Tiberius Denarius
The coin believed to be at the center of Matthew 22:15-22 is the Tiberius Denarius, which includes the inscription, "Tiberius Caesar, Son of the Divine Augustus." This was a Roman imperial coin in common circulation, emblazoned with Caesar's image, and claiming him to be a son of god. You can see how its use in ancient Israel, with their rejection of other gods and of graven images, would be considered blasphemous and controversial.

Rome: Love It or Loath It?
In the United States we often look back on the Ancient Greco-Roman world with awe, wonder, and admiration. We identify with ancient Greece’s form of participatory democracy and we view the Roman Empire as foundational for Western culture and political identity. The neoclassical architecture of many federal buildings – particularly in Washington, DC – reflect our admiration for ancient Greece and Rome.

Our spiritual ancestors in ancient Israel had an incredibly different relationship with ancient Rome, and they would be quite confounded by our love affair with ancient Greco-Roman civilization. For them, living under Roman military occupation was an absolute catastrophe. While dwelling in the land promised to them by the LORD, the land and its people were administered and controlled by the blasphemous, brutal, pagan Roman Empire.

Our spiritual ancestors were a people under foreign control, not able to live as they believed God intended. Rome controlled Israel’s livelihood, taxed Israelites severely in a scheme that allowed for abuses and over-charging, desecrated Jerusalem’s sacred temple, mocked their faith, and threatened military action at even a whiff of anti-Roman sentiment.

We today are inheritors of a cultural and political tradition that admires ancient Rome, and are simultaneously grafted into a spiritual legacy that flatly rejects Rome’s imperial and spiritual claims. This paradox is the setting in which we read Matthew 22 this weekend.

Yes or No? Answer me!!!!!
“Is it lawful to pay the tax to Caesar or not?” the Pharisees ask Jesus, not because they were genuinely curious about Roman tax policy or about how faithful Jews should live under a foreign occupying military force. No. Like most Israelites, the Pharisees resented the Romans. Their question was not about political theory or faithful living, but instead was designed to get Jesus to say something unlawful so they could goad Roman officials into arresting Jesus, whose claims about himself the Pharisees opposed.

The Pharisees tried to manipulate to their advantage a legitimately fraught, high-pressure situation, but Jesus released the pressure. They came to Jesus with all kinds of anxiety, amping up the tension, insisting that he give them an either-or, black-or-white, yes-or-no answer to a disingenuous question. I can imagine them asking the question breathlessly, urgently, pressing for an answer right away. 

Their question, then, is not about the legitimacy of taxation, or about how God’s faithful people should regard the Roman occupiers who rule and extract Israelite wealth by force. We should not read this passage as guidance for “church and state” debates in our country today. No. Their question was a trap, and Jesus diffuses it brilliantly with a tone that I imagine was dismissive and disinterested.

“Give the emperor his silly coin.” Perhaps he even rolled his eyes.

Jesus meets their anxiety with a complete lack of anxiety. 
If they’re coming in hot, he’s cool as a cucumber. 
Jesus refuses to accept their anxiety, their insistence, their terms of debate. 
Instead, Jesus diffuses the situation and dismantles their trap.

In today’s world of gotcha political traps and social media silos insisting on singular ways of thinking, Jesus’ example of refusing disingenuous terms of debate is a model for how we can bypass the chaos served up by those who poke the bear, and focus instead on what is right and true and just.

Real Disputes, Idolatrous Resolutions
Jesus’ adversaries had a dispute with Jesus. People are allowed to have disputes, of course. We can disagree. We can choose not to believe certain claims. That’s fine. However, Jesus’ adversaries weren’t okay with simply disagreeing. They sought to seize the power of the sword to resolve their dispute! They wanted Rome to arrest and kill Jesus. Might does not make right. Brute force is not the answer. 

When we resort to violence to solve such problems, we become idolators. In their dispute with Jesus his adversaries placed their trust not in God or in their God-given religious teachings and traditions, but in the sword of their own oppressor! Martin Luther wrote that “whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your god.” In this moment Jesus’ adversaries were clinging not to God’s promises, not to the Mosaic law, not to the comforting words of the prophets. No. Instead, they clung to the false idols of power and violence, and to the certainty of the Roman Empire’s cruelty.

A Better Way
Jesus’ simple response to give Caesar his trifling little coin bypasses the trap the Pharisees set against him, and calls his hearers to slow down, take a deep breath, and lower the temperature in the room. He’s not dismissing Rome’s cruelty. Neither is he countenancing Rome’s governance as somehow civil and worthy of our allegiance. Instead, Jesus charts a third way that is neither violent or acquiescent, but instead is humble, loving, and merciful.

Jesus is king. And if Jesus is king, Caesar is not. Jesus rules differently than the rulers of this world. He doesn’t seek the sword, or collect coins on which false gods print their own faces. Living under the Roman Empire, Jesus doesn’t get all worked up about the latest blasphemies or the understandably outraged posturing of the well-intentioned but doomed-to-fail revolutionary actors who would try to drive Rome out of Jerusalem (they would fail, spectacularly, a generation after Jesus was crucified).

Instead, Jesus presses on with faith, hope, and love, knowing that these are the only currency of faithful living that matter.