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Repay to Caesar, what is Caesar’s,
and repay to God what is God's.
I want to return to this book that I have broken open
a couple of times over the last several months
called “Learning How to See” by Brian McLaren.
He gives thirteen different biases
with which we are challenged to see clearly,
all beginning with the letter “C”.
It is a little pun on the letter “C” and the word “see!”
The two biases I want to break open today
are “competency bias” and “consciousness bias”.
Competency bias says that
we are incompetent to see how incompetent we are.
We do not know how much we do not know
because we do not know it.
It is straightforward when we think of it.
But we do not realize it
especially when we are in the middle of an argument
that we want to win.
We do not realize how little we really know
but we continue to push and argue from a level of competence
when in fact we are not competent in that area.
Now equally, we could also underestimate our incompetence;
in other words, we could be very competent in a subject.
Generally, that is not as common and
actually it is pretty rare in our society.
The second is consciousness bias.
Consciousness bias is very similar to competency:
we do not realize how much we do not know,
and therefore we are not conscious of how bias
or how limited our knowledge is.
We do not know what we do not know!
An example of this would be a child learning how to add and multiply.
That child has no clue of algebra,
has no clue of geometry?
We would not expect them to know.
There is a consciousness bias, right?
They would never understand that.
Now, those who understand geometry and algebra
can look back and see how little the child knows,
but is the child is not aware of that consciousness?
This also is sometimes called cognitive maturity bias.
We have to grow up, but we do not know we have to grow up.
These two go together in today's gospel readings.
We have one group called the Herodians,
and another group called the Pharisees.
Now they were not together, they did not like each other,
but they came together for a common enemy,
and that common enemy was Jesus.
They ask a question, but not because
they want to increase their knowledge,
not because they want to grow,
but because they want to entrap Jesus.
We can already see where they are setting up their consciousness bias.
They are not really interested in more knowledge;
they just want to reinforce what they know.
This goes back to one of the other biases called confirmation bias,
that they just want to know what they already know.
But in this case, they do not know what they do not know
but they are not being open to it
because they do not acknowledge their bias.
They are trying to trick Jesus into saying something offensive.
Here is the interesting part,
the Herodians were against Caesar
because they support Herod
and did not want to pay taxes to Caesar.
It was a political issue.
But then we have the Pharisees with their religious issue,
who believed to have a coin that claimed Caesar was God
was in itself heretical and against the first commandment.
Both groups were trying to trick Jesus
because no matter how he answered,
he was going to get trapped by one group.
Jesus sees the trap and does not directly answer the questions.
He answers by condemning them in a very subtle way.
We might not notice, but he says, “show me the coin.”
One of them pulls out the coin and shows it to him.
But to have the coin in their hand was a sin.
They were already condemning themselves.
That they had a coin in their pocket or in their purse meant
that they were already abiding by sin.
Jesus traps them.
He does not point that out, but we should recognize that.
Then he says, “Well give to Caesar, what is Caesar’s.
and give to God what is God’s.”
“Whose image is on that coin?” he asks.
The better translation for that would be who is the “icon,”
because it is originally written in Greek;
whose icon is that?
This is the same word “icon” that was written in Genesis.
Those Pharisees would have known this,
they would have heard “whose icon is that”
was the same icon in the book of Genesis where it says:
“Man is made in the image of the father,
male and female are made in the image of God.”
That would have been translated as “icon of God.”
“Whose image is that?”
As Pharisees familiar with scriptures
they would have heard the reference to Genesis creation story.
Then give to God what is God's.
And what is God's? Everything!
Jesus turns the table and double condemns them
saying “Everything is God’s.
Now give it back to God.”
Even this word “repay” is better translated as “render,”
which is to owe oneself completely to God.
You owe it, rendering everything back.
What are we to do with this?
It is a great to understand it,
but how are we meant to live it?
First, we have to understand how biased we really are in our life.
We have to understand how little we know
and to be humble about what we do not know.
Competency Bias and Consciousness Bias.
When we have a certain sense of humility before God,
then we do not get into the sort of the political or religious arguments
that the Herodians or Pharisees do here
because we recognize that God is in charge of all of us.
What we are called to do is
what we hear in the next section of this gospel,
to love one another.
Love becomes a unifying theme over and over again.
This is Jesus's constant message from God;
stop the political, stop the religious divisions
and love one another as I have loved you.
Let me illustrate.
Many of you know I love to hike.
When we are hiking up a mountain
and we get further up the mountain,
we see more and more as we go up the mountain, right?
This illustrates both of these two biases.
Now, when one is at the middle of the mountain
and sees these beautiful views, one thinks,
“Oh my God, this is a beautiful mountain. This is gorgeous.”
Now we could stop there and go back and say,
“Yeah, I saw the mountain.”
But we really did not see all the mountain
until we get to the very top.
And when we get to the very top,
we have a 360-degree view of everything.
At the top we can see everything,
and we would have missed that had we stopped halfway up.
Now you might say there is a lot of work in that last half of the mountain,
a lot harder work than the first half
because it is just steeper and you are right.
That is very much like our discipleship.
We could settle for the first half of our discipleship,
and we see a lot, but we have to acknowledge how biased we are.
We do not see as much as we will when we get to the top,
but it is much harder work on the second half
because you start to really give yourself away.
But that is the purpose of discipleship.
The first half is only starting to whet our appetites to climb higher.
When we start doing the second half of the mountain,
you start to really appreciate how little we really know about life
and how God is everywhere in life.
When we get to the top of the mountain,
we look out and we see the vastness.
We feel our size.
We feel how small we are, and yet how beautiful everything is.
The further we get into our discipleship,
the more we love and sacrifice ourselves for others,
the more we realize how wonderful life is
and how little I play a role in all of it,
how powerful God is in all of it.
How does that affect all of us today?
This means we have to make more work for ourselves
and give ourselves away and not get into these arguments.
Understand how biased we are
and how narrow we see sometimes
whether that be religious or whether that be political
and not get into the arguments because it is not helpful.
What will unify us is love.
Am I loving better today than I did a month ago?
Am I loving better today than I did a year ago?
And if not, then what can I let go of so
I can get further up the mountain,
I can be more giving of myself?
Whether that be more forgiving
or whether that be more giving as in giving myself away.
The challenge that lies before us,
is that everything we have is God's.
So, let's not get caught up in the divisions of religious or political.
May we follow the Lord with all our heart,
with all our might or our strength,
may we love the Lord, our God by loving one another.
That is the real test.
Render to Caesar, what is Caesar’s,
and render to God what is God's.
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