“Journey to the Cross: Allegiance”

Scripture: Mark 12:13-17

(Note: This message was offered the evening of March 10th at a rotating worship service in Litchfield, PA, that 6 of our churches sponsor during Lent. It is included here as a part of my personal series for Lent.)

There is one thing that you have to say about Pharisees – they’re persistent! Whether in the 1st century or the 21st, they all have a single purpose in life, and that is to never make a mistake. Unfortunately, none of them ever get it right, either. Instead of looking to improve themselves, they just decide that everyone else had better be just like them.
And Jesus is a major stumbling block for them all. He never did it their way, and continues to be that proverbial “thorn in their side” during his entire ministry. But the learned, the intellectuals, never give up in trying to catch Jesus in a mistake, or in an indefensible statement, or at the very least, in a contradiction of faith. But they never could and never will. And why? Because Jesus was all about one message and one focus, and never needed to remember what he had said the previous week.
But the Pharisees never change their tactics or their ideas. This was the way that it has been for centuries, and they will never be about introducing some new thought into the mix.

As the story goes:
One day one of Mahatma Gandhi's disillusioned followers came up to him and said, “You have no integrity. Last week I heard you say one thing, and today you are saying something different. How do you justify such indecisiveness?”
Gandhi quietly replied, “It is simple, really, my son. I have learned something new since last week.”
- Homiletics Online

What would you do if you were in this situation – being accused of “flip-flopping” on some issue? Would you follow Gandhi’s example and readily admit that you have the strength to learn from your mistakes? Or would you prefer to live on in “Pharisaical correctness”?

Read Mark 12:13-15a

Aren’t they smooth? First, butter him up, then lead him quietly down the primrose path, and when he is least expecting it, spring the trap! It’s always worked before, why not with this itinerant rabbi?
But the truth of the matter is that they never did think of Jesus as “a man of integrity”! These great teachers of the law only saw him as a threat to their orthodoxy! But by now, they should have realized just who they were dealing with – that they had never won a debate with him – not in the past, not in the future, and definitely not on that day!

The question that they posed to the Lord wasn’t so much about money as it was about allegiance to the law of the land. Faithfulness, for them, was all about how and what you did. It was about the appearance of faith that others could see. It was about loyalty in substance, but not necessarily in purpose. “Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar?” The question was intended to be the trap that would ensnare Jesus in either a Roman net or a Jewish one. If he said “Yes – pay your taxes”, it would violate Jewish law by acknowledging allegiance to a foreign god. If he said “No, it is wrong to pay money to Rome”, then he would be violating a mandate that the occupying Roman government had imposed on them. If he refused to give any answer, he would be admitting that he didn’t know everything, and he would lose his following.
Any way it landed, Jesus would have to come out on the short end of the stick. It had to be a win-win for the Pharisees, and they couldn’t wait for Jesus to respond.

Read Mark 12:15b-17

And Jesus, in that wonderful style that he always had, turns the tables on them. “Bring me a denarius.” Now a denarius was a Roman coin, and for any self respecting Jew, it was a sin to even possess money from a foreign sovereign. So we have to ask the question, just as Jesus was implying – “Why do you even have one of these coins? Don’t you know that it’s pagan money, and by your own interpretation, to even carry such a coin makes you sinful?”
We have to understand that the major difference between a Roman coin and a Jewish coin is that the Roman coin had a man’s picture on it – Caesar’s. The Jewish coin did not contain a person’s likeness – it would have been showing honor to someone other than God.
The trap was being flipped over on top of the Pharisees, but they would never see it coming until it was too late.

But Jesus wasn’t denouncing the Roman coin – he was denouncing the false attitudes, the shallow faith, that was so pronounced in these learned men. Remember that over and over again, Jesus taught that it wasn’t the things that the people ate or had or did that created the lack of faith in their lives – it was the attitudes of their hearts. And the Pharisees had a huge deficit of heart.

And his answer to the crowd seems quite fitting for us at this time of year – “Give to Caesar what is Caesars’s and to God what is God’s.” He never says that the Roman tax is just, he never endorses the use that the tax money will be put to, he never says love the things of Rome. He says that if the government requires something, submit to their authority. In Romans 13, we read that Governmental authority comes, not from the world, but from God. (Read Romans 13:1-2)

As much as the people of Judah wanted to be set free from the heel of Rome, that was never the Lord’s purpose. Jesus wants us to be freed from the condemnation of earth, not from their rules. Give to Caesar AND give to God. It is only when the two stand in direct conflict that we can defy Caesar. As an example, if government tells us that we are to denounce God, to turn away from Christ, then we are to disobey. But where there is no direct opposition to God’s word, such as paying taxes, even if they will be used in a way that dishonors God, pay them. Paying isn’t the sin – it’s the spending that may be.

Does anyone here doubt that Jesus taught hard lessons? Does anyone think that following Jesus takes us down an easy road? If you do, then we need to talk! The people of the first century wanted the Messiah to be authoritative, and, of course, he was. They wanted him to be a man of great power, and he was that, too. They wanted him to be a king, and while he certainly is, they also wanted him to be a warrior, which he is not – at least, not in their understanding of the word. Jesus was about a new and better way, not just more of the same which would benefit them instead of others!
Jesus wants us to obey him. The third item in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20) tells us to teach others to obey the commands of the Lord – not to rewrite them to our own satisfaction. In James 1:5-8 we discover that a divided loyalty – that is to both God and to the world – will bring us nothing but disaster. In Revelation 3:16, the city of Laodicea is condemned because of their divided and insincere loyalties. Straddling the fence of faith will bring us nothing of value, but keeping both feet firmly planted in the Lord’s path will gain us glory.

Jesus is well on his way to Calvary to gain our salvation, but if our heart isn’t in the right place, if we aren’t willing to give him our honor and our faithfulness, then his sacrifice will do us no heavenly good.

Don’t let the Cross of Jesus become a dead end for you. Follow the Lord all the way to Resurrection.