A couple of questions before we begin. Do we remember where this confrontation takes place? Do we remember where Jesus is sitting or standing when this confrontation between the Pharisees and the Herodians with Jesus concerning taxes takes place? Jesus is in the Courtyard of the Gentiles, probably sitting, teaching the people.
This courtyard is part of the greater Temple complex so, when one enters, one begins to divest oneself of worldly distractions. One of the first things to happen would be that a person would need to change their worldly money for temple money. A Roman denarius has the head of the Emperor and an inscription something like, “Son of the living god,” on the face side. On the reverse, it reads, “Pontifex Maximus”, a title held by the Emperor indicating he is the head of the Roman religion. This makes Roman coins idolatrous.
Temple coins are stamped with images of wheat or trees or other images of creation, but not the image of a person, one who is created in the image of God, lest the human image on the coin is considered to be an image of God. Only the coins of the temple can be used inside the Temple, so exchange tables are set up at the gates to save people from breaking the first commandment, “You shall have no other gods. You shall not worship any graven images.”
Now that we have the setting in mind, consider that this confrontation the Pharisees’ disciples and the Herodians provoke with Jesus occurs in that strange time of already and not yet. We continue to march toward the end of our Church Year. Reformation Day is next week. We will remember All Saints Sunday November 5. Christ the King Sunday is November 26, ending the Year of Matthew. Then Advent opens the Year of Mark and is supplemented by the waiting stories of Luke and Matthew as we prepare to tell the story of God’s word revealed to us in a vulnerable child named Jesus. At the same time, we are marching toward the cross. It is Holy Week in our Gospel text today.
This is the setting when the Pharisees send their disciples with the Herodians to Jesus. The Herodians are Jewish people, but they support Herod and his Roman ways. The Pharisees and Herodians come with another test to entrap Jesus in his own words so they can get rid of him because of the trouble he has been causing them in their lives. There is tension in the air. Jesus is becoming more than just an annoyance: he is challenging the order of their world.
So, the Pharisees send their disciples, their best and brightest students, and the Herodians, trained in political debate, to challenge Jesus. For us today, this would be like putting Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer together as a team to get a mutually satisfactory answer. As highly partisan political groups, it would be almost impossible to satisfy both the Pharisees and the Herodians.
They come to Jesus asking, “Is it lawful?” The Pharisees, understanding that we are not to worship the emperor, are asking a religious question, “Is it lawful for Temple offerings to be used to benefit the Emperor?” But the Herodians are concerned with the pragmatic consideration that, in order to ensure the Temple continues to exist, the current Temple practice to pay tribute or taxes to the emperor must continue.
This answer could easily get Jesus in trouble. If he says, “Yes, you should pay taxes”, Jesus would advocate violating Mosaic law, but if he says, “You shouldn’t pay taxes,” Jesus would be inciting insurrection against the Roman government.
Jesus instead asks why they are testing him, why they are putting him on trial. In the words of the prayer Jesus teaches, he is stating something like, “Lead me not into the time of trial, temptation, or testing. Deliver us from evil.” He says, “Why are you testing me, you hypocrites?”, that is, “Why are you questioning me about what you can’t live up to yourselves?”
To demonstrate this, Jesus says, “Where is the coin that you use to pay the tax? Show it to me.” Remember, they are within the Temple complex. They should not have any of the emperor’s coins, but, somehow, one of the coins is immediately available. Do you see the problem here?
Way back in Genesis, thousands of years before this confrontation, these words were given for the people of Jesus’ time and for ours. “The Lord said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image. And God created humankind in his image. Male and female he created them.’”
In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the word for image is very particular. Transliterated, we have come to know this word as icon. Today we think of icons as something on our computer screens, but this use of icon in the Old Testament speaks of the verisimilitude, the reflection, of God.
“Whose icon is on the coin?” is what Jesus asks.
They reply, “The Emperor’s.”
To understand the depth of the question, let us consider, “Whose icon is on you?” You see, the emperor’s icon may be stamped on the coin, but God’s image is stamped on you. God’s image is stamped on us. Each one of us carries God’s imprint on us. To put that on a coin would devalue what God has done. This is why the temple coins are not stamped with human images.
