It Is Not A Forced-Choice Test

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In today's Gospel, the Pharisees want to talk about taxes. Well, what they really want to talk about is how to trap Jesus in His words, which is ridiculous, because you cannot trap God. Nevertheless, they come to our Lord and ask Him about whether Jews ought to pay taxes. Should the faithful people of God do such a thing? Should we obey pagan leaders when they exercise their authority over us?

Often, in Christian circles, this exchange is portrayed as something of a forced-choice test, a broken dichotomy between God and Caesar. In other words, you must give to God His due, and to Caesar his due, and ne'er the twain shall meet. It is as though God inhabits certain corners of your life, and Caesar inhabits other corners, and you can put yourself into various boxes or pigeon-holes, depending on the moment.

But this is not a forced choice.

What Shall I Render?

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

After Jesus has told a series of parables lambasting the Jewish leadership for leading the people astray, they seek to entrap Him and get Him out of their way. Therefore, strange bedfellows come together for a common cause. Ordinarily, the Pharisees and the Herodians would never associate. After all, the Pharisees desperately wanted to maintain Jewish independence so that they could retain their prerogatives over the people and the Temple. They wished nothing more than the retreat and demise of their Roman overlords. On the other hand, the Herodians were extreme political partisans of the house of Herod Antipas. They were staunch supporters of Rome, mostly in the hopes of furthering Herod's goal of ruling Israel as king.

However, necessity creates odd bedfellows, and this occasion is no different. Both of these parties wanted Jesus silenced, so they came together to this end. They would ask Him about paying taxes to Caesar. If Jesus said yes, then the people would see their great hopes of political overthrow dashed and the Pharisees could point to Jesus as unpatriotic. If He said no, then the Herodians could denounce Him to Pilate as an enemy of the Emperor and a seditionist.