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October
16th, 2005, Pentecost 22,
All Souls' Episcopal
Church
Render
therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s;
and unto God the things that are God’s.”
St. Matthew 22:15 - 22
I don’t know how many of you watch
C-Span in order to follow live press conferences or Senate committees
interviewing Supreme Court nominees, but if you do, then you probably have
noticed that some people enjoy asking questions designed to trap the responder
into saying more than they would like to. This is precisely the sort of thing
going on in today’s Gospel reading. Our Lord Jesus is asked a question about
paying taxes to Caesar. Paying taxes to Caesar was a constant reminder to Jews
living in ancient Palestine that their land was an occupied land. They lived
under Roman domination. Also, the taxes had to be paid in Roman currency. The
Roman coin mentioned in this account had an image of the deified Emperor
Tiberius and bore an inscription referring to the emperor as the son of the
divine Emperor Augustus. In other words, the Roman coin bore an image of the
divine Roman son of god. Using this blasphemous coinage to pay taxes to an
occupying empire was understandably loathsome to faithful Jews.
If our Lord Jesus says that they
should not pay the taxes, He could then be arrested as an insurgent. If He says
that the taxes should be paid, He would then lose the respect and credibility of
His fellow Jews. Our Lord asks someone to produce one of the offensive coins.
Now, this exchange was taking place while Jesus was teaching in the Temple.
Carrying an idolatrous Roman coin within the Temple precincts would have been
considered blasphemous. By requiring His questioners to produce a Roman coin,
our Lord Jesus had set a trap for them as well. Our Lord points out that since
the coin bears the image and superscription of Caesar, it belongs to Caesar, and
they should regard paying their taxes as little more than returning to Caesar
what is his. He then adds that they should likewise give back to God the things
which belong to God.
The Roman coins bearing the image
of the emperor all looked exactly the same. If you examine five American
pennies, they are going to all look alike. You can carry the coins in your
pocket for twenty years and the image and superscription on the pennies are
going to continue to look exactly alike. Why do I mention this? I mention this
in order to make the point that all of us have been stamped with an image as
well. We have been created in the image of God. Obviously, this does not refer
to a physical image. Rather, God has created us and given us the capacities of
memory, reason, and will. We may know God and love God. And yet, each one of
us bearing God’s image has our own unique personality and talents. We are
individuals with self-knowledge. The fact that we are unique individuals
created in God’s image reveals the depth and the richness of God’s grace.
Moreover, becoming holy does not mean becoming someone we are not. Becoming
holy means that we become who we really are. It means becoming the person we
were meant to be, with our own unique qualities and personality. God’s grace
perfects our nature – the nature He has given us.
Our Lord Jesus tells us
that we are to render unto God the things which are God’s. As I hope we are all
aware, everything belongs to God, including ourselves. He has created us and
redeemed us. He has purchased us at great price, the price of blood – the blood
of the crucified and risen Son of God. We belong to God. Everything we have
belongs to God. We simply cannot compartmentalize our lives in such a way that
God is regulated to Sundays. We worship on the first day of the week because
that is the day of the resurrection. We worship on the first day of the week to
remind us that our first and essential obligation and commitment belongs to God.
This is a truth most of us need to be reminded of daily.
Being created in God’s, image
serves as a constant reminder that our first and primary relationship is the one
with our creator. Furthermore, we are created in such a way that we cannot
truly experience the fullness and joy of any other relationship until we get our
primary relationship right. We first need to be healed and made whole in our
relationship with God before we can know healing and wholeness in any other part
of our lives. This is why people get married in church. We know that our
relationship with one another and with our family, friends, and acquaintances
follows from our being found faithful with God. When we learn to trust in God’s
faithful promises to us as expressed in His word, we also learn to be faithful
in our promises to one another. When we learn of and accept God’s forgiveness
of us, we learn to forgive one another and to receive forgiveness from one
another. When we believe in the unconditional love God has for us, we can begin
to learn how to love one another in the same way. When we learn the nature of
real compassion from our Lord Jesus, we begin to know how to be truly
compassionate with one another. God teaches us the meaning of self-sacrifice.
God teaches us to see beyond the narrow boundaries and self-inflicted labels by
which we see and understand ourselves and He shows us who we really and truly
are in Him. He then teaches us to see one another in the same way. We were
created in the image of God. It is God’s very image which has been forever
stamped upon us. And our superscription reads along these lines: “See my
beloved child, created in my image, redeemed by my Grace, an inheritor of my
Kingdom.”
“Render
unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and render unto God, the things which
are God’
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