Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar

Jesus in the passage of Mark 12:13-17 says, "Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God." He doesn't advocate a division of time and energies into half: half for the government and society (Caesar), and the rest half for the Kingdom (God). But the Kingdom demands all your energy, and all your time. It will ask everything of you, but it will also give everything to you. And within it, you will be able to give your due to God, and your due to your family, to your society, to the goverment: pay taxes, obey the rules and regulations, etc., unless they are unjust and ungodly (against God).

But some of us may even interpret the words, "Give to Caesar..." as that we should go along with the system and the establishment whatsoever. That is not the case. We've tended to soften Jesus' conflict with the system ever since we became a Church of the establishment, with Emperor Constantine accepting the Christian faith in the year 313. Constantine thought he was doing a favour to Christianity, partially yes. But that can be considered the single most unfortunate event in the history of Christianity. With the Edict of Milan or the Constantinian Revolution, the Church changed dramatically and changed sides dramatically. Up until that time the Church was by and large of the underclass. It had identified itself with the poor, oppressed, those on the margins. The Church itself was still being oppressed and Christians were being thrown to the lions. It was literally underground, in the catacombs. But with Constantine's conversion and promulgation of Christianity as the state religion, we Christians moved from the bottom of the society to the top, and we conveniently forgot Jesus' confrontation with the establishment. We became the establishment. Clear teaching on issues of greed, powerlessness, nonviolence, non-control and simplicity moved to the sidelines, if not actually countermanded.

Jesus was anti-system, anti-establishment especially if it were unjust or self-serving: if it did not serve God. He was friend of sinners, tax collectors, and prostitutes. He even "broke" the Sabbath laws. Jesus intended for us to take the low road, to operate from the minority position, from an inferior position. Because within a system, the daring search for God—the common character of all religion—is replaced with the search for personal certitude and control.

As long as the Church was underground in some sense, as long as we operated from a minority position, we had greater access to the truth, to the gospel, to Jesus. But in our time we have to find our way to disestablish ourselves, to "reach out" to others and go to the fringes of society. We have found ways to appease our conscience: to launch evening schools and some social intervention programmes for the poor. We spend 95% of time and energy for the day schools, and 5% of our time and energy for the night and evening schools. We also serve the poor. We are happy to remain in our comfort zones 95 or 99% of the time. We don't want any truth outside our comfort zones. We want the status quo, and let us "if possible" serve the Kingdom...but it had better be within our schedule and comfort.

Even our language has changed into success and efficiency and achievements. We "do" God's work, in our way: the way we plan... We are in control. We put our talents, our money, use our power, and only then think of God. But being a servant of the Kingdom would mean losing control to God. Allowing God and surrendering to His plans, not our own. The gospel always keeps us as seekers, in a state of longing and thirsting for God. Grace creates a void in us, and only grace can fill this void. The gospel always "kicks" us out of our comfort zones.

[Richard Rohr, with John Bookser Feister, Jesus' Plan for a New World: The Sermon on the Mount (Cincinnati, Ohio: St. Anthony Messenger Press, 1996), 53-54.]