Matthew 22:19-20 - "Show me the coin for paying the tax." They brought him a denarius. He said, "Whose image is this and whose inscription?"
I took a hiatus after hurting my finger just before Easter. When we last saw them, Jesus and the disciples of the Pharisees and Herodians were in the temple. The disciples had just interrupted Jesus' teaching to ask him about the legality (according to the Torah) of paying taxes to Caesar. His response is to ask to see the coin used to pay this tax. They bring him a denarius with Caesar's head and inscription on it. He wins the argument right here, because only temple coins are allowed in the temple. Everyone knows now that the disciples themselves are okay with breaking the law.
In other words, they are just like you and me. We have all broken minor laws, and some of us have broken major laws. Many of us even go as far as the disciples here and criticize others for breaking the law, even as we, or they are breaking it. A case in point here is the Republican and White Evangelical Christian use of abortion to claim the moral high ground. Recently we've been hearing men (it's almost always men) calling for the hanging of women who get an abortion.
These evangelicals and Republicans defy science to claim that personhood begins at conception rather than when all the parts are assembled and working. Not exactly sure what science says, but it's not at conception, because a high rate of pregnancies end in miscarriages naturally; sometimes when the mother is unaware she's pregnant. Anyway, they'd love to punish women for these miscarriages - adding agony to their anguish. Yet, when 1,400 embryos being stored here at University Hospitals in Cleveland were accidentally thawed, we heard nary a peep from them.
If they were consistent, they would have called for manslaughter charges and tried to hold 1,400 funerals, because these were people, right? They do not believe their own rhetoric, so why should we? There were no calls for charges, because they are using this rhetoric to keep women where they think women should be, at home having babies. That's what's behind all the pearl clutching and moaning about abortion.
Want further proof? They refuse to enact policies such as comprehensive sex education or birth control availability for all, which have been shown to reduce the need for abortions. Instead, they champion abstinence only, keeping their heads buried in the sand to the fact that people are going to have sex whether they should or not. Teaching abstinence only guarantees your teens will not talk with you about sex; it cuts off honest conversation.
No, they prefer to punish women by slut shaming them. Ever notice how they conveniently ignore the fact that women don't get pregnant by masturbating? It takes two, and they conveniently ignore the father. Boys will be boys, you know. Their abortion rhetoric is used to punish and shame women and to try to control us. That's their goal; to keep women in their place. Heaven forbid we should treat them as human beings.
These Republicans and evangelicals, like the disciples in our story, have forgotten the difference between legal and ethical. They are all about keeping "those people" in line by emphasizing the power of the law over love, compassion, and empathy. They do not care why you broke the law, only that you did.
To follow Jesus means to have empathy, love, and compassion for all our neighbors, and that love requires that we try to understand them rather than judge them. Republican leaders and evangelicals see such love as weakness. Let's show them how wrong they are by loving them, even as we push back against their horrific rhetoric and policies. Let's show them the power of love to bring true peace.
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