October 22: "Engraved"

THE WORD IN THE GOSPEL  Matthew 22:15-22

The Pharisees met together to find a way to trap Jesus in his words. They sent their disciples, along with the supporters of Herod, to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are genuine and that you teach God’s way as it really is. We know that you are not swayed by people’s opinions, because you don’t show favoritism. So tell us what you think: Does the Law allow people to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”

Knowing their evil motives, Jesus replied, “Why do you test me, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used to pay the tax.” And they brought him a denarion. “Whose image and inscription is this?” he asked.

 “Caesar’s,” they replied.

Then he said, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” When they heard this they were astonished, and they departed.

MESSAGE

According to an old saying, there are only two things that are certain in life. And they are . . .?

Yes, death and taxes. That saying is attributed to Benjamin Franklin, who in 1789 wrote in a letter to a friend, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

Yup, there’s no escaping taxes. And, it seems, there’s no escaping disagreements, arguments, and debates about taxes. In fact, the issue of who should be taxed, and how much they should be taxed, is one of the issues that candidates for public office often base their campaigns on. Candidates hope that promises of tax cuts will translate into votes, and into a winning election.

It’s almost ironic that our country was founded partly because of a disagreement about taxes. One of the issues that pushed the thirteen young British colonies to rally around a call for independence was a dispute over taxes. The rallying cry in the 1760s and 1770s was “No taxation without representation.”

Well, that kind of frustration about taxes was nothing new. Evidently, paying taxes was a touchy issue even for the Jews in first-century Palestine. Palestine was a colony of the Roman Empire, and the Jews were forced to pay taxes that supported the same government and the same armies that occupied their country. So, the Jewish people had very valid objections to paying taxes to Rome.

But paying taxes was a problem for the Jews for another reason: paying taxes to Rome was, in effect, paying tribute to Caesar, which was a violation of Jewish law. In addition, the coins the Jews had to use to pay the taxes were special coins that had the image of the “Divine Emperor” on it. To the Jews – and especially to the Pharisees, the religious leaders – this was an explicit violation of the first and second commandments, which prohibited the Jews from honoring in any way another god. And the Romans very much believed that their Caesar was divine.

But not all Jews were against paying taxes to Rome. In Colonial America, there were loyalists who supported the British government. And in Palestine, there were people called Herodians who supported the Roman government and Herod, who had been named King of the Jews by the Romans. So of course, they supported the idea of paying taxes to Rome.

Now, the Herodians and the Pharisees are at opposite poles of the taxation question, and they have very different opinions about the Romans occupying their land. But there’s one thing they agree on: none of them like Jesus. In fact, both groups want to see Jesus removed from the public sphere, where he has been saying things and doing things that have the potential to stir the people up and provoke them to rebellion against both the religious leaders and the Roman government.

As the saying goes, nothing can bring people together like a common enemy. So the Herodians and the Pharisees join forces one day to try, once and for all, to trap Jesus with a trick question. But before they spring the question, they fawn all over Jesus with hypocritical flattery. They say, “Teacher, we know that you are genuine and that you teach God’s way as it really is. We know that you are not swayed by people’s opinions, because you don’t show favoritism.” The irony here is that even though they were being insincere, they were speaking the truth about Jesus. Jesus was always genuine, always taught God’s true way, and never showed favoritism.

But then, having set the stage, they immediately spring the trick question: “So tell us, Jesus, what you think: Does the Law allow people to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”

They really thought they had Jesus trapped here. Because either way Jesus answered the question, he’d be in trouble. If he said it was lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, then the Pharisees could spread the word that Jesus was a Roman sympathizer who didn’t believe in God’s laws. But, if Jesus said it was not lawful to pay the taxes, then the Herodians could accuse him of treason against Rome, which was punishable by death.

But Jesus surprises them by giving a very clever and compelling answer.

He asks them to give him a coin, and then says, “Whose image is on this coin?” When they say, “Caesar,” Jesus responds, “Then give Caesar what belongs to Caesar and give God what belongs to God.”

Wow. What an answer!

Everyone who heard him must have been astonished, and I’m sure they walked away shaking their heads in wonder.

Although Jesus’ answer was clever, it was also somewhat confusing. What, exactly, did Jesus mean by saying “Give Caesar what belongs to Caesar and give God what belongs to God?”

