Thursday Theology: On Mixing Religion and Politics

Co-missioners,

Today we send you a homiletical reflection on one of the issues at hand as another bitter election bears down on us in the U.S.  Steve Albertin wrote this. It’s an edited rerun of a sermon he preached at different congregations in the lead-up to the last two elections. There were as fraught and tense—as terrifying, some would say—as this one is proving to be. Watch and listen for the evangelical counsel Steve will offer before he’s done.

Peace and Joy,
The Crossings Community

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On Mixing Religion and Politics

A Homily on Matthew 22:15-22
by the Rev. Dr. Steven E. Albertin

Former President Trump said he was a Presbyterian but said he does not ask God for forgiveness. He rarely goes to church but is convinced that God saved him from an assassin’s bullet. Joe Biden once said he was a good Roman Catholic but supports abortion which is rejected by his church. Kamala Harris is a Baptist married to a Jewish man, she’s inspired by the work of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and influenced by the religious traditions of her mother’s native India as well as the Black Church. Former Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, was a Mormon and assured us that it didn’t matter. Mike Pence was a born again Christian and unafraid to tell everyone. Barack Obama was once proud to have as his pastor the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright, then later rejected him. Christian Nationalists want to impose their religion on the country. It seems that our country’s politicians have a variety of perspectives on what should be the relationship between religion and politics.

From Canva

Our country has been wrestling with the relationship between religion and politics from the very beginning. The First Amendment of our Constitution seems to reflect this uncertainty. On the one hand, this country should have no official, state-favored, state-established religion. On the other hand, the state shall protect the free exercise of all religions.

It gets confusing and messy. I think that’s why my father told me, “Religion and politics don’t mix.” For many religion has become a matter of “personal taste” better left in the privacy of the home or the solitude of the sanctuary. One thing you never do around the Thanksgiving dinner table is discuss religion and politics. We live our public lives divorced from our private religious faith.

We legitimately fear a government run by clergy where state-sponsored religion is shoved down our throat whether we like it or not. That undermines both the free consent of the governed and the free practice of religion. We want no part of such tyranny.

The relationship between church and state is messy. Our heated partisan politics in this current election cycle seems to make it worse. It is not easy to draw a line between them. They are constantly bumping into each other. Many examples fill the history of our country. Both the abolitionist movement at the time of the Civil War and the civil rights movement in the mid 20th century began in the church among religious people who pressured the state for social change. Today such issues as abortion, immigration, healthcare, school vouchers and war in the Middle East reflect the influence of religious belief in public life. Everyone chooses-up sides with religious conviction.

Today’s Gospel also reflects the conflict between church and state, religion and government, God and Caesar. The Gospel readings for the last several weeks have reflected the frequent conflict between Jesus and his enemies. The religious leadership hatches one plot after another to trap Jesus and discredit him. They dislike the way he disturbs the status quo. They resent the way he asserts his own authority at the expense of their own. He claims authority that should belong only to God.

Jesus’ enemies, the Pharisees and Herodians, represent two distinctly different approaches to dealing with the conflict between religion and politics. The Pharisees hated the Roman occupation of their land. They resented the Romans. Yet they did not promote revolt. Instead, they practiced their religion privately. On the other hand, the Herodians had thrown in their lot with the Roman occupation. They fully cooperated while gaining for themselves significant political and economic advantages.

Then along comes Jesus. He supports neither of them. They must silence him. They begin by flattering him and then pop the loaded question: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor (to Caesar) or not?” Regardless of how Jesus answered, he would be trapped. He would look bad. If He recommended that they not pay taxes, then the Herodians could paint him as a dangerous revolutionary and enemy of the state. If He recommended paying taxes, then the Pharisees could expose Jesus for being just another phony, self-serving religious opportunist willing to kiss-up to Rome to save his neck.

However, Jesus evades the trap and outsmarts his critics. He knows what they are doing. “Why are you putting me to the test?” He calls a spade a spade. “You hypocrites!”

Both the Pharisees and Herodians thought they had worked out an effective compromise between God and government. However, Jesus threatened to blow their cover and expose them.

