Sermon - Matthew 22.15-22

Matthew 22.15-22 Paying Tax to Caesar

Introduction

When studying a Bible passage it can be helpful to try and picture the scene in your imagination, in order to help understand the thoughts, actions and motives of the people involved. Some Bible stories are very difficult to visualize (Balaam’s donkey, Ezekiel’s visions, John’s Revelation), whereas today’s episode from Matthew’s gospel is something we see re-enacted almost every day, thanks to the wonders of television…

A FOOTBALL COACH comes off the field after his team has just lost to a late penalty. Before he reaches the safety of the changing room he finds himself in a pool of intrusive television lights and a microphone is pushed under his nose. “Another defeat Jim and you can’t be happy about that refereeing decision which cost you the match.” The reporter tries to draw the coach into making some rash statement that may get him into trouble but will in any case make a good TV clip.

A POLITICIAN  is having an easy day opening a village fete when suddenly the ever present news reporter appears from nowhere and asks an apparently harmless question about the stock exchange. Apparently harmless but actually loaded with dynamite.

OF COURSE the stakes are much higher for Jesus, but the situation plays out in a similar way. His enemies try to soften him up with flattery, then they spin him an apparently innocuous question which is actually designed to trap or entangle him. Fortunately he sees through their hypocrisy, wards them off with a brilliant reply and lives to fight another day.

Our football coach and our politician also need to be aware and quick-witted to survive, but the key to success these days is not so much wisdom or integrity, but IMAGE, pure IMAGE. Those with a good image, the Tony Blairs, David Beckhams and Madonnas of this world, succeed. Those with a poor image, the Michael Foots, Neil Kinnocks and Stan Trouts, fail (you’ve never heard of Stan Trout? Exactly!) None of their other qualities count for anything because their image is poor. TV news presenters are chosen primarily for their looks, their image, advertising agencies are skilled at persuading us that buying product X will instantly give us a cool, sophisticated image … even the church is having to pay more attention to its image. We live in a culture which is obsessed with image – I know this is true because my children were until recently TEENAGERS…

‘Dad, you can’t go out of the house wearing those clothes’

‘Please don’t come to my football match wearing your dog collar’

‘Dad, can you park your car round the corner, so my friends won’t see it!’

I get it wrong every time. I am the man who owned several Skodas, excellent cars by the way, and put up with all the usual jokes for years (eg why do Skodas have heated rear windows?.. How can you double the value of your Skoda?) FINALLY, soon after selling my last Skoda and buying a Rover, my son showed me a newspaper article announcing that Skoda had at last shaken off its joke car image and that the most unfashionable car to own was now… (guess!)

But this obsession with image is no joke. It is a deadly serious problem and perhaps one of the key issues facing the Church in western nations today.

Theologian David Wells puts it like this…

“Image and appearance assume the functions that character and morality once had. It is now considered more important to look good than to be good. The façade is more important than the substance – and, that being the case, the substance has largely disappeared. In the centre there is now only an emptiness. This is what accounts for the anxious search for self that is now afoot.” (page 14 David F. Wells God in the Wasteland Eerdmans 1994.)

The Church has to address its own and our society’s current obsession with image – a problem inside as well as outside the Church. I believe that Jesus has the answer and that in this brief confrontation with the Pharisees and Herodians he reveals the key to a true and healthy understanding of image. Jesus’s reply, ‘Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s’, which silenced them also strikes to the heart of our own worldliness, as we shall see.

The Context

But before concentrating on Jesus’s reply, it is worthwhile to look briefly at the context. The alliance of convenience between the Pharisees and Herodians for instance is a surprising one, as these two parties hated each other. The Herodians were supporters of the puppet kings who ruled the Holy Land for Rome and supported the payment of taxes. The Pharisees hated Roman rule and any form of subjection to Gentiles and especially hated the denarius coin with its idolatrous image of Caesar and its inscription describing him as the “son of a god”. This alliance for evil purpose seemed to put Jesus in an impossible position. It was a case of ‘heads we win, tails you lose.’

Is it LAWFUL (that is, in accordance with the Jewish Torah, the Law of Moses) to pay taxes to Caesar or not?

YES or NO?? Where does Jesus stand on this issue? If he answers YES, he will be accused by the Pharisees of betraying his people and will turn most of his supporters against him. If he says NO, the Herodians will have him arrested for treason!

The irony of their flattering opening words should not be missed either. As they say, Jesus is indeed a man of integrity who teaches the way of God in accordance with the truth. They didn’t believe this, or they wouldn’t have been trying to get him killed, but what they said was absolutely true.

Jesus’s Reply

Now Jesus asks take a look at the denarius coin and then takes the initiative by asking his opponents a question.

Whose image is this? And whose inscription?

Caesar’s

Then give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.

When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.

(A pity their amazement didn’t lead them to repent and follow him!)

BUT, what did Jesus mean?

One interpretation could be that he was suggesting a separation of life into public and private compartments. ‘Pay your taxes to Caesar. Live your life by the prevailing society’s rules and values… but on the inside, in your private spiritual world, give your allegiance to God. You should believe one way and act another. It’s a survival strategy.’

This interpretation is attractive, especially in a liberal pluralist society like ours. Each person’s religion is a private matter and should stay private so we can all live together in peace and harmony. But that doesn’t seem to match reality and it surely cannot be what Jesus meant. He rightly denounced his opponents for their hypocrisy and so he would hardly suggest a kind of watered down, demeaning hypocrisy in those who would be his followers.

NO, Jesus must have meant something far more fundamental than dividing life into two parts; the public part for Caesar and the private part for God.

The Key Point

To discover the true meaning of what Jesus said we need first to look again at the coin. Whose image and inscription is this? Put it another way – what is it about this coin that gives it its value, its dignity, its meaning and its purpose? The image and inscription of Caesar. Therefore it belongs to Caesar. A blank coin or a counterfeit coin or a coin with an image of a bunch of flowers on it would be virtually worthless, no monetary value, no use.

That’s the coin, now listen to this verse…

Then God said, ‘Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’

So God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

(Genesis 1.26-27)

What is it that gives human being his or her value and dignity and meaning and purpose? Simply the image of God!

All God’s creatures have significance and value, but the human race has a unique dignity, value and purpose because of its creation in the image and likeness of God, the pinnacle of his creative self-expression.

The coin then belongs to Caesar; but the whole person, the whole of humanity in fact, belongs to God.

Of course, just as coins get dirty and scratched and worn by the every day usage of life – so do we! The Bible calls this sin, as the image of God in us is hidden by our own and other people’s words, actions and attitudes. But no matter how much grime is covering a human life, its value is still the same – at least in the eyes of its maker, and it can be washed clean today.

The New Testament teaches that Jesus has given each of us the privilege of being restored into a right relationship with God, a wonderful gift which we accept by faith. As St Paul explains:

For those whom God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

(Romans 8.29)

Later in the letter he draws out the implications of this:

…offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

(Romans 12.1-2)

In these words Paul accurately interprets what Jesus meant by ‘give back to God what belongs to God.

Conclusion

In these days when everything around us screams out that image is the only thing which matters, Jesus says to the Church “YES”… image IS the most important thing – not a superficial skin deep image to impress people, but the true image and likeness of the creator, the redeemer and the Spirit who convicts the world of its sin. Shine like stars, like newly minted coins and draw others to the love of Christ, washing them in the waters of baptism so that the image of God will be seen afresh. The Church should be a people of integrity and wholeness with no hypocrisy. We are called to become what God has made us to be, a holy people set apart for him. A people which reflects the image and likeness of God.