If this was not the sermon in a service but the all-age teaching slot, I would start by putting pictures up on the screen of various objects and taking a survey as to: who likes this, who doesn't like this? We could have things you might eat or activities. We could have some sports, some hobbies. Who likes stamp collecting? Yes? No? And then I would end with: who likes taxes? And everybody would say, "Boo! No, we don't like taxes."
That is especially the case if you are an occupied nation—if your rulers in your country are not your own people but a foreign power that has swept in and seized control of your country, and the taxes go to make the occupying force rich. Then you would doubly hate the taxes because you hate the fact that you're not able to govern your own country—you've been stolen. And so anything—your money—having to go to make those people wealthy, you would really hate that.
Now, if you look at the history of the 20th and 21st century, there have been a great many times where there's been a revolution—where the people of a country have risen up against the rulers, the leadership of that nation, to try to seize control because they think the leadership is oppressing and squashing them. And we've seen the downtrodden liberated and set free.
Some people read of the Lord Jesus in the Gospels and they think that the Lord Jesus they are reading is a revolutionary—that the reason he came to this earth was to rescue the exploited, to rescue the poor and the oppressed, and to set them back on their feet. They have him as a kind of spiritual version of Che Guevara—the great (or not so great, depending on your view) Argentinian-Chilean revolutionary of the second half of the 20th century.
Now, to some people, that picture of Jesus is really appealing. They love the idea that Jesus came to liberate people and set them free. To others, it actually puts them off following the Lord Jesus because their lives—and if you're like me, this is true—and most of us, we're already pulled in lots of directions. We are balancing our obligations: to our family, to our church, to our work, to our parents, to our kids, to their schools. We're already juggling too many things, and if you bring Jesus the revolutionary in, he's just going to complicate it even more and just become yet one more figure you have to work out where he's going to fit. And so it's off-putting, the thought that he might be a revolutionary figure.
I don't know what either warms you or puts you off, but it brings us back to the question of taxes—because this was in a time when the Jewish people lived in their homeland, but the Romans had co-opted Judea as part of the mighty Roman Empire. This is pretty much the Roman Empire at its peak. They were a strong occupying force, and Jesus is asked about the whole tax—the census, the very specific tax which was hated because it was paid directly to the Romans, and it was also hated because of their coin that you had to use in order to pay it—a thought to which we will return.
And what they do is, they ask Jesus this question: should we pay it? It's a trick question. It's a trap.
And what I'm going to do first this morning is I'm going to explain the trap that is set for Jesus and show us the genius way that he extracts himself from it. And then we're going to look together at the many, many, many ways that this applies to us today.
The trap
So, first of all, let's explore the trap that has been set.
The background is the last verse of last week's reading—chapter 12, verse 12:
"The chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders looked for a way to arrest him because they knew he had spoken the parable against them. But they were afraid of the crowd; so they left him and went away."
The Jewish religious leaders hate Jesus. Some of them have been trying to kill him since Mark chapter 3. But they have a problem: they can't just have him arrested and killed because the crowd loves him. So they need a plan. They need a way to have him arrested and killed, but without upsetting the crowd that loves him.
So here's our solution—verse 13:
"Later they—the same people—sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus to catch him in his words."
They send this group of delegates—Pharisees and Herodians. These were not natural friends. The Pharisees were the super-religious, super-keen group within ancient Judea. They were the ones that knew all the laws in the Old Testament, added several thousand others, and keeping it really mattered. But crucially, therefore, they wanted nothing to do with the Romans. Roman intrusion contaminated their otherwise pure religion. So they were the ultimate peak of anti-Roman thought.
The Herodians, on the other hand—well, we don't quite know who they were. At this point, Herod, who killed the baby boys in Bethlehem, has died. His kingdom—or his governor's territory—has split into four, and the only Herod who's left is ruling up in the north in Galilee. So it seems maybe some of his supporters have ended up in Jerusalem for Passover time. Either way, whoever they are, the Herodians were Jewish but were sympathisers with Rome and its occupation. They thought Rome brought peace and stability to their homeland and thought it was a good thing.
So you would never, ever get Pharisees and Herodians in the same pub. They would know which was the Pharisee pub, which was the Herodian pub, and ne'er the two would meet—except they do meet. Because they come together to, Mark says, catch him—this is the word used for catching fish. They want Jesus in their nets so he can be reeled in and hauled off to the cross.
And so they launch in, verse 14:
"Teacher, we know you're a man of integrity. You aren't swayed by others because you pay no attention to who they are, but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth."