It’s not clear that anyone has yet figured that out yet. There are a lot of interpretations of Jesus’ answer. Some people point to this passage as proof that God and politics should be kept separate -- that things like taxes have absolutely nothing to do with one’s personal faith or beliefs.

Other people say that this story proves that religion is a matter of the heart, and that Jesus doesn’t really care about mundane things like what you do with your money.

And some people believe this passage offers proof that Jesus taught that the law is the law, and our duty as Christians is to support the government no matter what.

But all three of these interpretations are questionable.

We tend to forget that the Bible is not a how-to manual. Rather, it is a book of faith, actually a collection of books of faith, that reveal how different people at different times and places understood how God was acting in the world and in their lives. So it’s probably not wise to take Jesus’ 2,000-year-old words at face value, and try to make them fit a modern interpretation of the interaction of faith and politics.

We also forget that Jesus was a master of using metaphors and symbols to make points that went beyond the immediate meaning of his words. Jesus used stories and parables that contained images and symbols that pointed to deep and profound truths about God and God’s kingdom.

So there’s no reason to believe that Jesus’ answer here isn’t also metaphorical or symbolic. Jesus was concerned about much more than coins or taxes or even governments. When Jesus took that coin and drew attention to Caesar’s image imprinted on it, Jesus was posing a profound question to the Pharisees, to the Herodians, and to us.

I can just picture Jesus, standing there with the coin in his hand. Maybe he’s casually flipping the coin over in his hands a few times. Then he looks right at his opponents, and says, “Who do you belong to?”

OK, I know Jesus didn’t say that. But he could have.

In other words, behind Jesus’ statement about Caesar and God, Jesus was saying, “Who controls you? To whom to give you authority and power over your life? To whom do you owe ultimate allegiance? Who do you belong to?”

Jesus is admitting here that we live in a world of divided loyalties. We can’t escape the fact that there are multiple powers that try to claim us, that try to force their image on us, and that demand our full loyalty.

Jesus turns a question about taxes into a question of worship, a question of what we give to Caesar (the state, the governing authorities) and what we give to God. Governments are necessary, taxes may well be necessary, and every nation has a Caesar of sorts to contend with. So, yes, give to that Caesar whatever is due. But, don't mess around with the things that belong to God.

And what belongs to God? Well, we could rightfully say, everything. But here, Jesus is talking about something very specific. He’s talking about that which clearly and distinctly bears God’s image, and it’s not a coin. It’s us. We bear God’s image. We belong to God.

Or at least we belong to God in God’s eyes. But not always in our own.

Sometimes it seems like we belong to some kind of Caesar – some political, legal, or idealistic power that fights for our attention and our loyalty.

Or, sometimes it feels like our job owns us and demands everything we have to give.

Or, as strange as it sounds, sometimes our families or friends own us and demand our absolute loyalty no matter what, even if it’s against our better judgment or not in our best interest.

Or maybe it’s our possessions that own us, forcing us to give, give, give to the gods of materialism until we have nothing left for ourselves or for anything else, even God.

But Jesus reminds us that, ultimately, it is God who owns us. It’s God’s image that is inscribed in us. It is God to whom we belong.

Sometimes, the image of God can be hard to recognize in ourselves or in other people. Because sometimes all those competing loyalties do a good job of inscribing their own unique mark or image on us.

But underneath all those inscriptions is a much deeper, indelible, and life-transforming mark: the image of our loving God. There can be no doubt, then, what Jesus means in this passage: Give yourselves to God because it is to God that you belong.

And belonging to God means that God will never leave us or reject us. Friends, family, the powers of this world can and do reject us and hurt us and abandon us. But God never abandons God’s own.

In Jesus’ day, Caesar cared about the well-being of the Jewish people who were living under his rule only insofar as they supported his government, only as long as they didn’t pose any threat to his power or authority, only as long as they showed him the proper amount of loyalty, only as long as they gave him what he felt he was owed.

But God’s care for us is unconditional and unending.

The Caesars of this world may do their best to try to stamp us with their image, but the image of God that we all carry within us means that we don’t have to let ourselves be claimed by any other god or any other power.

So go ahead – pay your taxes, care for your friends and family, do well at your job, enjoy your possessions, but don’t let those things claim you. Don’t let them engrave their image on you.

Because you are already engraved – deeply and permanently – with the image of God.

What is God’s?

You are. Amen.