Sermon - 20th Sunday After Pentecost (10/18/2020)
Is. 45:1-7, Ps. 96:1-9; 1 Thess. 1:1-10; Mt. 22:15-22
The last three Sundays, we have been reading from the story of Jesus in the Temple of Jerusalem in the week before his death. Jesus has been debating with the Temple authorities who have come to confront him after he cleaned the Temple and generally acted as if he owned the place. As Jesus criticizes the Temple authorities, they have become increasingly angry with him, but also frustrated because Jesus has the support of the watching crowds.
Today the debate moves to more of a town-hall format, more of a question-and-answer session. The opponents of Jesus pose questions trying to turn the crowd against him. And today we have question number one: Is it lawful – that is, is it consistent with the Law of Moses – to pay taxes to the Roman Emperor?
And of course this is a trick question. If he says no, they can denounce him to the Romans as a traitor and revolutionary and the Romans will do their dirty work for them. If he says yes, the crowds will be unhappy with Jesus and he’ll lose the protection of their support. And so, like a modern Supreme Court nominee, Jesus artfully avoids a direct answer to the question.
Jesus says: Show me the coin you use to pay taxes to the Emperor. Notice that Jesus doesn’t pull one of those coins out of his pocket to show the crowd – he’s making the point that he doesn’t actually carry them around himself. And it’s easy to see why, when they show him one of the coins – since coins are made of metal, some of them still exist. And this is what they look like.
[Click here to see the coin}: When Jesus is shown the coin, he asks his questioners: Whose image is on the coin? Whose inscription? Whose image? This coin is made in the image and likeness of the Emperor Tiberius. And what does the inscription say? That the Emperor is the son of a god. (And who, by the way, brought a coin with the image of a son of a god other than the Lord God of Israel into the Temple of Jerusalem? In the Temple of Jerusalem, where the First Commandment forbids there to be any image or statue or likeness of the Lord God of Israel made by human hands – only the image and likeness of God that God made, namely the human beings who come there to worship.)
Whose image and likeness is on the coin? The Emperor’s. OK, then, Jesus says, it’s the Emperor’s coin. So give him his damned coin. I’m not swearing, by the way, I am being theologically precise – this coin, for a faithful Jew, is from the devil. It says salvation and security come from the son of a god on the throne in Rome, in the peace imposed by Roman armies, in the superior culture and technology of the Roman overlords. If the Emperor wants his coin, Jesus says, feel free to give it to him – and give to God what belongs to God.
Now, it should be said, that because the Lord God of Israel is God and the Emperor is not, the true and living God is always present and working in all things and circumstances. And so God can even use an idolatrous and unbelieving king to accomplish God’s purposes. This is the point being made in the first reading today from Isaiah, when Israel is released from exile in Babylon at the order of the idolatrous and unbelieving Cyrus, emperor of Persia. Precisely because God is the only God, and God can bring life and salvation out of anything, God need not approve of Cyrus in order to work through Cyrus to bring Israel home from exile.
As you may know, there are many evangelical Christian leaders who support our current president and who, when asked how they can support a political leader who, shall we say, does not appear to be much of an exemplar of Christian virtue in his personal life, will point specifically to the Biblical story of Cyrus as an example. God can work through anybody, even a leader who isn’t perfect. And whether you support the President for reelection or not, I think all of us can agree that over the last four years God has used this circumstance to reveal many things about our nation and our world – problems that have been there for a long time, yet now have become too painfully obvious to continue to ignore. What we should do about those problems, which candidates are best positioned to address them constructively, this is a decision that each one of us must make ourselves.
But on this, I think, we all can agree: God is Lord, not Cyrus. Jesus, not any emperor or president, is the Son of God in whom we find life and salvation and security – security that Jesus provides, not like emperors and presidents, by using fear and violence against those who would do wrong, but by taking responsibility for all of human sin, allowing himself to be the victim of human rage and scapegoating, and so setting us free from fear and death – to be the images and likenesses of the living God that we were created to be.
Because ultimately, this is I think the thing that Jesus most wanted to emphasize in his answer to the trick question in the Temple the week before he died, and the thing that is most important for us to hear. We may well have duties to the kings and emperors and presidents of this world, we may well have obligations to the societies in which we live. The order and relative peace that a well-governed nation provides is a good thing, and people who don’t have it miss it terribly – and as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said nearly a century ago, “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.”
Now living in a civilized society is indeed a blessing; just ask anyone who doesn’t and they’ll tell you how much they wish they did. But that is not the point that Jesus is making. Rather, Jesus is saying that what really matters is not the image and likeness of the Emperor, or a president, or even a nation, but the image and likeness of God, which belongs to God. And each one of us, Scripture says, is created in the divine image, in the image and likeness of God. Every one of us. And therefore we all belong to God.
If each and every one of us is made in the image and likeness of God, then each and every one of us has intrinsic worth and dignity, not because of what we have accomplished or what we can contribute, but simply because we are. That includes you. You have worth and dignity in the eyes of God, whether you feel that way or not, whether anyone has told you otherwise, you are a beloved child of God who belongs to God. Period, full stop.
And so is the person you don’t like, whose actions you don’t approve of. Whose image do they bear? Whose inscription? If God’s, then treat them accordingly. The opponents of Jesus prefaced their trap question by trying to flatter Jesus: “We know that you are a teacher who tells the truth and does not regard people with partiality.” But in fact, if every human being bears the image of God whether we see it or not, then to follow the way of Jesus means to not regard people with partiality, but to respect and honor the image of God in each and every person without exception. Especially when it’s hard.
Which means that, ultimately, if we believe that God is God and there is no other – if we believe that Jesus is Lord and Son of God, and not the emperor – if we believe that we can discern the image and likeness of God in all of God’s beloved children – then the visible form our faith must take is the love that we show to one another and to all God’s children. In a time of social distancing and increasing social inequality, there is nothing we Christians can do that is more necessary, more radically rooted in the gospel, more faithful to the living God who took human flesh in Jesus Christ, than to practice love.
This is why Paul could write to the church in Thessalonica in today’s second reading: Everybody knows about your faith, we have no need to speak about how you have turned away from false idols to serve the living and true God, because everyone can see your deeds, how you have been hospitable and gracious and full of love. May our faith be equally visible in the way that we live and serve our neighbors made in the image and likeness of God.