Then they sent some of the Pharisees and the Herodians to Jesus to trap him in his words. When they came, they said to him, “Teacher, we know you are truthful and don’t care what anyone thinks, nor do you show partiality but teach the way of God truthfully. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn’t we?”
But knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why are you testing me? Bring me a denarius to look at.” They brought a coin. “Whose image and inscription is this?” he asked them.
“Caesar’s,” they replied.
Jesus told them, “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they were utterly amazed at him.
Dusenbury starts by highlighting two things about this familiar episode. First, Jesus is being tempted in the story. As Jesus says, "Why are you testing me?" For Dusenbury what we see here is yet another example of the extended political temptation of Jesus, how he was consistently being asked and tempted to participate in and adjudicate political matters. As we've seen in this series, starting with the temptation narrative in the desert Jesus stubbornly refuses to become a political Christ. Jesus rejects that temptation yet again in Mark 12.
Second, Dusenbury points out how, in each the gospel accounts of this story, Jesus' response stuns the crowd. They were "utterly amazed" at him. Other translations say they "marveled" at Jesus's response: "Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s." This answer blows them away.
But why? What was so shocking and unexpected about this seemingly banal response?
The political backdrop about paying taxes to Caesar concerned the position held by the Zealots: Faithful Jews should not pay the tax. Especially given that the coin bore the image of Caesar. For the Zealots, this made paying taxes a form of idolatry. Jesus, however, considers the image of Caesar on the coin not a problem, but the very solution to the problem. If the coin is Caesar's, give it back to him. God is concerned with different matters.
For Dusenbury, it is this bifurcation of the world -- the things of Caesar and the things of God -- that stuns the crowd. This notion, that Caesar has his proper domain and that God is indifferent to that sphere of power, is shocking in light of the Zealot's claim that everything, and perhaps especially the political realm, must submit to the rule of God. Jesus, by contrast, is disinterested in Caesar's world, doesn't claim it as his own, and asserts that God's concerns are quite different.
Dusenbury deepens this bifurcation by looking at two other stories in the gospels. The first concerns Jesus' contrast between God and Mammon. From Luke 16:
"No servant can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
Again, a bifurcation. There is the domain of "mammon," the economic domain of money, exchange, and possession. And there is the domain of God. Followers of Jesus despise the domain of mammon in order to participate in the kingdom of God. It's not a both/and, it's an either/or. You cannot serve both.
The second story, here from Mark 8:
And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
Once again, we find a political temptation. Peter wants a political Christ, so he is dismayed by the prospect of Jesus going to the cross. The temptation Satan made at the the beginning in the desert, for Jesus to assume political power, has returned. And Jesus continues to reject it: "Get behind me, Satan!" And with this rejection we see, again, the bifurcation, in a close parallel to Jesus' teaching concerning paying the temple tax: "The things of man" are contrasted to "the things of God."
Pulling the stories together, we see Jesus making a consistent contrast. There is the domain of human power, the "things of men," the realm of Caesar and Mammon. In contrast, are the "things of God," a realm distinct and separate from the domain of economic and political power. Jesus rejects the former to claim authority over the latter.
To conclude this chapter, Dusenbury turns to a final story at the end of Jesus' life where Jesus offers up a contrast between the kingdoms of men and the eschatological kingdom of God:
A dispute also arose among them, as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest. And he said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.
“You are those who have stayed with me in my trials, and I assign to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
The bifurcation again is clear. The kingdoms of men are characterized by coercive power: "They exercise lordship over them." Jesus' followers are to refrain from engaging in that domain: "But not so with you."
In contrast, Jesus goes on to say that he does have "a kingdom," a kingdom where his followers will possess the authority to judge. This kingdom, where we will eat and drink at Jesus' table, is eschatological in nature, in the future age-to-come.
There is much more to share from I Judge No One: A Political Life of Jesus. But having made clear the points I wanted to make clear, I'm going to bring this series to a close with one more post. For those looking at getting a copy of the book, the content of this series was mostly taken from Part 4. The book has a total of seven parts.
In the next post, to wrap this series up, I want to share a bit about why I was interested in I Judge No One: A Political Life of Jesus, how I think its perspective is a good medicine given our current polarizing conversations about faith and politics.
