The Third Way: A Holy Week Meditation For Fig Tuesday
Later they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus to catch him in his words. They came to him and said, “Teacher, we know that you are a man of integrity. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn’t we?” But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. “Why are you trying to trap me?” he asked. “Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” They brought the coin, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. Then Jesus said to them, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” And they were amazed at him.
Tuesday was a full day. A day of confrontation, wonder, and growing tension between Jesus and the religious establishment. Staying with Mary and Martha in Bethany, Jesus must have arisen early to walk the two miles back into Jerusalem once again, spending most of the day teaching in the Temple. He’s returning to the scene of yesterday’s crime, and the powers that be are on notice. In fact, they spent the better part of the day trying to lure Jesus into a political and theological trap. “Should we pay taxes to Caesar or not?” “Which commandment is the first of all?” “By what authority are you doing these things?” Their questions are reminiscent of a story from earlier in His ministry when the Scribes and Pharisees bring to Jesus a woman caught in the act of adultery: Do we stone her or let her go? Their dualism is showing.
But they aren’t unique. Every form of religious fundamentalism plays this same zero-sum game, and once you begin the deconstruction process, it’s pretty easy to spot. Trapped by legalism, absolutism, and polarized thinking, the self-righteous both then and now are as certain about their own righteousness as they are convinced about your sin. Conditioned by purity culture to practice spiritual rigidity, they focus on external boundary markers and spiritual litmus tests to determine who is deserving and who is not. Even today among many conservative Christians, there is an almost fetish-like thrill in their disapproval of anyone who falls outside social, sexual, and spiritual lines of demarcation. “We habitually erect a barrier called blame that keeps us from the ‘other,’ and we fortify it with our concepts of who’s right and who’s wrong,” writes author Pema Chodron. It’s a form of spiritual scapegoating, and it goes something like this: “We compare, we compete, we conflict, we conspire, we condemn, and we crucify,” warns Father Richard Rohr.
But Jesus won’t play along, because He can’t. Instead of judgment, He gives mercy. Instead of neatly dividing the world into good and bad, straight and gay, black and white, sinner and saint, He offers a third way. Notice how many times throughout His ministry Jesus refuses to choose between false dichotomies. Even His retort to “give unto to Caesar what is Caesar’s” is a clever way of changing the conversation. After all, what really belongs to Caesar in the first place?
In large part, our own spiritual maturity consists of doing likewise. Following the third way of Jesus means compassion is paramount to purity, and people trump the soundest of doctrines.
