comes in the middle of a long series of hostile verbal encounters between Jesus and various religious parties. These often see attempts to force Jesus into giving one of two answers, usually one where He would be exposed as a patsy of the Romans, and another where the Romans would see Him as a danger needing to be eliminated. In this case, should people pay tax to a bunch of unbelieving foreigners occupying their country? Well, nobody likes paying tax at the best of times, do they?

Jesus already exposed the Temple authorities’ hypocrisy about the Romans when He turned over the money changers’ tables, which involved bringing countless images of the Emperor’s head into the Temple – graven images are strictly forbidden in Judaism. And again in this incident, one of His questioners has a coin with Ceasar’s head conveniently to hand. So Jesus refuses both of the answers they offer, instead giving an ambiguous response that leaves the thoughtful observer to remember that everything on this Earth comes from God. That includes Caesar, and all his wealth and power and claims to authority – Caesar and all that is his exists only by God’s permission.

This wonderful ambiguity means that it’s difficult to use this story as a simple proof-text for any particular approach to relations between Church and State. Christians need to read it in their own time and place, and think and pray about its implications for their own setting. Here’s a little thought about what it might say to us living in the UK and other post-Christian Western democracies today.

Those who are actively hostile to the Church are a small, albeit noisy, minority. Most people instead see the Church as having both positive and negative sides, and are primarily interested in it, not because of what it teaches about God and the nature of humanity, but because it has moral authority and delivers services. It should remind us of how people flocked to Jesus for His wise sayings and healing miracles, but abandoned Him at the Cross, which was the central act of his earthly mission.

Today, people from all sorts of political perspectives seek to bind the Church their preferred agenda. The Church, fearing its decline and desperate to be relevant, too often allows itself to be co-opted because it wants to stay on trend – although it is, in fact, not good at reading the signs of the times. As someone who used to work in politics, part of the story of Jesus that speaks to me personally is that He had the skills to be a first rate politician: whether in Palestine back then or in Britain right now. Yet He chose a different path – one of suffering and death that led to something no political system could have achieved – the full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.

While the Church does sometimes have to speak out on political subjects, because sometimes – just sometimes – politics is a matter of morality rather than mere policy, it should never forget that there is no shortage of voluntary organisations willing to supply constant political comment.

But only we Christians proclaim the most hopeful manifesto of all – that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and in doing so opened the way to eternal life for all humanity. Christ calls people from every state and condition to follow Him to that eternal life, from the crowded streets of Thessalonica in the 1^st Century, to the country lanes of Wiltshire in the 21^st. In a society where faith in Christ can be ridiculed as backwards, or even dismissed as something that contributes to wars, you and I are called to persist in our faith like the Thessalonians, so we may follow Christ to eternal life.

And now to God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be ascribed all might, majesty, dominion, and power, as is most justly His due, now and forevermore. Amen.