October 22, 2023, Pledging Allegiance, Matthew 22:15-22 – Mtr. Kathryn Boswell

saintphilipsnorwood ♦ October 22, 2023 ♦ Leave a comment

To listen to this sermon, click the link above. An outline of the sermon is given below.

The Pharisees came to Jesus with a loaded question: “Is it right to pay the poll tax to the Emperor or not?” Now, there were several things going on here. The coin required for the poll tax was a silver denarius, minted by the Roman authorities. It had the face of the Emperor on one side, with the inscription “Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus.” And on the other side were the words “High Priest.” Just for starters, this was a coin to set a faithful Jew’s teeth on edge. It was a graven image. It was a representation of a human being who claimed to be divine, a political ruler setting himself up as a representative of God.

So, if Jesus answered, “Yes, it is right and lawful to pay the poll tax to Caesar,” every Jewish zealot would be out for his head: appalled and furious that Jesus was caving in to the demands of a heathen power that had set itself up in opposition to the true God of Israel. Ah, but on the other hand, if Jesus answered “No, it isn’t right or lawful to pay the poll tax to Caesar,” that statement would be a little piece of ammunition the Pharisees could take to the Roman authorities, letting them know that Jesus was preaching rebellion against the Empire. There had been rebellions in the past, people taking a stand against the Romans, and those rebels mostly came to bad ends, which is what the Pharisees hoped would happen to Jesus.

But Jesus, Matthew says, saw right through them. And he had some tricky questions of his own. “Who has one? Who’s got a denarius?” Not Jesus, no, it was a Pharisee who put a hand in his pocket and pulled out one of those Roman coins. “Whose image is that?” Well, Caesar’s of course. “Okay then,” Jesus said. “Give Caesar back what belongs to him. But give God what belongs to God.”

When I was in grade school I went to Holy Redeemer Catholic School in Webster Groves, Missouri, which is a suburb of St. Louis. We girls wore little green plaid jumpers and white button-up shirts, and every morning, to begin the day, we stood by our desks and recited a Pledge of Allegiance to the Cross. We said, in unison: “I pledge allegiance to the cross, of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the faith for which it stands, one Savior, eternal, with mercy and grace for all.”

And then, because we live in the United States, we remained standing and we recited a Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. You know that one. “I pledge allegiance to the flag, of the United States of America. And to the Republic for which it stands: one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

The Cambridge Dictionary defines allegiance as “loyalty and support to a ruler, country, group, or belief.” So to pledge allegiance to something or someone, means to promise our loyalty to them, to vow to support them.” We were just little kids who did what we were told to do in those days, but as adults we might ask ourselves what did it mean for us to pledge allegiance to two separate authorities? Is allegiance something that we can divide up? Is loyalty something that can be divvied up between competing authorities?

To think about that, we need to begin with the last thing Jesus said. “Give God what belongs to God.” So, what belongs to God? Psalm 24 verse one gives us a pretty clear answer. “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.” What belongs to God? Well, everything. Everything that exists, everything that makes up the entirety of the universe, and everyone who inhabits this earth. Everybody and everything. There is nothing in all of creation that doesn’t belong to God.

So how do we, like the Jews living in occupied Israel under the ever-watchful eye of the Roman Emperor, how do we balance our allegiance to God, and to this land into which we were born? I think one answer, if we can take anything away from what Jesus says to the Pharisees, it is that neither wholesale rebellion nor abject submission will do. We’re faced with the reality of living in this world with its demands. Paul writes to the church in Rome that they should live obediently under the governing authorities, to pay taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed. But we live always with the greater reality that “the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.” And that means that for us, whose allegiance is to God, that our duty to worldly authorities always has to be subject to that Truth – because, in the end, there is nothing that doesn’t belong to him.

We live in this world, in this nation, in this village, but our citizenship is in heaven, like Paul writes to the Philippians. We submit ourselves to the law. We participate in the life of this country. We try to vote responsibly; we advocate for what we believe is the right candidate or the right course of action. But we always need to remember that Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.”

That tension, of being citizens of heaven living as aliens in this world, has sometimes, for some people, meant suffering obediently under the restrictions of the law of the land. But sometimes, for some people, it has meant disobeying the laws of the land, when those laws come into conflict with God’s greater law. The people of the Netherlands who hid Jews from the Nazis were disobeying the law. The people who ran the Underground Railroad in 19^th century America to bring slaves out of captivity were disobeying the law. Sometimes our allegiances are much more in conflict with each other than other times. But faithfulness to God in this world has always, in all times, meant being intentional in putting our allegiance to God above every other. Love for all people, care for the poor and oppressed, justice and equity, mercy and truth, these we owe to God, first and foremost, because they are his. And there is no claim the world makes on us that can ever be set above these.

I think one example of this in these days, when war has broken out in the Middle East, is that the world demands that we take sides – do we side with Israel? Do we side with Palestine? But Israeli people as well as Palestinian people belong to God. He hears the cry of Israeli children and Palestinian children alike. As citizens of God’s kingdom, we stand with him. We pray, and we take what action we can, for an end to violence, for the release of captives, for the freeing of the oppressed, for the healing of wounds.

I think one of the most helpful examples in the Bible of this idea of our conflicting allegiances is found in the Old Testament, in the story of Naaman, the commander of the army of the king of Syria. Naaman was a great man, highly honored in his country, and victorious in battle, but he was a leper. And one of his slaves, an Israelite girl who had been taken into captivity in one of his campaigns against Israel, told him he should go to Elisha, a prophet of Israel who could cure him of his leprosy. So Naaman does, he goes to Israel, he finds Elisha, and he is completely cured. And when he finds that he has been healed, he suddenly knows that the God of Israel is the one and only God in all the earth. Naaman is converted, heart and soul, mind and body.

But, Naaman has to go back home, to his own country, to his old duties and responsibilities. So he goes back to see Elisha, and he asks for two favors. First, he asks for a gift. He asks Elisha for two mule loads of dirt – earth that comes from this nation of Israel, so that he can stand on the ground of God’s own nation every time he offers his sacrifices or burnt offerings, because he has pledged his allegiance to the God of Israel and no other God. And the second favor is this: he asks for God’s pardon when he serves his master back in Syria. “When my master goes into the house of Rimmon to worship there, leaning on my arm,” Naaman asks, “so that I have to bow myself in the house of Rimmon, may the Lord pardon me in this matter.” And Elisha answers him, “Go in peace.”

Naaman knew that when he returned to his homeland, he would be called upon to enter the temple of the idol, Rimmon, and he would have to help his master bow in worship. Before he knew the God of Israel, he thought nothing of those things, but now, even though he was returning to Syria, his citizenship had changed. Now he knew that every service he performed, every act of worship, belonged only and completely to the one true God who had healed him. Naaman’s allegiance had changed. And God, through Elisha, gave Naaman grace to do what he needed to do, and he sent him back home in peace, to serve his master and his country without sin.

Like Naaman, we know that the very earth beneath our feet belongs to God. The air we breathe, the people we share this world with, they all belong to God. And our worship and our allegiance belongs only to him. Until Christ returns, each of us has to seek to live faithfully and with integrity as resident aliens in a world that asks for our allegiance in so many different ways. Because the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, and our ultimate allegiance belongs only to him.