Holy Participation

The 22nd Sunday After Penecost

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, God is one.  Amen

In today’s Gospel reading Jesus is confronted by two groups of Jews; two groups that were ideologically opposed to one another; two groups that for all intents and purposes were enemies, but the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and that is the logic under which  they aligned themselves with one another to confront Jesus in the temple. For Jesus has been teaching in the temple, and  through his teaching, challenged the religious establishment therein, undermining the authority and credibility of the religious leaders there. Now, the religious leaders would try to find a way to discredit Jesus, and ultimately remove him, or at least they would try. But who were the Herodians, and what did they have to do with the Pharisees?

So you have two sides of the same coin, in a sense, working hand in hand to try and usurp the authority of Jesus in the temple. Secular Jewish leaders working with religious Jewish leaders towards a common goal, a common enemy

The Herodians could also be referred to as hellenic Jews, for they saw the very future of Judaism and the Jewish people within the Greek cultural hegemony of the Roman empire.  They were named after the ruler placed over them by the Romans, Herod the Great.  Hence, the name, Herodians. These Jews simply put on a facade of religious practice in order to publicly justify their life in private living as wannabe Romans.  The Pharisees on the other hand worked with the Romans, but only because they had to, and in their eyes for the good of the Jewish people.

The Pharisees worked with the Romans out of absolute necessity.  They were believers in religious purity and adherence to the Law, so much so that they created an entire code of Jewish life in order to protect the faithful Jew from ever falling into error of the Laws.  Those rabbis who followed them often ran the various ghettos found across many Roman cities.  In short, the Pharisees had little love for the Romans, for they saw contact with the Romans, and the overall increase of cultural contact with the Romans as polluting the purity of the Jewish people.

So, here we are with these two groups working with one another, intending to trap Jesus with the deception of the question that would follow.  After an opening salvo of some cynical flattery, they ask him this question: ““Teacher, we know that You are true, and teach the way of God in truth; nor do You care about anyone, for You do not regard the person of men. Tell us, therefore, what do You think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” Jesus then asks them for a denarius, for you see, to all parties involved the whole crux of the matter came down to that small coil.

The Denarius was typically what one received for a day’s wages.  In that time the denarius bore the image of the emperor, and the following phrase was inscribed upon it: “Tiberius Caesar, Augustus, son of the divine Augustus, high priest.” So, the coin contained the engraved image of a man that was not only regarded as a deity by the Roman people, but was also considered the high priest of the entire Pantheon of Roman deities.  So, obviously the Pharisees objected to the use of this coin for currency as they saw it not only as a borderline violation of the first commandment: “I am the Lord your God. You shall not have strange gods before me,” they also saw payment with this coin as tribute to the emperor and his gods. So to preserve the purity of the Jewish people, money changers were established to exchange this “dirty” money for a local currency minted in Hebrew.  The Herodians, on the other hand, saw no reservations about the use of Roman currency.

So, Jesus had a choice. If he agreed with the Pharisees, the Herodians could charge him with revolution against the Romans. If he agreed with the Herodians, the Pharisees could charge him with idolatry. It was a question asked within the framework of conflicting priorities, and when the world is pitted against itself, no answer is the right answer.  So, Christ being King of Kings and Lord of Lords reframes their question upon that very coin by asking who’s image it bears.  Upon the  answering of His question, Jesus then answers theirs by saying “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”  The false dichotomy of Herodian realpolitik and Pharisaical idealism was dissolved and replaced with choosing between God, and the world.

We live in the world, but not of it.  Let us recall the words of Paul in his letter to the Romans: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.”  And Christ himself told Pilate: “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.”  

Certainly we can live fully for God with no participation in the world, and those are called monastics.  Then, the other end of the spectrum are the hedonists and nihilists who live only for themselves.  We are neither of these, but we walk the middle path. We give ourselves fully to God while actively participating in the dominant culture for the common good.  In a way, and to some, this participation becomes an act of Christian charity and evangelization.  But, that participation can only take place as long as the laws of man do not overrule or supersede the laws of God.  In such cases as these, Holy disobedience is in order.  In the time of the Romans?  It became necessary.  In Atheist communist Russia?  It became necessary.  In some countries such as North Korea or China?  It does become necessary. Though, lucky for us, we do not live in such a place or time that requires us to resort to Holy disobedience.  Yet, oftentimes the American obsession with personal freedom can often preclude any struggle for the common good.

Our participation begins with our personal responsibilities to the Church, to our families, our jobs that support them both.  Also, as we are able, we extend our participation beyond our personal boundaries and into the public realm for the good of others.  As a result, those in need, those who struggle, those who are in want, and society in general grows from the light of hope emanating from a citizenry engaged with itself.  Yet, we never forget the personal struggle against the passions, and in so doing, through our participation in society we become living examples of Truth that others can hopefully see and follow into the Church, the fullness of Truth.

I think sometimes some people forget that our struggle is first and primarily a spiritual struggle, and the outer struggles of which we see and hear are nothing more than the loudest visible signs of an invisible conflict waging around us.  But we, as Orthodox Christians, are on the front lines of that spiritual conflict.  Whenever we do see wars fought abroad, and the struggles here at home, our first choice should always be God.  This is one reason why the Church beseeches us to pray for peace in the face of all conflict, for war is sin. Rarely is either side innocent. When we are left to choose within a false dichotomy that the world has given us, our first choice should always be God.  For in choosing the lesser of two evils, you are still choosing evil. In those cases we must trust God to give victory to whom he chooses.

We must  remember that God desires our salvation, and we must believe that he has placed each of us in our situations precisely for our own salvation.  He will use even the evil deeds of men to save all of those who love him.  The problem is when we are in pain we can never see the present moment for what it is.  But when we are not in pain, we often never stay in the present moment, the only moment in our lives in which we can encounter God.  We spend our days dreaming of a future that may or may not ever come, or looking back in regret at our decisions and mistakes, dwelling on what if, sometimes forgetting that Christ has forgiven the repentant sinner, and that includes ourselves.

We cannot escape the present moment. When God said the work is finished, he is already standing at the finish line looking back at us, seeing all the work that has been done and will be done.  We can only see this moment, and as long as we do not forget God in that moment, and all the moments to come, we will one day hear those words “well done, my good and faithful servant.” For, as Christ has said: “In your patience possess ye your souls” and “He that endures to the end shall be saved.” 

Our faith is our first priority, but it is often a conflicting priority with the other things of this world.  It’s not that we choose or should choose the world at any point over God, but that we often pit our worldly choices against other worldly choices, and this ultimately turns us away from Him.  We then are no longer walking the middle path between God and this world, living in this world as citizens of the Kingdom of God, but are slowly walking astray between two paths of conflict framed around things of this world that have nothing to do with God or our salvation. Choose God first, and the rest will sort itself out later.

Oh Lord Jesus Christ our God, by the prayers of thy most pure Mother, the Holy and God bearing fathers; all the saints, and the martyrs, and the angels, have mercy on us and save us.  Amen.