Exodus 33:12-23 Psalm 99 1
Thessalonians 1:1-10 Matthew 22:15-22
Lectionary Link
Governments and nations built around divine laws are often called theocracies. Some Islamic states aspire to have the religious law of Sharia be also the governing law of the entire country. And in thinking that, what God thinks is best for us is also best for everyone else in the world. There is an impulse in regional theocracies for them to spread and become universal.
The telling of the event of Mount Sinai originated within the people of Hebraic traditions and it revealed the divine right of the Law of God which is accompanied by an account of the relationship between Moses and God. God is too great for human comprehension and so the saying, "No one has ever seen God." No one has the capacity to equal God's greatness. In the story of Moses' relationship with God, he was not about to see the face of God or directly perceive God even though he made the impossible request to do so. In the story, Moses is given permission to see the back side of God. This bespeaks the Orthodox expression that God cannot be known in God's essence, but only through the divine energies, the emanations or the things around God which can be known or revealed to humanity. The invisible, unseeable God can be known in the Godly effects.
The theocracy of Hebraic religion is the discovery of divine laws or rules of recommended behaviors for people who center their lives around a belief in the One God. Such laws within community could be construed to be political structure for the stable perpetuation of that community throughout time.
But was such a theocracy for the Jews to be just for them? Or were they to be a hybrid proto-community for bringing such a theocracy to the entire world? The prophets proclaimed the Temple to be a house of prayer for all peoples. The self evidential logic around the belief in One God, is that the One God is for all. The people of Israel were to be the politically exemplary society to bring the witness of their One God to the entire world.
The record of the Hebrew Scriptures indicates that by their own assessment of their own history, they failed to live up to the standards of God's law that had been given to them. Often the kings of Israel and Judah did not keep even the first and most important commandment, namely the requirement of loyalty to the One God.
Nations with other gods who also gave their rulers divine right of rule impinged upon the people of Israel who did not ever seem to be able to achieve complete success in implementing a theocratic society built around a divinely revealed Law.
One might say that the Roman Empire was quite successful in attaining a worldwide theocracy simply because the belief in many gods and goddesses could be compatible with the main political theocracy, the cult of the Emperor. If the Caesar is declared to be a god and son of a god, a savior of the world, and the one to enforce peace, one could see an effective political theocracy. The wedding of the cult of the Emperor with the genius of Roman law truly provided the world with a worldwide structure. The Emperor's cult was perhaps a proto-catholic religion to unite the cult of Emperor devotion with political and military power.
Jesus of Nazareth, born into family and country with a failed theocracy provides us a tradition of a hidden total kingdom of God, co-existing with the existing Roman kingdom of a successful theocracy of the cult of the Caesar.
The early followers of Jesus and the Jews had to forge their identities with the acceptance of being oppressed communities that had to survive within the successful theocracy of the Roman Emperor cult. One of the ways in which the Emperor related to all of the people of the empire was through collecting taxes.
One of the most visible signs of unity in the kingdom of the Roman Empire was the image or the face of the Emperor superimposed upon the coinage. The image, the icon, of the Emperor was proof of the Emperor's powerful presence throughout his world empire. It was proof that he had power to collect taxes, that is, to exact from the life revenue of everyone within the Caesar realm.
One can see the obvious question that would come to Jesus and his followers. One of the most basic messages in the logia or sayings of Jesus was his proclamation of the kingdom of God. "So here we have it Jesus, the kingdom of God or the kingdom of the Caesar god, how do you negotiate between these two perspectives?" And should those who claim allegiance to the kingdom of God proclaimed by Jesus pay taxes to the Caesar-god of the empire? Is one betraying the One God proclaimed and exemplified by Jesus if one pays taxes to the Caesar-god?
This was the question posed to Jesus and I think it highlights perhaps a dilemma for people who believed in One God who were being oppressed and forced into compliant empire behaviors by the Caesar-god and his forces.
The question to Jesus was about whether the Caesar should be resisted and rebelled against. And the answer of Jesus is really a wisdom insight based upon some very ancient Hebraic wisdom. What is that insight? Caesar is only a human being, not a god, but the image of God resides on the Caesar. So it is the duty of Caesar and all people made in the image of God to pay their lives as God's coinage to God. Let Caesar have his coins in his empire game; the image of God is upon everyone and so everyone including the Emperor belonged to the One God.
This subtle wisdom answer reveals the secret of the growth of early Christianity. The words of Jesus were not to overthrow the Caesar but to appeal the total divine ground on which everyone always already lives. This Gospel of Matthew came to textual form after Paul wrote for his community in Rome to pray for the authorities in Rome. The Jesus Movement was an under-the-radar-movement which ironically rode the coattails of Roman world expansion such that the Roman ability to connect the entire known world through roads, transportation, and administration became also the media for the spread and the travel of the message of Jesus Christ which was this, the image of God is upon everyone, and Jesus came to make that evident.
Today people may still try to make their local practice of religion with all its specificities into the one practice of religion for everyone. The positive feature of this insight is that it is charitable to regard one's best gift and insight as being available to everyone else. The negative is that it is too easy to over identify the cultural details of one's own situation as being coercively absolute for everyone else. The fracture of the Christian religion into so many expressions is proof of the arrogance of trying to make the very local, the universal for everyone.
The Gospel for us today is this, like Moses, we are only located to see a very partial facet of the "back side of the divine," and we should not presume otherwise. Like St. Paul, we can remain as humble relativists in confessing, "Now I only see in part." We only see the part of the Whole, and we should be humble about this, and in our humility we should affirm that the kingdom of God is so vast and such an inward iconic reality, that it can co-exist with the incredible faith differences which occur in our world.
The Gospel Jesus says to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars; the anthropomorphic stamped upon every human product. At the same time, we have the privilege to render unto God the things that are God's because the image of God is a rendering or a branding of everyone as belonging to God. The Gospel message of Jesus is that you and I have the privilege to be a part of everything including ourselves being rendered back to the everlasting God because the endless future One is the only One with the duration to truly include and collect all in All.
Let us be those whose lives are gladly without resistance or competition, rendered back to God today. Amen.
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