Flattery, sure, but they're also saying: be honest, Jesus. Cut out any mucking around. Just tell us what you really think. We want the truth. Just—don't hedge. Just tell us straight: what's the answer?
"Should we pay the poll tax to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn't we?"
And either answer gets him into trouble. If he says yes, the Pharisees have got him because they've just turned the whole crowd against him—because the crowd now realises he's on the side of the Romans. If he says no, the Herodians have got him, because they can face the Romans—he's a troublemaker; he's just told people not to pay their taxes. He's arrested and killed faster than you can say Good Friday.
Jesus’ answer
And Jesus's answer is genius. Here he comes.
"Jesus knew their hypocrisy. 'Why are you trying to trap me?' he asked. 'Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.'"
They brought the coin. He asked them:
"Whose image is this, and whose inscription?"
"Caesar's," they replied.
Jesus said to them, "Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."
And they were amazed at him.
The first thing to see about this answer—why it's so clever—is he exposes their hypocrisy. Now, you can't make out the inscription very clearly on the front of the coin on the sheet. You might be able to, just on the rear, and it depends on your Latin, because they did not have the courtesy—the Romans—to mint their coins in English to help us later understand.
What is there on one side? It says:
"Tiberius Caesar Divi Aug F[ilius] Augustus"
Short for—translated:
"Tiberius Caesar, Son of the Divine Augustus"
On the rear:
"Pontifex Maximus"—High Priest
This was blasphemy to the Jews—this claim that Caesar was a god and was the true high priest. So much so that the Jews had special copper coins that they used for everyday transactions to avoid them using this one.
Also, this is quite valuable—it's worth about £50 in today's money—so it's too big for most purposes. But they did not want to possess such a coin, handle it, see it. It didn't exist. Just—let's just forget this blasphemous piece of silver.
So here they come to Jesus to ask him this question. He goes, "Disciples, anyone got a denarius?"
"No. No, we haven't got any."
"Anyone got one?"
Guess who's got one in their pockets?
The very people who are trying to snare him—proof of where their loyalties lie.
Beautiful.
I say to the young people: the Bible is full of humour, but many people don't get it because they don't expect the Bible to be funny. It is meant. Jesus was funny, and the Bible contains much genuine humour. This is one of those moments. We are meant to chuckle at it as we read it—because what a beautiful thing.
"Anyone got a denarius?"
"Yeah, I've got one."
"Oh, sorry, I meant to say no, we don't have one."
“Too late. Here you go, Jesus.”
And his answer—it's just brilliant. Because Jesus does not deny the rule of Rome, which means the Herodians haven't got him. But his reply that they should pay is based on the fact that it already belongs to Caesar—so they're just giving him back his own lost property. But the Pharisees can't fault him either. And so he's off.
Well, let's look together at the many ways in which this story applies.
Give to Caesar
Let's start with the obvious one:
"Give to Caesar what is Caesar's."
That means we pay our taxes. We may not like it, but if the government says that you need to pay income tax, to file a VAT return because you run your own business and you've registered, you have to pay inheritance tax, you have to pay stamp duty land tax—all of these things. Don't try to find illegal ways to wriggle out of them. Pretend just not to claim them—capital gain? "No, not me." Don't. No. If you owe it, you pay it.
It also means we obey the law—unless, of course, the law contradicts God's law. But apart from that, if the law says drive at 30, you drive at 30. There is no law tucked away in Deuteronomy chapter 35 that tells you that you may drive at 40 miles an hour on the Scalby Road. It's not there. That's because Deuteronomy 35 is not there. You obey the law. And you pay your taxes.
Give to God
But that's the really obvious one, though.
"Give to God what is God's."
Why don't you just ask the question: what is rightfully his? What is God's?
Answer: everything.
So Jesus is saying: give all of you to God. All of your love, loyalty, devotion, obedience, delight—they all belong to God. So give them to him.
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your mind, with all your soul, with all your heart, and with all your strength."
Come back in a couple of weeks’ time for that.
Give to each their own
"Give to Caesar what is Caesar's; give to God what is God's."
But then we have to try and put those two together. We see that—watch this—what Jesus is saying is that we need to be loyal citizens, but with boundaries.
Now, the model I want to explain to us here that helps us understand this is something called structural pluralism. Don't translate that before you've had your morning coffee. Structural pluralism.
Now, you've heard of pluralism—that's the idea, often, that all religions are equally valid. That is not this. Structural pluralism says there are different structures in society that are valid and coexist.
