Whose Image?
Matt 22:15-22
The gospel for today has a saying of Jesus that is probably better known than anything else he ever said, with the possible exception of his words to Nicodemus about being born again. The odd thing about Jesus’ words in today’s gospel is this: were not answering the question put to him. So many commentators have taken Jesus words and have extrapolated from them an entire theology of two kingdoms: the kingdom of man and the kingdom of God and how these two kingdoms are supposed to relate to one another. God and Caesar, is what JESUS’ ENEMIES ARE asking about But, Jesus turns their attention to something else.
Consequently, today we will focus on what Jesus wanted his hearers to understand, and then, Lord willing, we’ll make an application of this to ourselves.
First lets set up the scene for yet another encounter between Jesus and his enemies among Israel’s religious leadership. They have decided to craft a question that will tangle him up. And, to do this, we find some very strange bedfellows in the planning committee: the Pharisees and the Herodians.
The Pharisees were, of course, the ultra-conservative religious party in Israel. The Temple leadership was riddled with men who were Pharisees. To the left of the Pharisees, were the Sadducees who I’d say were very much like liberal Episcopalians today: very much enamored of the ritualistic style, but simultaneously rejecting the supernatural substance of the Bible. The gospels show the Sadducees in a debate with Jesus about the resurrection of the dead, which they believed was a silly idea.
And, then, way out there on the left were the Herodians. These were Jews who – as the name implies – were staunch supporters of King Herod and his dynasty, which got its power from the Roman occupiers of Palestine. Judaism was, for them, at best a system of cultural ethics. They were all in favor of Rome, Roman rule, and the power of the Roman King Herod.
Now, it is the far-right-wing Pharisees and the far-left-wing Herodians who end up conspiring to trip up Jesus. If you see members of the John Birch Society teaming up with the Communist Party USA to entrap someone, that someone must be a Very Big Thorn in everybody’s side. And, that’s exactly what you have here.
So, they come up with what they suppose is a question Jesus cannot wriggle out of. They fashion a question for him that they suppose must be answered with a single Yes or No answer. After some obsequious sounding flattery, they put the question to Jesus this way: “What do you think: Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?”
Now, the Romans levied several taxes on the Jews. There was something called the ground tax – and it a tax of ten percent of whatever came out of the ground – grains, and wine, and oil. Then there was the income tax, and by our standards this was very light indeed – just one percent of one’s cash income (with no deductions, of course). And, finally, there was the poll tax. It was also a flat tax: and it amounted to a denarius – which was approximately the wage of a common laborer for one day’s work – and it was levied on every male from age 14 through 65 and on ever female from age 12 through 65.
It was this poll tax that was the subject of the question put to Jesus by the Pharisees and the Herodians. It was a special tax, because it had to be paid in Roman silver coinage. Other business and tax matters could be paid in copper coinage, or in gold bullion, or similar mediums of exchange. But, the poll tax had to be paid with the silver denarius. And, these coins bore the image of Caesar, and they were inscribed with an inscription saying “Tiberius Caesar, Son of the divine Augustus.”
Now, this tax was a point of great controversy among the Jews. The Herodians, of course, were all in favor of the tax. They were in favor of all the Roman taxes. The Pharisees, on the other hand, were very much opposed to paying Caesar any taxes at all, for they still supposed that they were citizens of a theocracy, and that to pay Caesar taxes was to acknowledge his sovereignty in Israel.
But, the poll tax really made the Pharisees angry, because they had to use a coin which bore an graven image of someone who claimed filial descent from a god. For them, to pay this tax involved them in violation of the commandment against graven images, and it also involved them in the commandment to have no other gods but the God of Israel.
I think you can see the trap that they Pharisees and the Herodians together had crafted for Jesus. If he answered their question about the poll tax “yes, it is lawful to pay this tax to Caesar,” then they would be able to turn the crowds against Jesus, for the vast majority of Jews were opposed to taxes anyway, and the more religious among them had the same aversion to the poll tax that the Pharisees had. On the other hand, if Jesus said, “no, it’s not lawful to pay the poll tax,” then the Herodians would have promptly brought a charge of sedition against Jesus, the Roman’s would have arrested him, and that would neatly put Jesus out of the way.
Jesus response, of course, put their silly conspiracy to flight. He began by calling them what they are. “Why do you test me, hypocrites?” The charge of hypocrisy was aimed at the Pharisees, of course, for they paid the poll tax even though they judged it to be a violation of two of the ten commandments.
But, Jesus next turns the tables on them. “Show me the tax money,” he says. And, they bring him a denarius.
“Whose image and inscription is on this?” he demanded. “Caesar’s,” they reply. “Then give to Caesar what is Caesar’s,” Jesus says.
Jesus could have stopped here, and that would have been all that would be needed to confound the Pharisees and the Herodians alike. The Herodians could not have brought a charge of sedition against Jesus. And the Pharisees? Jesus had just handed them the very thing they needed in order to pay the poll tax with a clear conscience! The denarius wasn’t “theirs” in the first place; it was Caesar’s. To give the denarius to Caesar was simply to give him what was already his. In fact, the spiritually discerning among the Pharisees would probably have been joyful as soon as they digested the significance of what Jesus had said.
But, Jesus didn’t stop there. He added the words, “And, render to God, the things that are God’s.” At that point, the tables are fully turned on both the Herodians and the Pharisees.
Why? Well, consider – it is fine to give the denarius to Caesar because it bears his image. For that reason, it belongs to him. But, then, what does one give to God? What belongs to God? Well, of course, what belongs to God is that which bears God’s image. And, what, do you suppose, is that?