So, Jesus says to the Pharisees’ disciples and the Herodians, “Then give back to Caesar, the emperor, what belongs to the emperor—his picture, his title. Then give to God what is God’s—you. Remember that you have been created, you are born, imprinted with the image of God.”
And, not only have you been imprinted in the image of God, but in Baptism, you have been marked with the sign of the cross, forever! This is your identity. It is that icon we get to give back, to reflect, to turn back to others so that they might see the good works of God in you. In our Thanksgiving prayer following the offering we say, “We offer with joy and thanksgiving what you have first given us, ourselves, our time, our possessions”, that is, our talents, our property, our coins, our icons, “signs of your gracious love.”
There is a plot going on here to entrap Jesus so that they might arrest him and kill him, but not today! Jesus reminds them and indicts them with the idolatrous coins that they bring to the temple. He forces them to produce the evidence of their own damning while the Pharisees’ disciples and the Herodians are trying to condemn him.
So, they are amazed; they marvel at his debating skills; and they leave. Of course, they will come back at another place and time to test him again. In the meantime, we are left with God’s icon, with Christ’s branding cross upon us, with Christ’s message of good news embedded in us, so that we will always have enough to give, what has already been given to us.
We have always lived in a world of multiple loyalties, and we understand that there will always be multiple loyalties claiming us, our time, and our resources, but today we are faced with COMPETING loyalties. In a competition someone or something has to win. So, it is that, in this text, we are called to faithfully discern that competition between Caesar’s and God’s power in the world, to understand the importance of the first commandment, “You shall have no other god before me.”—the command that includes that you will not worship graven images.
In class last week, in our discussion of the numbering of the Ten Commandments, Brandon said, “Luther does not put worshipping graven images in as a separate commandment because Luther understands that this part about graven images is just a further explanation of ‘You shall have no other god before me.’” I was so proud of him, because that is exactly why Luther did that. That is why Lutherans number the Ten Commandments differently from other denominations. It is one of those things we should know about our Lutheran heritage in the 500th celebration Reformation year. Okay, part of it may be that Luther wanted us to sound just a little different without being too different.
This subtle shifting of content is also seen in Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians. Here Paul is doing something radically new and different. In this letter Paul invents something new in the name of God. He creates the group letter. This is the first time in history that a letter is sent not to a person, but to a whole community. It is not to lift up a single person, but a whole community of people, to tell them that he, Paul, holds them in high regard and that God has claimed them because God has imprinted God’s image on them. Because of God’s own work, God loves them enough to send his son to save them.
In Isaiah, today, we hear that God does not only work through the chosen people, but through anyone God wants to. God chooses to use others in the world to show God’s love for God’s chosen people. We see Cyrus becoming the hand of God to lead God’s people home, out from slavery, out of bondage to the Babylonians, back to Jerusalem.
God says, “I can do this because I have done everything else.” In this text we are reminded of creation and everything God has done, even to imprinting God’s icon on all of humankind, male and female, of every race and nation, gay and straight, able and disabled. We are imprinted, stamped, created, in the image, the icon, of God. So, as we go into our world of multiple and competing loyalties, let us faithfully discern where we should put our trust.
I was reminded of a story this week of how difficult this process of discernment can be. A young woman was out sunning herself on a beach when she saw a young boy, dressed in his swimming suit, wearing flippers and swimming goggles with a snorkel, sort of duck-waddling down the beach toward her. She smiled at him as he struggled through the sand to her, and then he asked, “Lady, do you believe in Jesus Christ?”
She was taken aback, but she said, “Yes, I do.”
The boy continued, “Do you read the Bible and say your prayers every day?”
She said, “Yes, I do.”
The boy asked, “Do you go to church every Sunday?”
She said, “Yes, I do, but why do you want to know?”
He looked at her for a long time and then seemed to make a decision. “Will you hold my quarter for me while I’m swimming?”
There are those days when we really want to go swimming and need to make sure that our quarter is safe. What to do? What to do? Hopefully, we will always find such satisfactory solutions to our problems as we discern our multiple and competing loyalties that challenge us every day in our lives in the midst of God’s complicated and delightful cathedral creation. So, let us walk together holding each other’s quarter while we swim in the waters of baptism bearing the image of Christ to one another.
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