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Matthew 22: 15–22
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May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable
in thy sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
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I believe it was Benjamin Franklin who first said, “In this world
nothing . . . is certain except death
and taxes.” He was writing to a friend in 1789, six years after
the Revolutionary War – a war that was fought over taxation without
representation. And evidently, with that war still fresh in his mind,
he was aware how deadly serious the matter of taxation could be.
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Certainly, it was a serious matter for Jews in first century Palestine.
They paid all kinds of taxes – temple taxes, land taxes and customs
taxes, to name just a few. But far and away, the most galling tax they
paid was an Imperial tax they paid in tribute to Rome – to support
the Roman occupation of Israel. You heard that right; they were
actually forced to pay for their own oppression. To make matters even
worse, they were to pay this tax with a Roman coin called a denarius.
And every silver denarius was engraved not only with an image of the
emperor; it also proclaimed his divinity. The Jews were being forced,
you see, to traffic in the alleged divinity of the emperor, thus breaking
the First Commandment that said Jews were to have no other God but
Yahweh himself — and the Second Commandment too – which said
they were to make for themselves no graven images. Even to handle such a
coin was something of a blasphemous act for them. So this particular tax
caused righteous Jews no end of distress.
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But just as the American colonies had loyalists who supported the British
government and patriots who opposed it, first century Palestine had
Herodians who supported the Roman
government . . . and Pharisees who
opposed it. The Herodians were supporters of Herod Antipas, who had
been named King of the Jews by Rome. The Pharisees, on the other hand,
were loyal to God alone, anticipating his coming Messiah.
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In other words, on most days these two groups were diametrically opposed,
one to the other. But on this day in Jerusalem they united in their
desire to trap this young rabbi, who had just entered Jerusalem in a
triumphal procession – and had been stirring up trouble at the
Temple ever since. So together, they had devised a cunning plot to trap
him into saying something damaging.
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The Pharisees opened the trap with flattery. “Rabbi, we know that
you teach God’s way with integrity and you won’t pander to
popular opinion.”
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And then they fall silent, smiling, because now they’re sure
they’ve got him. If Jesus says, “Yes, pay thar tax.
Don’t risk opposing the power of Rome”, he will be alienating
the Pharisees, who already think that dealing with the Romans is proof
of unrighteousness. But if Jesus says, “No, don’t pay that
tax! That coin has Tiberius Caesar’s idolatrous image on
it!” he will risk being accused of sedition. And everyone
knew how Imperial Rome dealt with rebellion.
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But Jesus, understanding their cunning and knowing their malice, refuses
to fall into the trap. Instead, he turns the tables on them and traps
them in their own devices. “Whose image is on the coin?”
he asks them. Someone pulls one of the silver Roman coins from his
pocket, revealing his own complicity with the Roman system.
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“It’s the Emperor’s face,” they answer.
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“So,” Jesus replies. “Give to the Emperor the things
that are the Emperor’s. And give to God the things that are
God’s.”
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He doesn’t have to say another word. In one stroke, he has
transformed their political question, their malicious question, into a
deeper one, a question about worship. And now he is posing that
question back to them. In effect, he is asking, “In whose image
are you stamped? Who – or what — is the object of
your highest devotion?”
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He knows they know the answer to that one. And so do we. The very first
chapter of the book of Genesis tells us that God made us in his image,
after his own likeness. So every last one of us has God’s image
stamped on us. Certainly, our coins belong to Caesar, and we can give
them back to him. But we belong to God. We owe him thanks and praise for
our very existence. Then the deeper question becomes, “Do you
recognize God’s stamp on you, God’s claim on your
life? And if not, whom or what do you worship?”
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We are called, you see, to a higher fidelity than we’ve imagined,
a higher fidelity to God and the ways of his Kingdom. And that sounds
simple, until you try to discern, day in and day out, hour by hour, what
belongs to God and what belongs to this world. What about my time?
If I pray in the morning to God, can I spend the rest of the day as I
please? Or what about the gifts God has given to me? Where am I
spending them? And then there’s my neighbor. Do I, as a
Christian, have an obligation to my neighbor? And if I do, what is
it that God is asking of me? There are, you see, no easy answers
once I realize that I am made in the image of God and need to honor that
image every day.
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Maybe that is why I like coming to church, to this particular church
especially. And can hardly wait to have full fellowship with everyone
in this church again. Here, you see, in the company of other Christians
who are wrangling with the very same questions, I begin to see things
differently. I begin to see things in a different light. Maybe
that’s why we have stained glass windows. We come here with our
own fairly colorless view of things and suddenly see things in
God’s light.¹ And that changes everything. That puts everything
into sharper focus. Then we see what things are really worth. Then we
see how much certain things cost. And by that light, by that grace, we
begin to find our way home.
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Amen
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¹ Will Willimon Lectionary Sermon Resource, Year A, Part 2
(Abingdon Press, Nashville, 2019) p. 227.
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