I don’t think the Pharisees would have missed Jesus point in the least. He has been hammering them for days for exactly this failure: they who bear the image of God have not been rendering to God the things that are God’s. In other words, they themselves have withheld themselves and their proper service to the God of Israel. In parables, Jesus has told them that they are God’s workers in the vineyard, who refuse to give to God the fruit of the vineyard. They are God’s sons who say they will serve him, but then refuse. They are the son’s of God’s Kingdom who refuse to come to the marriage of the King’s Son. They were the stewards of God’s Temple, and when God’s Son comes into the Temple with shouts of “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they are indignant.
What Jesus put his finger on at this moment is the refusal of those who owe God their allegiance, their service, their praise – the refusal of such people to give to God what is due him.
In surveying the way others have treated this passage, I am amazed at the ways in which Jesus’ words are applied. As I said before, many teachers down through the centuries have taken Jesus’ words here as a starting point for building a theology of how government and God are supposed to relate. THAT question is the one Jesus enemies had in mind; and THAT question is pretty much what Jesus had nothing to say in answer to here.
I wonder how many of you have ever heard sermons on giving drawn from this passage? “ Give to God what is God’s!” And, of course, the preacher preaches a sermon from this passage during a stewardship campaign or an annual pledge drive or at the beginning of a new building campaign.
If I were so minded to preach that sermon, I’d turn our attention away from giving to God what is God’s and ask instead what it looks like to withhold from God what is God’s. And, then, I’d go on over to the Prophet Malachi, in chapter 3 and build my message out of verses 8 and 9:
8 “ Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, ‘ In what way have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings. 9 You are cursed with a curse, For you have robbed Me, Even this whole nation. 10 Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, That there may be food in My house, …”
But I’m not going to preach that sermon, because that is EXACTLY what Jesus words here are NOT talking about. If anyone were scrupulous about paying their tithes, it was the Pharisees. And, the Herodians too, for like Herod, they loved to make a show of veneer Jewish piety. Paying tithes to the Temple was part and parcel of that kind of piety. So, no – a sermon on giving is not what comes naturally out of Jesus words here.
Jesus point is not hard to fathom. You can see it in the words of the Prophet Isaiah, in the opening words of his prophecy:
2 Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth! For the LORD has spoken: “ I have nourished and brought up children, And they have rebelled against Me; 3 The ox knows its owner and the donkey its master’s crib; But Israel does not know, My people do not consider.”
What Jesus is pointing to in the Pharisees is what God was pointing to in Isaiah’s day, more than seven centuries before – people who have all the marks of God on them, they are chosen by him, blessed by him, created by him, blessed by him, guided and preserved through history by him, and what? Do they show any resemblance to him at all? Do they act as if all this in their history with God made any difference at all?
The problem isn’t confined to the Jews of Isaiah’s day, or the Jewish leadership of Jesus’ day. You can find it in the Church of God. In the Book of Revelation chapter 3, the Apostle John preserves letters from Jesus to seven churches in Asia Minor. To one of them, the church in Laodicea, Jesus says, “15 “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. 16 So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot,[g] I will vomit you out of My mouth. 17 Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked—”
The applicability of Jesus words in today’s gospel comes down to this: to what degree, in what ways are you and I giving to God what is his? The answer to that question must come from this: to what degree, in what ways do we bear the image of God. More particularly, to what degree, and in what ways is the image of Christ evident in us?
For the responsibility we Christians have is, I would suggest, greater than the responsibility of the Pharisees in the gospel lesson for today. For Paul says this about Christians in Romans 8: “29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.”
The lessons from the Old Testament and the Epistles for day give us a framework for understanding how we would do what Jesus commands here – to Give to God what is God’s because it bears him image. To give to Christ what is Christ’s because it is being conformed to his image.
In the Old Testament Lesson, we find Cyrus, a Gentile King, whom the Prophet Isaiah names as the servant of the Lord. Isaiah says two things about Cyrus that are significant for us: first of all, Cyrus does NOT know the God of Israel. “I have named you, though you have not known Me,” God says. Yet, Cyrus fulfills all God’s purpose toward Israel. Even though he does not know it, Cyrus gave to God what is God’s, because he belonged to God, called by God, guided by God, commissioned by God to fulfill God’s purposes. I submit to you that Cyrus is the absolute bare minimum of what God expects of his people, those who have a reasonable claim to knowing God, which Cyrus did NOT have.
But, closer to home, we have the Thessalonians, whom Paul greets in the lesson from the Epistles appointed for today. Listen again to how he greets them:
2 We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, 3 remembering without ceasing your work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of our God and Father, 4 knowing, beloved brethren, your election by God. 5 For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance, … you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit, 7 so that you became examples to all in Macedonia and Achaia who believe … how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, 10 and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, … ”
Today the counterpart to the Pharisees are not so much those immersed in legalism, but those who are pleased with themselves in whatever religious matrix they find themselves in. If they are satisfied and pleased with themselves, but render nothing which the Bible shows us is God’s will for the lives of his people – well, then, Jesus’ admonition to the Pharisees here in the gospel belongs on such people in our day too. Indeed, it is those who are most religious who are most in danger of the Pharisees’ error here.
Concerning what God looks for in his people, Jesus said this: “ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
This is where the Pharisees failed. They did not love the Lord their God, but rather themselves. They did not love their neighbors as themselves, but hated their neighbors.
We who know the grace of Christ have far and away more privilege and prestige and position in Christ than any Pharisee could ever dream of. Like the Pharisees, we bear the image of God; and unlike them we also bear the image of Christ, the Son of God. May God our Father guide, direct, and empower us to be for him all that he has created us to be. And, may Jesus, whose image we bear, find at the Judgment that we have rendered to him what is worthy for him to receive from us: our thanksgiving, our praise, and our service in his Kingdom.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
