Matthew 22:15-22
“A Hot Button Issue”
Have you ever been asked a “trick question,” a question which was meant to “trip you up”?
Or how about a question where, no matter how you answer it, you will make someone angry or get yourself into trouble?
Around election time when the politicians are out campaigning, journalists are everywhere, interviewing people, taking photos and setting up debates.
And the politicians, who seem only too eager to be on television better be careful because the broadcasters are out to get them.
If a politician slips up, people are interested and advertising revenue goes up.
It sure is an annoying thing, is it not?
Amazing that anyone would want to run for office.
Trick questions that put people on the spot have been around as long as there have been public issues and leaders offering new programs.
And this one that the Pharisees put to Jesus has an obvious double edge.
The issue of paying tax to the Roman Emperor was one of the “hot button issues” in the Middle East in Jesus’ day.
Imagine how you’d feel if you woke up one morning and discovered that people from the other end of the world had marched into your country and demanded that you pay them tax as a reward for having your land stolen!!!
That sort of thing still causes riots and revolutions, and it had done just that when Jesus was growing up in Galilee.
One of the most famous Jewish leaders when Jesus was just a boy had led a revolt because of this issue.
But the Romans had crushed it without mercy, leaving crosses around the countryside, with dead and dying revolutionaries on them, as a warning that paying the tax was not an option.
So the Pharisees question came, as we might say, with a health warning…kinda like on a pack of cigarettes.
But instead of saying, “Smoking causes cancer,” it said, “Tell people they shouldn’t pay, and you will end up on a cross.”
At the same time, of course, anyone leading a “kingdom-of-God movement” would be expected to oppose the tax, or face the ridicule and resentment of the people.
If Jesus had been a politician on the campaign trail, you can imagine the audience’s excitement and the producer’s glee when someone asked this question.
Notice all the false flattery that is going on here as well.
They come to Jesus with bright smiles on their faces.
Surely they have no bad intentions.
They are trying to look so innocent and pious in front of the crowd.
It’s kind of like the “bubble headed bleach-blond” news reporter who can tell you about the plane crash with “a gleam in her eye,” as Don Henley so aptly describes in his song “Dirty Laundry.”
“Teacher,” they say, “we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.
You aren’t swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are.
Tell us then, what is your opinion?
Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”
And we are told that Jesus replies, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me?”
No, Jesus doesn’t fool around, does He?
The word for “trap” that Jesus uses here is the same word used earlier in Matthew in reference to what Satan is trying to do as well.
So, here, Jesus is saying that Satan and the Pharisees are playing the same role.
They are working together…
…whether the Pharisees know it or not.
Before Jesus answers their question He asks them for a coin…
…or rather, asking them for a coin is really the beginning of the answer Jesus gives.
You see, Jews were forbidden to make carved images.
Exodus 20:4 prohibits “graven images” of any kind.
But whose image was staring coldly out at the world from the small Roman coin?
Caesar’s!
And what about the inscription on the coin?
Around the edge of the coin, proclaiming to all the world who he was, Caesar had words that would send a shiver through any loyal or devout Jew.
It read, “Son of God…High Priest.”
That was who Caesar claimed to be.
How could any Jew be happy or feel comfortable handling that kind of money?
So Jesus says, “Show me the coin used for paying the tax.”
He doesn’t have one Himself, but the Pharisees, in the sacred Temple area reach into their pockets and pull one out--a Roman coin with its idolatrous image and inscription on it.
Did not Jesus just call them “hypocrites”?
It makes sense, does it not?
The Pharisees seem happy to do their business using Caesar’s coins.
Why then, are they trying to “trap” Jesus with this question?
Right off the bat we find out that their question has no integrity nor validity.
But Jesus goes on anyway.
Jesus has turned the question around, and is ready to hit it back over the net.
“Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?”
“Caesar’s’ they replied,” stating the obvious.
“Well, then,” says Jesus, “You’d better pay Caesar back in his own coin, hadn’t you?”
“And you better pay God back in His own coin, too!”
Let’s be clear.
Jesus wasn’t trying to give an answer, for all time, on the relationship between God and political authority.
That wasn’t the point.
Jesus was countering the Pharisees challenge with a sharp challenge in return.
It appears that they were the ones who had been compromised.
Had they really given their full allegiance to God?
Or were they playing games, keeping Caesar happy while speaking about God?
They got caught in their own trap.
After-all, there is a dark appropriateness about giving Caesar back his own blasphemous coin.
“Better get rid of the stuff.”
And on the other hand, Jesus issues a challenge to Jerusalem, the Temple, its rulers, and their hypocritical underlings: “Give to God what is God’s.”
This is a challenge to us as well!!!
If the coin belongs to Caesar, if the likeness is that of the emperor then what should be given to God?
What belongs to God?
What is stamped with God’s likeness in this world?
We know the answer to that.
Way back in the first Chapter of Genesis we are told, “God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness…’”
And so “God created humankind in [God’s] image, in the image of God He created them, male and female [God] created them.”
And then God sent the human beings as God’s agents in the world, to have stewardship over the creation on God’s behalf.
We are God’s coin!
God’s likeness is stamped on us.
And we are to “give to God what is God’s.”
When the Pharisees heard Jesus say these things “they were amazed. So they left him and went away.”
They were convicted of the truth.
They were given the choice.
They could give their lives back to God or they could ignore God’s claim on their lives.
And we are all given this choice, are we not?
If we actually give to God what belongs to God…
…all the love of our heart, soul, mind and strength…as well as a love for our neighbors which is as strong as our love for self…
…if we do this, the coin is a non-issue is it not?
For human beings who have given themselves completely over to God will indeed use their money in a God-honoring and Kingdom-building way, no matter whose picture is on it!
Do you think that Jesus might also have meant, as He stood in the Temple courtyards, that the sacrificial system, which was supposed to be the way of giving God His due, needed to become a more complete worship?
Did He also mean—against all the normal ideas of the revolutionaries—that if you really gave your whole self to God you would find that using violence to fight violence, using evil to fight evil, simply wouldn’t do?
I think that may have been part of His point as well.
For Jesus Himself is our Sacrificial Lamb, come to take away the sins of the world, once and for all…
…and in doing so, we are given the opportunity, the privilege to become fully His!!!
Are we….
…giving back FULLY…
…What is God’s?
(long pause).
Amen.
