Sermon by Fr Neil Traynor, Sunday 22 October, Trinity 19, United Benefice Holland Park

Sermon by Fr Neil Traynor, Sunday 22 October, Trinity 19, United Benefice Holland Park

I am the Lord your God.

Following the somewhat challenging series of readings we’ve had over the last few weeks, it’s a relief to come this more accessible Gospel passage.  It’s a very familiar reading, and the translation from the Authorised Version, “render unto Caesar” has become one of those phrases passing into common parlance.

That, though, doesn’t make it any less difficult a passage to deal with, for it can be read on a number of different levels.

The Gospel is paired with the reading from Isaiah, which emphatically states, “I am the Lord, and there is no other; besides me there is no God”, and then goes on to list the ways in which God works in our lives without us being aware of them. 

In some ways, that’s very similar to the question in the film The Life of Brian – What have the Romans ever done for us?  Those of you who know the film, will be aware that the response to this question is rather lengthy:  “but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?”

The fact is, though, that whether we’re talking about God, Rome or today’s Council in this Royal Borough, sometimes the benefits of what is done and provided for us is not always obvious.  What is there before our eyes is often difficult to acknowledge.  There is so much that we take for granted that it takes an outsider to point it out to us.  Just as Jesus was able to point out that it was Caesar’s head on the coin.  Render unto Caesar . . .

It’s very clear that there is something here about earthly power.  Caesar has the authority to impose and collect taxes, and this is the test that the scribes and the Pharisees put to Jesus.  The unasked question is clearly, how will Jesus reconcile his religious beliefs with political necessity, without falling foul of either the Jewish or Roman law?

Well, just as Jesus sidestepped this question, so will I, because there’s another dimension to all of this.  As well as earthly power, there is a question of spiritual power.  The Isaiah reading, you’ll recall, states empahatically, “I am the Lord your God, and you shall have no other”.  One might think that this is a slightly odd text to put with render unto Caesar, except, after thought, it might be much cleverer than it might.

In the ancient world, the Jews were regarded as odd – distinctly odd – in that they only acknowledged one God, and that a God whose name was so holy that they could not speak it.  In other respects, they were normal in having a temple where sacrifice was offered, but their insistence on only one God was viewed as peculiar.  Or rather, it was their exclusion of all other God’s that placed them in a difficult position.

The reformation has given us the idea that religion is something personal, and a relatively new idea that is.  Before that, worship was very much a corporate act, performed by representatives of the community, on behalf of the whole community, present or not.  The offering of worship was about putting the whole community in a relationship with God (or Gods) and in this respect, Judaism and paganism have something in common.

The same was even more true of certain cults, and most notably that of the Emperor.  Recent scholarship is making it increasingly clear that, even though worship of the living emperor was not officially sanctioned (except in Egypt for historical and social reasons), it was actively participated in throughout the Roman Empire.  Communities throughout the Empire erected sanctuaries and altars to the worship of various members of the Imperial Family.  A glance at the cover of today’s service sheet has images of Germanicus, his brother Drusus and Tiberius, all three of whom received divine honours and worship at various times.  This was a way of a community putting itself in a relationship with both the official structures of the Roman Empire and also a personal relationship with members of the Imperial family. 

Just as our coinage today has an image of the Queen, with her official titles (Dei gratia regina; fidei Defensor), Roman coinage too held the titles of emperors.  It was a way of creating a common language of image, a way of tying the whole disparate empire together through the person of the Emperor.  Receiving divine honours, both for themselves and for other family members, was very much a part of this system.

To return, briefly, to the cover of the service sheet, the image is taken from the decoration of a monument in Rome called the ara pacis augusta – the altar of Augustan peace.  It celebrates Augustus’ gift of peace to the empire after the years of civil war at the end of the Republic and after the death of Julius Caesar.  It, too, appeared on coinage as part of this corporate image building.  Its very existence was proclaimed across the empire – Augustus’ peace was part of the official thanksgiving of the whole empire.

Contrast this with Jesus’ declaration – my peace I give to you; my peace I leave with you. 

It might just be me, but it seems as though these words of peace are revolutionary and subversive.  This is Jesus’ peace; not Augustus’ or Rome’s.

And so, when Jesus returns the coin with the words “render unto Caesar”, I have a sneaking suspicion that this is not just about money.  Contrast the worship of the one, true, living God, the “I am” of the Old Testament and the ‘I am’ sayings of the Gospel of John; with the divine honours paid to Caesar. 

And so, the question is really, who is Lord?  Which of these two is deserving of worship, and honour and glory?  Which of these has true worship paid to them?  Which of these two really can govern the universe and create this world from nothing?

This is the contrast between real power and imagined power.  Between spiritual and temporal power. 

So, let’s give to Caesar everything that Caesar deserves; but give to God, true worship, for we are enjoined to love the Lord our God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

For thou shalt have no other God than me.  Not even Caesar!