Scripture: I Thessalonians 1:1-10; Matthew 22:15-22

"Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s."

-- Matthew 22:21

It appears that our administration is heeding the strong opposition to invading Iraq and that there is an outside chance that we will modify our “in-your-face” foreign policy. Nevertheless, it is still important for us Christians to understand our tradition with respect to war making, the tradition that has rather quaintly been called the teaching of the “Just War.” One easily gets the impression that Christians are necessarily pacifists and that since war is always a sin it should never be waged. Most of us, however, believe that war is inevitable, a necessary sin if you please, in this tragic world, where goodness appears not only under the sign of Resurrection life but also under the sign of the death of God on the Cross. There are historic pacifist groups like the Mennonites and the Quakers, and we thank God for their witness, but the great church believes that war can be justified under certain circumstances. These circumstances are the substance of the theory of the Just War.

Our text for today guides us in the matter of our duty to the state. It is commonly accepted that the offering of our blood and treasure for its defense and support is central to that duty.  We must pay taxes, obey just laws and be prepared to give our lives, and that’s a pretty complete claim. Nevertheless, Jesus teaches that there is something that cannot be claimed by the state, the part of us that belongs to God. It is important to know what that is and to deny it to the state.

Many of us are deeply ambivalent about the state and subscribe to that old American sentiment that the least government is the best government, but although I share that view it is not the reason why for instance I oppose the display of the flag in and on churches. My additional and more important reason is that the church belongs to God and not to Caesar and as a matter of course must stand apart from and criticize Caesar. I have been only partly successful here because flags appear without any consultation with the pastor, and I fear being called unpatriotic were I to press the request that we observe the covenant of separation between the things of God and the things of Caesar and not display the flag at the church. There are things that belong to God, and not to Caesar, and Jesus tells us to give them to their rightful owner. We can never forget that it was the state that murdered God, or that in places in the NT the state appears under the symbol of a wild beast, because it is killing the followers of Jesus.

The exchange between Jesus and his opponents on this matter in our text is full of dialectical trickery. The opponents want to trick him into making a politically dangerous statement, perhaps that true Jews should not pay pagan taxes, and thus bring him into jeopardy with the Roman administration. He answers their question with a question, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” and uses their inevitable answer to deflect the issue into vagueness. What does it mean to give God what belongs to him? The key is in the image on the coin; the coin bears the image of Caesar, we bear the image of God. So all our life belongs to God, and Caesar is entitled to his money.  That puts money, Caesar, and the claims of the state in their place and it is clearly a secondary place in the order of priorities. Therefore, we must withhold our conscience, our honor, and our true selves from the power of the state. The state has no right to our conscience, that belongs to God and it is our conscientious duty to God to speak truth to power, refuse to be intimidated, and follow our Lord if we must, to be crushed under the Satanic power of the state.

I need not remind you that it was totalitarian states, that is, states that controlled the totality of their victims’ lives and for the most part severely curbed and compromised the church, that wrought all of the bloody havoc of the 20^th century; and many of us were eye-witnesses of that abuse of power. Power corrupts and so against all human power, - and what human power can compare with that of the militarily mighty state? - we place the implacable demand of God, represented by an implacably faithful church, that will never flinch from pointing out when the emperor is wearing no clothes, or crying out when the policies of the state are unjust, unwise and imprudent. For these and other reasons the church seeks to curb the war making actions of the state and to keep them within bounds. 

War must be justified or it is mass murder. The NT is pacifist; listen to the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus said: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, ‘Do not resist one who is evil. But if anyone strikes you on one cheek turn to him the other also; and if anyone would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go with him one mile, go with him two miles’…” (Matt. 5:38-41). Jesus also commands us to love our enemies, bless those who curse us and pray for those who misuse us (Matt. 5:43-48). This teaching clearly excludes the widespread natural justification of self-defense. Jesus tells us not to defend ourselves and for the first three centuries of the church’s life we Christians did not defend ourselves but rather died as martyrs to state power, when, for instance, it tried to force us to worship Caesar in the patriotic cult of the ruler.  Neither would we serve in Caesar’s legions, because we would not kill human beings to serve Caesar’s policies or ambitions. If we would not kill to defend ourselves why should we kill to defend Caesar?

Then the unthinkable happened: In 313 AD a Christian became Caesar and the empire converted en masse to Christ. You can be a pacifist in private but you cannot rule without the use of force, and so the theologians developed a rationale by which the Christian Caesar might accommodate the teaching of Jesus against war to the needs of imperial defense.

The basis of the rationale is that although you may choose out of fidelity to Christ not to defend yourself you cannot choose not to defend your neighbor if you have the means to do so. The law of love to the neighbor, the law of Christ we recite every Sunday, - “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” - takes precedence over the law of the other cheek. And so for the sake of Christ we are sometimes forced to act against one of his precepts in order to obey another. All this takes place, however, under the purview of the law of love, which in this case holds that God loves both the victim and the aggressor equally, and so our intervention must be a loving intervention for both parties. Indeed, Jesus commands us especially to pray for, bless and do good to the enemy. Out of this arises the specific terms of the theory, which I shall only summarize here.

Before a state goes to war it must fulfill certain criteria, which in summary are that it must be legitimately constituted and so entitled to take this action, (that is, no vigilantism, no private vendettas) and that there is no reasonable alternative, all conceivable peaceful means having been exhausted. Thus there is a clear and present danger that cannot be averted in any other way (the criterion of self-defense). Once the war has started we must adhere to a discipline of minimum necessary force and avoidance of civilian casualties as far as possible. We must hold the lives of the aggressors as precious as the lives of the defenders, and as precious as our own lives, and so we cannot, for instance, commit reckless slaughter of a defenseless enemy. (This was a major issue in the days of mutually assured destruction in the nuclear standoff with the late Soviet Union).

I shall stop there. We are in God’s image and so belong to God entirely. Money bears Caesar’s image and so belongs to him, along with the necessary this-worldly power it symbolizes and that Caesar must use justly and prudently to protect and serve us. When Caesar misuses that power he must be criticized and when he demands that we offer our lives or the lives of our children to him, those demands must be most stringently checked against God’s claim on us, which takes absolute precedence over Caesar’s. When Caesar commands us to go to war we must obey only if the circumstances of the war accord with the justice of God. If they do not we hazard not only our lives in this world but our eternal lives, that is, we stand in danger of hell. “My country, right or wrong,” is the password at the gates of hell.

So be conscientious and courageous and do not give Caesar one iota of what belongs to God, your conscience, your real self, God’s image in which you are made.

Amen.