Whose Coin Is It? 10-22-23
Whose Coin Is It?
1 Thess 1:1-10; Mt 22:15-22
1 Thess 1:1-10
Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace. We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of persons we proved to be among you for your sake. And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it. For the people of those regions report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming.
Mt 22:15-22
Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.
Prayer – God of Life – we are called to serve you, most frequently and faithfully by serving your people, our sisters and brothers. We know your intentions for us. Give us the courage to align our lives with your desires, to live before the world in such a way that the world might see your love and sovereignty reflected in us. May we in your church be a living, earthly sign of your heavenly rule and an example to all of what you can do among ordinary people to bring a new heaven and new earth – amen.
I suppose Matthew should have started this particular passage with a word of warning – a word like, “It’s a trap.” Which is also a famous line from the 3rd Star Wars movie. To be honest there all kinds of traps in our world, North Carolina played a ‘trap game’ against UVA yesterday, that’s a team North Carolina should have easily handled before a series of big games against rivals. You walk up to the cash register of any store to find all kinds of snacks, gadgets, miscellaneous items meant to entice you as you wait in line. And in our gospel text this morning the Pharisees and Herodians, the church and the civil authorities are baiting a trap for Jesus with a trick question seeking to trip him up in a controversy that may bring down the wrath of the Roman authorities as well as get him in trouble with the community at large.
The question before Jesus, and perhaps us today, “Jesus, ought we pay taxes to Caesar?” And I suppose it is important to note that Jesus walked around Palestine with empty pockets, not a dime to be found on his person. The tax they were referring to is a Poll tax and was very unpopular with his Jewish community at the time. The tax was highly unpopular and not just for obvious reasons – for many religious people at Jesus’ time, possessing and using a Roman coin with the image of Caesar on one side and the blasphemous statement on the other proclaiming Caesar and the divine and most high priest went against God’s law related to graven images and idolatry. For everyday Jews, the tax was a constant reminder that they were a subject people, oppressed from the time they woke up in the morning until they went to be at night. Whose coin is it?
Jesus’ response, “Whose picture is on the coin?” Jesus takes this potentially challenging trap question and turns the question into perhaps a more important question, the question of what we give to Caesar and what we give to God. Jesus doesn’t make a definitive statement that traps himself on what exactly belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God. He leaves it up to them, and to us today, to live in the tension when it comes to what they give to God and how much allegiance they give to the civil authorities. The emphasis here is on the allegiance that God deserves because of who God is. So the question remains, whose coin is it?
Jesus’ response sets a cosmic reality before his entrappers and his disciples. Give to Caesar what is his, and then the kicker, and also give to God the things that are God’s. That addition changes everything, it blows the trap question right out of the water. It puts the emperor firmly in his place in a much broader universe that is ruled by the Most High God. It proclaims God’s reign over everything and everyone. It takes a trap or trick question and meant ultimately to entrap Jesus and he kills it and opens it up into a life-giving instruction about relationship between us and our Creator.
Jesus acknowledges that God’s law allows what is imprinted with the emperor’s image to be given back to him while also insisting that it be done in the ultimately more important context of giving what is imprinted with God’s image back to God, which is us and all of creation. We are created in God’s image, male and female, Christian and seeker, and we are called to return to God all that we are and all that we have been given. Yes, we can give to the emperor a day’s wage, but that is all he gets. There is no limit on what is due to God since everyone and everything is God’s.
The problem is that we don’t live as if this is true. Caesar gets his due by taxing us, and most of us, reluctantly and sometimes begrudgingly pay those taxes, knowing that they are for the common good. But God doesn’t tax us; God doesn’t demand a fixed rate of return. God simply says, “You are my beloved. I have demonstrated my faithfulness to you over and over. I have given you everything, even my beloved Son. I have called you to be my beloved children, to live in my kingdom, and to participate in my reign over this world.” But rather than living and giving out of the abundance of God’s gifts to us, we all too often all like misers – setting limits on our stewardship, rendering to God the last fruits instead of the first fruits, calculating how little we can give back or give away, pleading poverty of time, talents and treasure. We make giving to Caesar and to everyone else a priority and God gets the leftovers. It might make one wonder, whose coin is it? Despite what we say, our actions declare that maybe we aren’t all that interested in hearing about the way of God – let alone living that way.
Matthew is reminding us in our passage today that righteousness and justice go hand in hand. As soon as we get comfortable in our world and think that our voice cannot be heard or that it will be silenced anyway; or as soon as we think resistance is futile; or as soon as we think marches don’t matter; or as soon as we think our phone calls to our representatives and senators will only end up in a voicemail box; or as soon as we assume racism and sexism, xenophobia and homophobia are so systemic that our efforts to speak up and speak out won’t make a difference, Matthew comes along and reminds us that persistence is the hallmark of the kingdom of heaven.
As soon as we think that the power of God has been usurped by the powers of the world, as soon as so-called leaders show up to test our trust in God and God’s sovereignty, as soon as we start to doubt that we can make a difference, Matthew reminds us that at the end of the day, the coin is God’s even though the coin may be of this world. And Jesus reminds us in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount that God brings blessings to the meek, the persecuted, and the poor in spirit.
The sovereignty of God frequently gets pushed to the periphery of our minds these days pretty easily. Or perhaps, it is a convenient lapse of memory when we are far busier trying to secure our own power and exert control over our own destinies. After all, there are so many people playing God, supposedly speaking on God’s behalf, deciding for God that trusting in God’s rule and looking for God’s reign take a lot more effort than we want to put in to it. Yet, in doing so, we determine whose coin it is, God’s or the world’s.
One of our challenges as Christians is to keep politics in its place. When the government has become the chief protector and source of power from the cradle to the grave, when those who wield political power are honored and glorified—or scorned and vilified—as if they were the most important people in the world, as if all of human history is on their shoulders, then it may be a Christian obligation not to give politics the glory and honor that is due only to God.
There are all kinds of traps in our world today. We can get sucked into any number of issues that are secular, of this world, that have no connection to our faith at all – such as should we pay to Caesar what is Caesar’s? What is more important as we try to live out our faith in this world we currently live in is by consistently asking ourselves, where would Jesus fall on this line of question? What guiding principle would Jesus invite us to incorporate as we debate the traps we encounter each day? And if I had to guess, Jesus’ response would be whose coin is it – and let that help us to decide what to do.
As people of faith, as good faithful Christians, we can get caught in traps all the time. And while it may be difficult to realize, there are good people on both sides of every societal issue, on both sides of every political issue. The key may be to find a way to proclaim the good news of God’s love for us while also calling people to think about what God’s good news and justice might look like in the world. It is essential to this endeavor to being open to listening for that call while realizing that others might hear it differently than we do. Which leads us to perhaps a more important question – can we trust that God is at work even in those who may believe differently than we do? And at the end of the day, can we give to God what is God’s. Whose coin is it? You, me, each of us, all of us, have to answer that question every day – and may each of us, as well as the world be aware and transformed by how we live out that question – thanks be to God – amen.