Render Unto Caesar - Part 1 - Non Partisan Jesus - The Rev. Philip DeVaul

In any case, it’s certainly not a straight answer, as centuries of varied interpretations attest.  

This anecdote is often seen as Jesus refusing to engage in politics. He declines to clearly answer an explicitly political question, and his riddle of an answer has the whiff of separating church from state. This text then is often used by Christians as a way of discouraging the mix of religion and politics. It is especially used by Christians when another Chrisitan is espousing a political perspective that makes us uncomfortable. 

Please understand that the question posed to Jesus is not asked genuinely – and I will say/write more about that next week. But it is worth saying here that the question is not asked with a desire for understanding Jesus’ perspective: It is a trap. Whichever way Jesus answers is problematic. Not because it is political, but because it is partisan. For Jesus to answer in either direction would put him in a category with a specific existing political constituency. To radically oversimplify things for our current context, the ones asking the question are doing something akin to getting Jesus to tell them if he is a Republican or a Democrat. Those who confront Jesus aren’t seeking his wisdom, aren’t interested in learning from him: They want to know which group to put him in so that he can be more easily classified, managed, and dismissed.  

 

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