And what it is, is this: people will observe that in the Bible there are three institutions that God has given us to order society well. And they are: the Church, the State, and the Family.
And certain duties belong to the Church. Certain duties belong to the State. And certain duties belong to the Family. And because God is ultimately in charge—God is over all three of those—and therefore giving to God what is God's means giving what is required in all three of those institutions. They are God-given institutions.
But we don't give Caesar what is not Caesar's. And we don't give Caesar what God forbids.
Now, let me earth this and explain what I mean with a couple of examples.
Education
Let’s take education. Which of those three institutions is responsible for bringing up, raising, and training the children and young people that will form the next generation? Well, you could read the Pentateuch — the first five books of the Bible — you could read the Book of Proverbs, you could read several of the Epistles of the New Testament. The answer you get is the same: it is the parents’ responsibility to raise their children. So the bringing up of children, the education of children, is the responsibility of the family.
Now, we are fortunate to live in a country where the state provides many excellent schools, and we have a number of schoolteachers amongst our church family who are enjoying a well-earned summer break. We thank God for you, and we pray you have a very restful six weeks on a break — or, if you work in a private school, a ten-week summer break.
But it remains: if you are a parent, it is your responsibility to educate your children. If you choose the best way to do that is to send your children to the local state-run school — you may not have imagined this when filling in a form on the North Yorkshire County Council website, not thought about the fact this is what you're doing — but what you’ve done is you have delegated that role to the local authority and their particular school.
What you have not done is abdicated that. “I don’t want to bring my children up; you do it.” Which means it remains your job to ensure that your children are taught the things you want them taught, and they are not taught the things you don’t want them taught.
And for that reason, some parents choose not to send their children to a school, but to make other provisions for their education. And it is really, really important that parents are free to make that choice should they wish.
And I say that because there are moves in some Western countries to make it illegal to withdraw your children from state education and to educate them at home — or to imply that should you wish to do that, you need to get permission from the state before you may do such. In parts of Germany, you cannot educate your children at home. And there are moves in this country — and it's still rumbling — that Ofsted, the body that inspects schools, would like the right to inspect children’s home education settings to make sure that they are suitable.
Now, if you look at the history of the 20th century, let me tell you that when nation-states decide that educating children is their responsibility and theirs alone, and parents may not withdraw from state education without consent — that is often the beginning of a story that does not end happily.
So I would say we fight for that right, whilst also wanting to encourage and nurture our schools to be the best they can be — encouraging our teachers and making good use of the good schools provided, of which, in this area, there are thankfully a great number.
So education: it is a family’s job. And if you want to allow the state-run services to help you with that task of training your children, then do so — and pray for them, and seek to be actively involved in what that looks like.
Education.
Evangelism
Another area we could look at is evangelism. It is not the state’s job to tell you whether you may share your faith, with whom you may share it, and how you may do so. There are stories in the news every month or two of people being arrested — and then released without charge — for preaching on the streets or handing out evangelistic literature on public transport.
Your employer — well, now let’s be clear here. They pay for your time while you are at work. And it is — if they want to say, “You may not use the time we are paying you for to share your faith with other people” — that is actually time you’ve given to them, so that has been their right to do that.
What they may not do is tell you what you may or may not do outside of your work. That is nothing to do with them, or with the government. There cannot be a law against persuading people to become Christians. But in some countries around the world, it is legal to be a Christian — but not legal to persuade others to be. And that cannot be, and must not be. And if we get any hints of that in this country, we should resist it.
Just two little examples of how this structural pluralism works out in practice: law, citizens — but with boundaries. Get to see who, want to see this, but only that. But overall: give to God what is God's.
Follow Jesus
So that’s kind of the obvious application. But now, let’s just zoom out on the passage a bit further, because if we come up from the page and look at it from kind of a higher altitude, there’s another family of applications here, which is this: this passage is telling you to follow Jesus and to do so wholeheartedly.
As we zoom out, we’re in a section of Mark’s Gospel that runs from chapters 11 through to 13. Jesus entered Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday at the start of chapter 11. And then he’s grilled four times by these religious leaders who want to catch him out and have him arrested and killed.
So chapter 11:28 — “By what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you authority to do this?” Could we see your permit for your miracles, please?
And then chapter 12, verse 14 — “Is it right to pay the poll tax to Caesar or not? Should we pay, or shouldn’t we?”
Come back next week for chapter 12, verse 23 — he tells them a story that Lee will explain next week — “But at the resurrection, whose wife will the woman in the story be?”
And then the last one — chapter 12:28 — “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
Four hostile questions. He’s interrupted in the middle for the parable we had last time.
