Full service here.
Pentecost 20A
October 18, 2020
Matthew 22:15-22
INTRODUCTION
Religion and politics. The two things you should never talk about in polite company, right? And certainly not together! Yet today the lectionary brings these two together in an undeniable way. In the Isaiah text, the prophet announces that God is using a Gentile, the Persian king Cyrus, to bring about God’s purpose of bringing the Israelites back from exile. It’s a story by which we see how God can use even an unfaithful ruler to bring about God’s plan.
Then in Matthew, some Jewish leaders try to trick Jesus again with a question about taxation, and whether taxes should be paid to the emperor, the king. It doesn’t get much more political than that! As usual, Jesus is not caught in their trap. But the exchange brings to mind how it is that we are called to live as both people of faith, and people who are a part of a political society.
As you listen today, consider how your identity as a citizen and your identity as a Christian complement or enhance each other – or how they don’t – and what scripture might be saying about how to balance these dual identities. Let’s listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
The Pharisees and the Herodians were not friends. The Herodians were followers of Herod, collaborators with the oppressive Roman government. And the Pharisees were the very religious Jewish leaders, who were being oppressed by said government. They didn’t agree on much, but one thing they could agree on was that Jesus was trouble, and so they work together to devise this trap for him, first flattering him and his teachings, and then asking him if it is lawful to pay taxes to the emperor. It’s a good trap: if he says no, they shouldn’t pay taxes, then the Herodians will brand him a revolutionary, and get him for breaking the law and rising up against the Roman government. On the other hand, if he says yes to paying taxes, he will be a traitor to the Jewish people who are being oppressed by this very tax. Either way, Jesus is toast.
Except, Jesus is too clever for their trap. First, he calls them out, tells them he knows what they are trying to do. “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites?” Then he tells them to take out a coin – and in doing so, he spins the situation against the accusers. When they present the coin, he asks, “Whose face is on it?” It is Caesar’s – and in admitting that, the Pharisees are caught red-handed. There, on the heads side of the coin is indeed the head of Emperor Tiberius with the words, “Tiberius Caesar Augustus, son of the divine Augustus.” In other words, “King Tiberius, son of a god.” Merely by having the coin in their possession, they have broken the first commandment to have no other gods, and the bit about graven images, and pledged allegiance to something and someone other than God. In the context, this “gotcha” moment would have been clear to all involved.
Still, Jesus goes on to explain. Caesar’s face is on there, he says, so it’s his. “Give back to the emperor what is the emperor’s,” he says. His response is so contemporary – though of course we no longer have an emperor, our 21st century minds substitute for that our own government and tax system, in which the law requires we give money to the government, to our own sort of “Caesar.” We need not get into a conversation about tax policy here and now – I think it is clear enough that the mere reality of putting a significant portion of our income toward taxes, and our agreement or disagreement about who pays that, how much money it is, and how it is used, strikes enough of a nerve to still get the point across today.
In fact, the issue of paying taxes hits so close to home, that sometimes we miss the real climax of this passage, which comes in Jesus’ next words: “and [give back] to God what is God’s.” The concept of giving back to Caesar may be controversial, but it is at least fairly clear-cut, but this statement about God leaves room for question. What is God’s, exactly, that we should give it back?
You may immediately think, “Well everything belongs to God!” and you would be right, but Jesus’ words are even more specific than that. The clue is actually back in the first part of Jesus’ statement, as he explains what should go back to Caesar and why. The currency used to pay the emperor his tax is a coin, specifically a coin with the emperor’s head engraved on it. So, when Jesus has them pull out one of the coins and asks, “Whose image is on this coin, and whose likeness?” it is very obvious to whom that coin belongs, to whom it should be returned.
So, if a coin is the currency by which we give back to the emperor, what is the currency by which we give back to God? If we are to follow the same logic, it is that which bears the image and likeness of God. What could that be?
“Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness. … So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God, he created them.” It’s right there in the book of Genesis: we are the currency, you see, by which we give back to God. We are – our hearts, our minds, our strength, our souls, all that is in us, all that God first gave to us – we are the means by which we give back to God. From our very creation we have borne the image of God in our very being. In our baptism we were marked again with this image when a cross was traced on our foreheads with the words, “You have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.” God is our being. Christ is engraved upon us. When we give to God, we give all of us – our selves, our time, and our possessions.
We’ll be talking more about giving our possessions and time in a couple weeks when we begin our stewardship campaign. Watch in the mail and email for info on that at the end of the month. But today let’s spend a bit of time exploring that first part – giving our selves, our made-in-God’s-image, marked-with-the-cross-of-Christ selves. How do we give ourselves?
One thing that is likely on all of our minds right now is the upcoming election, and our political life right now. It’s pretty clear in this text that a life of faith and civic life exist side by side, or may even be intertwined. And if we are image-bearers of our Creator everywhere we go, then our spiritual lives and our civic lives must cohere – that includes when we vote in an election, when we discuss political views, when we donate to a campaign, or a cause, like The Children’s Agenda. For a God-image-bearer, it is necessary always to ask ourselves, “Does this action I’m taking as a citizen also reflect the God whose image I bear?” Does it show selfless love? Does it lift up the most vulnerable, and the broken-hearted? Does it break down walls and build tables, where enemies may gather to break bread together, and have humble, loving conversation?
Today is a part of Children’s Interfaith Weekend, organized by The Children’s Agenda. It is the Sunday each year when faith communities in our area commit to writing letters on behalf of vulnerable children, and donate money and goods. Advocacy for children, in this case writing letters urging the governor to include funding in the budget for early intervention for kids with developmental delays and disabilities, is the perfect example of how our faith and our citizenship coincide. We are driven by our faith to speak up on behalf of the vulnerable in our community, just as Jesus did. (Jen will talk more about this during Moments for Mission!)
Another area of public life where we are called to be God’s image-bearers is in our daily discourse. In this divisive context, with such high stakes, I think many of us have grown quicker to judge, to label, and to discount someone else’s perspective, or even the actual person who doesn’t believe or support the right people or causes. But if we are bearers of the image of God, giving to God what belongs to him, how does that change our discourse? For starters, it requires us to listen to one another with genuine curiosity and compassion, something we just don’t see much of these days. It means offering grace and generosity to one another, something Jesus has done for us though we certainly have not deserved it.
That’s pretty tough these days! Paying taxes seems like the easy part, huh? The work of living out our political convictions with a Christlike humility, with compassion for our political others, is much more difficult. If we belong to God, and are indeed always striving to give God back what is rightfully God’s, then we must practice our faith and even our politics in ways that reflect who God is – regardless of whether we like or agree with our political leaders. To commit to doing this is not being dishonest or backing down from our deeply held beliefs. It is a matter of remembering the traits of the God whose image we bear.
As surely as Caesar’s image is stamped and engraved on a denarius, the image of God has been stamped upon us, upon our hearts, upon our lives. That image is of a God who is endlessly loving, merciful and compassionate. As Christ gave everything for us, so that we would have life, may we who bear that image bear it also to the world, in what we say, do, how we vote, and how we treat one another, and in so doing, may we bring life and light into the world.
Let us pray… Lord of all, you have created us in your image and marked us with the cross of Christ. Help us to live out this image in the church and in the world, guiding each of our decisions and actions toward your praise. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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