Paying the rent
Luke 19:28 – 21:4
There are a lot of good things about reading through the Bible in larger sections than we usually do with our verse-by-verse study and preaching. One of those good things is that at times we see stories in relation to each other that we usually see in isolation, and the context can add richness.
In 20:9-19 we read the parable of the evil tenants who try to take their landlord’s vineyard by killing his son. That is immediately followed by the challenge to Jesus about paying taxes, in which he says, “give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
Both of these stories are about paying what is owed.
It’s easy to see that in the story of the tenants: they have rented a vineyard, so they owe the owner whatever rent was agreed upon. Nothing in the story suggests the rent was unreasonable or unfair or that there were special circumstances like a drought that made them unable to pay…they just didn’t want to meet their obligation.
In the question of paying taxes to Caesar, there is more emotion to the question. The Jewish people did not believe their country should be governed by a foreign power, so paying taxes came with a cost to their pride as well as a financial cost.
We are all familiar with the expression that nothing is certain but death and taxes—it’s interesting that Jesus came to save us from the grip of death but even he seems resigned to taxation.
Notice that both in the payment of rent and in the payment of taxes there is more going on than just payment for services. In paying rent, the renter not only pays for use of the property, but also acknowledges the rights of the owner. Likewise, in paying taxes we don’t just pay for the things we get from it, we also acknowledge the sovereignty of the government that collects taxes.
That is the point of the second half of Jesus’s statement: “give back…to God what is God’s.”
The image of Caesar may be on the coin used to pay taxes, but the image of God is imprinted on our very being from the time we were created in his image. We give of our property to God to acknowledge what he has provided, but also to acknowledge his sovereignty; he is God and that very fact puts us in his debt.