And this questioning, this attempt to catch him out, is to an end. Jesus then asks them a question — chapter 12:35–37 — and his question they can’t answer. And Luke says from this moment on, no one asked him any more questions.
So what Mark is doing is he’s showing us ways that people try to dismiss and to discredit the Lord Jesus, and he’s showing us, one by one, that they don’t work.
So this passage that we’re looking at today is unpicking some of the reasons that people have to dismiss Jesus, and it’s showing us that they don’t work. So this passage is showing that your reasons you may have not to follow Jesus — or to follow him only half-heartedly — don’t work.
And therefore Mark’s point is: follow him, and do so with everything you’ve got.
So just at the general level — these people come up to Jesus, trying to expose him as inconsistent, hypocritical, cause him a dilemma he can’t get out of — but actually, they come off worse, because he actually exposes their hypocrisy.
So if you’re trying to expose Jesus, if you try to catch Jesus out, show that he doesn’t really make sense — when you put him up to scrutiny, you will discover at your cost that he is the only one who is a hundred per cent consistent.
But getting close enough to him to try and catch him out will only mean that he’s close enough to shine his light into your life and expose the holes in what you think. A little bit like — if you imagine the sun (never, ever look at the sun, okay, you’ll go blind) — but you think, “Ah, the sun, there’s a dirty smudge. Let me open the windows and have a good look, see if I can see that dirty mark on the sun.” All you’ll do is let the sun come shining in, and it will show the fingerprints, the dust, the smudges — every little mark in your home, on your clothes, whatever.
Or you take a photo of some friend of yours skiing. I’ve never been skiing — it doesn’t appeal. Some people like falling over and breaking legs on the ice — that’s up to them. But there they are, with a beautiful white outfit, skiing. “Oh lovely, let’s take that!” What will you see? The snow is white — the outfit, less white than you thought.
And if you get close enough to Jesus to try and go, “I’m going to catch you out,” he goes, “Come. Just look at all that mess.”
It won’t work. You are the inconsistent one. And he’s the consistent one.
Jesus not anti-state
But then there are some more specific ways that this tells us to follow him.
So if you think Jesus, for example, is anti-state — so if you follow him, you are necessarily being a disloyal citizen — then that is not true. That’s what they tried to trap him with.
Now, there are some countries in the world where this is really important to say. And it might be you’re watching on the livestream from a country where you can’t actually get to church — welcome. It may be some of you have come from countries where there are these pressures — where it’s been drilled into you since infancy (back to education again) that the most important thing is to be a good citizen.
Actually, the way British values is going, I think we’re beginning to get some of that drilling in here as well. The massive sentence is, “If you become a Christian, you become an enemy of the state,” because Jesus is perceived as a threat.
And if you’re from a country like that, then you need to hear what this is saying: that is a lie. Following Jesus does not make you an enemy of the state. You’d be a good bit of you, give to Caesar what is Caesar’s — just not what isn’t his.
So don’t not follow Jesus because you think he kind of makes you disloyal as a citizen.
Jesus is not a troublemaker
Or if you think Jesus is a revolutionary — such that if you were to follow him, you’d be joining a group of troublemakers — that is also not the case. And if that’s what puts you off following him, then don’t let it, because Jesus does not call you to be a troublemaker.
Now, here’s what this passage is saying: Jesus is saying to give to God what is God’s. And that means to give God everything. And then under God, we give our due loyalty to the state, to the church, to the family.
Jesus does not make you disloyal to your family
Here’s another one, isn’t it? If you come from a family where not having your family as a Christian — does following Jesus make you disloyal to your family? No. But you don’t surrender if those institutions demand what is not theirs. And you never surrender when they demand something that God forbids.
Now, people try to catch Jesus out. They do it all the time. People try to imagine that Jesus will require us to neglect our big loyalties in life. People imagine that if you become a Christian, that will make you a bad employee, it will make you a bad citizen, a bad son, a bad daughter, a bad parent, a bad husband, a bad wife.
Conclusion
If this morning you’re feeling pulled in a hundred directions with conflicted loyalty, if this morning you’re feeling oppressed and downtrodden, if this morning you’re feeling really comfy in life because you’re giving absolute devotion to the state or to your family — if any of those things are you, Jesus says:
“Come to me, and I will give you rest. My yoke is easy, my burden is light.”
Therefore, if we follow him, we will get our loyalties right. We will live our whole life for God. And then under him, the rest of our relationships will be healthy, will be balanced, will be as God intended them to be.