Matthew 22:15-22

Final Arguments and Final Clarifications

Matthew reverted to the storyline of Mark’s Gospel.  The contest between Jesus and the leadership continued through four separate encounters.  Matthew would outline three tests posed to Jesus by either Pharisees or Sadducees.  In each case, it would be the protagonists who would finish up failing the tests.  Following that, Jesus would make his own final clarification.

Matthew 22:15-22     Taxes and the Priority to be Shown to God

A group of Pharisees took the initiative.  Given Jesus’ popularity with the crowds surging around in the temple courtyards, they needed, somehow, to make Jesus either publicly suffer a clear loss of face, or to implicate himself politically.

The presence of supporters of Herod was significant – they would have been officials, or even soldiers, in the employment of Herod.  One of their major concerns, at least in Galilee, was administering the due payment of taxes.

Their opening comment was intended to catch Jesus off guard.  Then they sprang their trap.  As they saw things, were Jesus to say “No!”, immediately they would have had him arrested by soldiers of the governor.   Were he to condone the payment of taxes, he would have lost face with the crowds, who deeply resented the whole business of taxation and were cruelly oppressed by it.  (The questioners were not at all interested in learning learn about Jesus’ own personal attitude to the pseudo-values of the Empire.)

Jesus was alert to their trap.  Roman taxes were paid in Roman coinage – though such coinage was not acceptable currency in the temple precincts.  Apparently, Jesus did not carry the denarius – he needed to ask them to show him a coin.  They were the ones who used such coinage.  

The Roman denarius carried the imprint of the head of the Emperor, with the inscription: “Tiberius, son of the divine Augustus, Chief Priest”.  To Jewish worshippers, such an inscription was blasphemous, doubly so if carried into the temple.

By carrying the denarius, Jesus accused them equivalently of colluding with the empire and its values, and implicated in its blasphemy.

For the Pharisees who had posed the question, Jesus’ meaning here was not clear. 

Responding to Oppression

Was Jesus advising revolt, or accommodation to the unjust regime? Did he have in mind something quite different from both of those responses – a form of patient, non-violent resistance, which went along with, but fell short of internal allegiance to, a social and political regime which could not be changed?  

Earlier in the Gospel, when listing the names of the twelve, the Gospel author had named Matthew, the tax collector, and Simon, the Cananaean. [10:3-4]. Tax collectors had accommodated to the imperial regime and many had grown wealthy through their collaboration.  Cananaeans were unorganised anarchists, not yet organised as Zealots, who would later revolt against the Roman occupation.

In his account of Jesus’ temptations, Matthew had identified the kingdoms of the world as being under the control of Satan [4:9].  He consistently contrasted the Kingdom of God with earthly kingdoms, and showed Jesus urging disciples to make their choice.  In his rather simple analysis of good and evil, of black and white, Matthew seemed to allow no middle ground.

In his Sermon on the Mount, however, while conceding no truck with evil, Jesus had insisted that disciples love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them [5:44].  In insisting that they not resist the evildoer, he had advised them to cooperate in ways that yet maintained their own dignity and brought their oppression into stark relief [5:39-42] – ways of non-violent, but clear, resistance.

In the strange story about Peter and Jesus paying the temple tax (which, by the time of Matthew’s community, had become a tax supporting the construction of a pagan temple in Rome), Matthew showed disciples doing what was demanded of them, but, at the same time, maintaining the utterly free sovereignty of God and effectively ridiculing the whole Roman pretence to power [17:24-27].

By his use of “give back”, Jesus may have been suggesting that they rid themselves of the Empire and its values, detach themselves from them and have nothing to do with them.  Understood in this way, his answer to their question was “No!”.  On the other hand, he may simply have suggested that they give to the Empire the oppressive financial demands it required of them (and that they could not avoid) – in which case, his answer was “Yes!”.

Jesus’ answer, however, was more than a smart reply to the Pharisees’ trap.  Their question had touched on what was indeed central to Jesus’ whole proclamation of God’s Kingdom.  Almost immediately, the narrative would make explicit what Jesus regarded as due to God: nothing less than everything, a love that involved the whole of the heart, soul and mind [22:37]. And inseparably and inextricably connected to single-minded and total surrender to God was the command that was like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself [22:39].  Faithful to the prophets of Israel, Jesus saw loyalty to God, expressed through compassionate care for the God-given dignity of every person (especially the most oppressed), as the indispensable criterion for judgment of political policy and intrigue 

By carrying the Roman denarius on their person into the temple, the Pharisees and Herodians were effectively denying, at least in the eyes of the crowd, their total allegiance to God.  They did not act under duress (unlike the powerless peasants) – they collaborated with the regime to their own advantage.

They did not go away for long.  After Jesus had dealt with a group of Sadducees, some Pharisees would return once more to their testing.  They were not interested in Jesus’ personal attitude and its reasons; but Jesus was passionately interested in theirs.  Matthew consistently showed Jesus requiring of people a choice between the values of earthly kingdoms – self-interest, wealth, prestige and honour, injustice, oppression, control, violence, etc. – and the starkly contrasting values of God’s Kingdom.

Separating Church and State

Contrary to how some might like to interpret the incident, Jesus did not sanction a clear distinction of political and religious responsibilities.  On the contrary, God was sovereign over everything.  God’s values were to govern every decision.  This had been the clear approach of many of the Hebrew prophets, who consistently criticised kings and priests for choosing policies that neglected the values required by the Covenant.

On the other hand, Jesus’ response could not be interpreted as endorsement of any cosy relationship between Church and State.  In criticising kings, prophets also felt free to criticise religious leaders as well.  Every power structure, religious or secular, comes under the scrutiny of the will of God.

Next >> Matthew 22:23-33