Armodoxy for Today: Too Easy

Scripture recounts that the religious elite of the first century was constantly trying to trap Jesus into contradicting himself. Their traps were of no avail, Jesus’ responses to their questions were always precise and left them (and today, us) with new thoughts to ponder. Such was the case in this moment recorded in the Gospel of Mark (chapter 12).

They approached Jesus, but this time they buttered him up first with words of flattery. “Teacher, we know that you are 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.” This was probably Jesus’ first tip-off that a stinger was to follow.  They asked, “Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn’t we?”

Mark writes, “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, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”

“Caesar’s,” they replied. Then 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.

With this one statement, Jesus has continued to amaze generations until today. Render unto Ceasar what is Ceasar’s and what is God’s to God, is the phrases that is the foundation for concepts such as the separation of Church and State.

It is too easy to quote Jesus with this single line and claim that as Church, or people of Faith, we need to distance ourselves from politics. But as the history of Armodoxy demonstrates, everything is interconnected and certainly did not make this statement to distance himself from the reality of daily life.

All things are connected to one another in a universal network of life. Economics gives us the resources to buy the Bible, which defines sin, which psychology attempts to diminish. Physics explains the movement of the building blocks which chemistry and biology exploit into physical realities, art presents in forms that express ideas that form ideologies that philosophy dissects and analyses. Politics creates systems that organize those ideologies, and religion is there to ensure the equity of distribution, claiming to have a connection to a higher understanding of fairness.

Yes, everything is connected. It is too easy to pretend that reality is void of spirituality or that religious entities do not have concerns for their community and world. Separation of Church and State does not mean that clergy should not and cannot comment on political realities. Quite the contrary, they are the ones who might align those realities to higher understandings of selfhood and responsibility.

It was not easy for Jesus to make this statement. Tomorrow we continue, today we pray, O Breath of All that Lives, You who move in the pulse of galaxies and in the quiet rhythm of a single human heart, open my eyes to the sacred thread that binds all creation. Amen.