Give to God what is God’s…but what is God’s? Today’s sermon is on bearing God’s image and remembering who and whose you are.

Here’s the sermon for October 18, 2020, on Matthew 22:15-22. Some sources I found helpful this week are

Libbie Reinking’s October 16, 2020, GodPause devotional, Rolf Jacobsen’s Dear Working Preacher column, this commentary from Raj Nadella, and Will Willimon’s discussion of this text in Will Willimon’s Lectionary Sermon Resource, Year A, Part 2.

 

 

 

Grace to you and peace from the One who was, who is, and who is to come, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Looking at this gospel story, I’ve thought of two directions to go with this sermon. One option is short and simple, about one sentence.

Here it is: Pay your taxes to the government, and also give a tithe to your church.

That’s the most straightforward version of the sermon. Oh, and also, don’t test Jesus in a battle of wits – he always wins.

Or, we could go with the second option, and go a bit deeper into this story. And I think you’ll feel cheated if the sermon lasts only 30 seconds, so we’re going with that option. There’s actually quite a bit going on in these seven verses.

To start, notice who’s questioning Jesus, and why. The first people mentioned are the Pharisees, who are the religious purists, the group who are focused on following God’s law correctly. And they hate that God’s chosen nation of Israel is now part of the Roman Empire.

The Herodians, on the other hand, are a group of people who support King Herod, the Jewish puppet king who relies on the Romans for his authority. They’re still Jewish, still citizens of Israel, and maybe they don’t like the Romans very much either, but they need the Romans on their side. They don’t want to do anything to offend Rome or defy Caesar. The best strategy is to cooperate and make the best of it.

Both of these groups are opposed to Jesus, because he doesn’t acknowledge their power. He doesn’t play by their rules.

So they go to him intending to entrap him, to trick him with a gotcha question. It’s important to the story to realize this is a political tactic, not an actual question. Their goal is to get Jesus in trouble.

We see this kind of question constantly in this election season, right? Answer one way, and you risk offending your base, but answer the other way, and moderate swing voters might think you’re too radical. Except Jesus isn’t asked if he’ll pack the courts, or denounce a particular group; he’s asked about whether it’s lawful to pay taxes to the emperor.

There is no good answer. Obviously, according to the Romans, paying your tax to the emperor is not optional. If Jesus says no, don’t pay the tax, the Herodians will go running to the Romans, who will arrest him for sedition and rebellion.

But if Jesus says yes, you should pay your taxes, then the Pharisees will jump on him and spread the word around Jerusalem that Jesus is a collaborator, a supporter of the pagan Romans.

And actually, it’s even worse. The first commandment God gives the Jews is to have no other gods besides the Lord. Don’t worship anyone but God, which includes not making any graven images or idols, and what’s right there on the Roman coins? A picture of Caesar.

Every time the Jewish people have to use Roman money, it just grates at them, especially the Pharisees. It’s a reminder that they’re a subjugated, conquered people, but also it’s a religious violation.

Dr. Rolf Jacobsen explains, “On the ‘heads side’ of the coin was a portrait of the Emperor Tiberius along with the inscription, ‘Tiberius Caesar Augustus, son of the divine Augustus.’ So, literally, ‘King Tiberius, son of God.’ On the “tails side” of the coin was the image of a woman depicting peace with the words ‘high priest’—referring to the emperor as the high priest of the empire.”

Our money says “In God we trust” and of course, you can debate whether that’s true or not or whether it belongs on money, but at least our dollar bills don’t say George Washington is the Son of God!

It’s a great trap question, because whatever Jesus says, he’ll get in trouble. And then he finds a way out of it. “Show me the coin used for the tax” he asks, and notice who’s actually carrying around this piece of Roman propaganda.
Jesus has no coins, but someone in the group challenging him does – there’s a little hypocrisy right there, right?

Jesus points at the coin and says, “Ok, who’s head is stamped on here? Whose image is on this piece of metal?”

Well, the emperor’s. It’s an imperial coin.

And Jesus speaks that great line, “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” So yes, pay your taxes to the emperor. Give the emperor what belongs to him.




But what things belong to God? This is where this story gets interesting for us today. We have the same understanding that Jesus and the Pharisees and the Herodians all shared. It’s in the first verse of Psalm 24. “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it.” As we’ll say in a few minutes in the offering prayer, we offer what God has “first given us—our selves, our time, and our possessions.”

If you saw my video on Friday about the first article of the Apostle’s Creed, I talked about this: The most basic thing we believe about God is God is the Creator, which means we are part of the creation. And the whole creation belongs to the Creator.

If we’re going to give to God what is God’s, that means everything, our money, our time, our possessions, our choices, our hopes and dreams, our fears and sorrows, our very lives – it’s all God’s.

But there’s something even deeper here. Caesar’s stamp on the coin means Caesar owns that coin. It bears his image. Jesus accepts that premise. Caesar can have that piece of metal. But by talking about something bearing an image, Jesus brings up an important little detail from the creation story in Genesis 1. Humankind is made in God’s image.

All of the people listening—the Pharisees, the Herodians, the disciples, any Roman soldiers hanging around eavesdropping—each of them bears the image of their Creator. The fancy Latin term for it is “Imago Dei” – Image of God. You are stamped with the image of God.

God’s claim on you supersedes any other claim of membership in a club, or citizenship in a nation, or party affiliation, or any other label you or anyone else puts on. And not only do you belong to God, you belong to the people of God, the body of Christ. Not only are you claimed because you’re made in the image of God, you have been baptized into the church. You’ve been drowned in the waters of baptism and given new life as a child of God, a citizen of heaven.

Give to God the things that are God’s. This week, I challenge you to consider what it means to belong to God. Maybe it looks like doing some civic duty (even paying taxes). It means showing up in this world to be God’s hands and feet.

Maybe it means pausing from all the other rulers and tasks and everything else claiming a right to control your life and instead, spending some time with your Creator.

It also means, as theologian Miroslav Volf points out, not giving to the emperor the things that belong to God.

The government has a claim on your taxes. That’s easier to say of course when we have a government by and for the people, but it applies to other governments too. Caesar’s government was certainly not a democracy.

But no government gets to claim on your ultimate allegiance. God the creator gets our loyalty, not a nation or any other human institution. At the end of the day, our trust is in the God whose image we bear, the one who holds us in life and in death.

This week and always, may you know you bear the image of your Creator who loves you. May you live out your true identity as a beloved child of God. And may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your heart and mind in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen



Give to God What Is God’s – Sermon for October 18, 2020
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