Sunday Sermon

A comment on the "Render unto Caesar" gospel dismissed it as comic; when give a difficult either-or choice the answer is "Yes." It is a profound underestimation.

In it the wolves are circling. Christ has delivered three parables since his return to Jerusalem and all involve grim assessments of the organized Jewish religion and in one, the middle one about the tenants and the vineyard, he identifies himself as the Son of God. The question is asked to isolate him either from Rome or from his religious followers. While his answer is brilliant, it is seen as more clever verbal twist than cosmic. But it is not. Christ shows himself to be very understanding of our lives. Christ is willing to give the material world--the bustling business and marching political world--its place. But he reveals it as just a small place. The world has its demands, practical and real--like working on the sabbath to rescue the family cow from a ditch. Christ does not begrudge us our practical anxieties. But he follows with the hugely diminishing clincher: While you understandably must render to Caesar what is his, so must you render what is God's to God.

And so the great Caesar and giant Rome are made to throw a shadow in their little world.