Jesus begins simply. He asks to see the coins that they have in their pockets, the coins that they use to keep their lives running smoothly as they go to the market to buy a loaf of bread, support the local economy and keep Rome happy. The request seemed innocent. No big deal! They innocently reach into their pockets for a coin. Little did they know that Jesus had just trapped them!

Jesus then asks them another seemingly innocent question. “Whose image is on the coin? And whose title?” Any good Jew would have immediately recognized the significance of a question about image. The First Commandment explicitly prohibited the Jews from making any graven images for fear that they could become idols. The inscription on the coin made matters even worse. It said, “Tiberius Caesar, son of god.”

Jesus had caught them red-handed with the evidence in their pockets. They thought they had worked out their clever compromise between religion and politics when in fact they had broken the First Commandment. Not only were they using a graven image, they were supporting an empire whose emperor claimed to be a god.

Jesus is just beginning to tighten the noose. He then asks that most memorable question of all: “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and give to God the things that are God’s.”

Jesus shows that there is no “wall of separation between church and state.” On the one hand, Rome has a legitimate claim on that money. It provided the relative peace and security that had permitted the Jews to prosper.

At the same time, all of life belongs to God and everything is under God’s scrutiny, even the Roman empire, even Caesar. On that score, despite all the good that it does, like every government that has ever existed, it is still imperfect. It still flunks. It is still under God’s judgment.

What is Jesus’ point? What is Jesus telling the Pharisees, the Herodians…and us? All of us have dirty hands. The competing claims of the emperor and God catch us all in a bind. The coins jingling in our pockets convict us. Our government may not be Rome with its millions of slaves, but it is far from perfect. Even though it may not be claiming to be God, some think that it is acting more like god every day. We participate in a government and economic system, despite their noble accomplishments, that have left in their wake the rubble of inequity and injustice. Like the Pharisees and the Herodians, we are hypocrites pretending that we have staked out our safe and righteous hiding place behind the “invisible wall of separation between church and state.”

From Canva

However, Jesus will not let us hide. When Jesus catches us with the evidence in our pockets, he has us just where he wants us. We use the money of a country where justice is incomplete, where minorities still suffer discrimination, where the rich and powerful often enjoy unfair advantage and where the weak and vulnerable are often crushed by “the system.” All we can do is beg for mercy. Trapped between the demands of government and God, afraid that we can trust no one—Jesus offers himself.

What more do we need? Let down by the promises of empire and government, we can count on Jesus. Jesus goes to the cross carrying our dirty money, compromised lives and endless hypocrisies and suffers for us. He dies for us. From the cross, he forgives our hypocrisies and the lies we have told ourselves.

 The kingdoms, empires, states and governments of this world continually disappoint us, but God never turns away. As bread is broken and wine is poured, as water is splashed and sins are forgiven, God in Christ surprises us with mercy. Governments let us down. They can never be god. We can never give them our complete trust. However, God we can! This God whom we meet in Jesus gives us a new life when it is the last thing we deserve.

Therefore, we are free to go back out into this world with a clear conscience, confident of who we are and whose we are. We can act and do our best to improve government and participate in politics and vote for the sake of others. We can use our brains and try our best to make this world a better place. We can do it all with a peace that surpasses all human understanding.

My father always warned me: Don’t mix religion and politics. If we took a vote here today, we would see how divided we are on the issues of the day. Some would sport their red MAGA hats. Others would pull on their BLM t-shirts and both would do it with passionate conviction and religious fervor. The rest of us caught in the middle between friends on both sides can only lament the mess in which we are caught and from which we are unable to escape.

But here we can do what can’t be done any other place in this world. Despite our differences, we can turn to that one with whom we have just disagreed so passionately and say, “The Peace of the Lord be with you.” And surprisingly we will hear those same words directed in return back to us. “The Peace of the Lord be with you.” Here we can pray for those with whom we have just argued. Here Democrats and Republicans, progressives and conservatives, rich and poor, white and brown, can stand together to receive the body and blood of Christ.

In our contentious, conflicted and partisan world, where everyone must choose up sides and fight for their causes, we straddle the conflict. We love and respect those with whom we also passionately disagree.

In the process, we will be scorned, criticized and attacked. We will get nailed to our crosses. However, as a friend of mine once said, “When we get nailed to the cross with Jesus, we are in a good place.”

Yes, don’t we look good on wood…there…next to Him?”