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Sermon ~ “Rightly Dividing Church & State”

Matthew 22:15-21

 

There are those things that are more or less political, and those that our eternal.  Our Lord says it like this within Matthew’s gospel:   “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s”

 

They came to Jesus, the Pharisees, to get Him in trouble.  Should they pay taxes to an emperor who had conquered and taken over God’s people?

 

If our Lord said a simple “no,” He would have been labeled an insurrectionist, and would be in trouble with Roman authorities.  If Jesus had said, “yes,” he would have alienated many Jewish Zealots who despised Roman occupation.

 

Today, asserting that the Christian influence should be allowed into the public square, and particularly, the public classroom, gets one into the same kind of

dilemma that our Lord faced.

 

If Mary says that Christian ideas should have the same access to the public schoolroom as do secular ideas, she is accused of going against the Supreme Court and Thomas Jefferson’s often quoted “wall of separation.”  If Tom says that Christianity has no place in a public classroom, he is in favor of the moral corruption of our youth.

 

Now our Lord’s answer was clearly intended to avoid the trap.  He never answered the question put to Him by those who had laid the trap.  He in effect forces them to decide for themselves. 

 

Still, Jesus does imply, without any hedge, that there are things that belong to God, and things that belong to the political order.

 

What kinds of things might belong to the political order?  In the United States we could list a number of things:

>>What kind of tax form should be used to report one’s earnings would

belong to Caesar.

>>Where the state capitol should be located is also a political thing, not important to ultimate concerns.

           >>How to divide voting districts is Caesar’s decision

           >>What roads in the state will be graveled, and what roads will be black         

           topped might be important to some of us, but I don’t think it is a big item on

           God’s list.

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