Made in the image

Last week we went to our son’s parents weekend at his boarding school, where we got to trail along after him, going to classes and meals and rowing practice and all the activities of his days. Only it was all shortened and polished up, put on display for us parents: see what your kids are learning! Look how beautiful it is here in the fall! You are happy you are paying tuition to have your child come here! All a Jedi mind trick. But it’s definitely wonderful to see firsthand what his life is like, since otherwise we are so far away. One of the classes we attended was a history class on Rome, and the lesson for the day included looking online at the Numismatic Society website at various coins from the Roman empire. Every one of them was a denarius – a word we hear in the gospels – but every one was different, different emperors on one side and different symbolic scenes on the other. Every one had a sort of coded message, therefore, a kind of polemics in metal about who was dominating whom. It was like the campaign mail that we’re currently receiving in droves at our house – I presume you might be getting that also? Here’s what we want you to think! And so we have to decide – do we agree? Or not?

So how timely to have that Roman denarius coin turning up in today’s gospel. Jesus is in Jerusalem, teaching in the temple. He’s been telling parables that make clear his opinion, that those who have been entrusted with the care of God’s people have misused their responsibility, and that God is bringing the ragtag misfits and outcasts into the kingdom ahead of them. Not a message that’s likely to win him friends in high places, and indeed, today’s story is of another attack.

So today the attempt is around money. And it’s a good attempt. The Pharisees come together with the Herodians – and for a bit of history, this is a strange combination, as the Herodians are supporters of the puppet Jewish government put in place by the Roman occupiers, and the Pharisees are purists who despise the Romans. But together they have a question for Jesus: is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not? On the Pharisees’ side, you could say this is a real question – some Pharisees felt it was impure even to touch a Roman coin, emblazoned with the image of Caesar on it, the pagan ruler. The Herodians, however, are in power because of that pagan empire. So if Jesus answers, no, it’s not lawful, he delights the Pharisees and other zealots in the crowd who want to throw off the Roman occupation – but the Herodians will go report him for treason. If he says yes, it is lawful, he’s supporting the pagan oppressors, and the crowds will hate him. You can feel the elders salivating, waiting for the answer.

Jesus doesn’t seem to flinch. Hypocrites, he say, bring me a coin. And they do. (What are they doing carrying this coin? They claim not to want to touch it; Jesus, it seems, doesn’t carry those coins with him. But they bring one out anyway.) Whose head is this, and whose title? Jesus asks. Well, obviously, it’s Caesar, the current Roman emperor, the son of God, and the title says something like ‘Tiberius Caesar son of the divine Augustus, great high priest.’ So give what is due to Caesar, and give to God what is due to God, Jesus says. And he ‘gets’ them – because there these religious leaders are, in the temple, confronting the son of God with a coin that bears the image of the so-called son of God, and so they exit the scene, ‘amazed.’

First off, this is one of many, many times Jesus engages the topic of money. Jesus talks about and refers to money more often than any other topic, except for the Kingdom of God. 11 out of the 39 parables Jesus tells in all of the gospels are about money. So when we feel squeamish talking about money in church, well, we need to remember, Jesus did it all the time. Money, and what we do with it, tells us a lot about our priorities, our status in the world, our faith and trust in God – and lack of it. That’s why we talk about it in church during stewardship season – which we are in right now! It’s not just because the church runs on giving, like any other nonprofit sending letters in the mail. It’s because money is a spiritual matter to pray about, to discern, to consider with our community: what should we do with it? Is it acceptable to invest it wherever it makes a return, or should we be thinking about the industries we are supporting with our investments? Is the money we earn ours alone, or do we share it with our family, or our community, or our employees and colleagues? Do we give a reasonable amount after taxes or do we tithe the first fruits like scripture says? Is anything we have ours alone, or is it all really God’s anyway? Just like our time and attention, money is a resource to spend wisely and faithfully – as we are saying in this year’s stewardship season, money offers a chance for us to practice generosity. 

But this parable is also about more than money: It is about who and what we worship, and where we place our allegiance. Do we worship God? Or do we worship other gods instead?

So it’s also helpful to look at the passage from Exodus, the conversation Moses has with God.  Remember the story from last week, the incident with the golden calf? The people grew impatient with how long God and Moses were off talking on the mountain together, so Aaron made a new god for them. When Moses returned and saw their creation, he burned the calf, put the ashes into water, and made the people drink it. He was mad. And so was God, so angry that he lashed out and destroyed some of the people. So to prevent this from happening again – since God knows that the people will continue to wander away after other gods of their own making – God says, I’d just better not go with you. Moses argues him into coming, saying, how will everyone know that we are your people, if you aren’t with us? So God agrees. And then Moses talks God into showing himself – and God does so, though only the slightest glimpse of his back, lest he overwhelm Moses and destroy him too.

The message is clear: this is the living God. God is a companion way beyond our control. ‘I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious,’ says God, ‘and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.’ God isn’t at our beck and call – God is not something we can put bounds around and manage. So we tend to want to create other gods, that we think will serve us better. But they don’t satisfy what we deeply need. And they have a way of taking control of us themselves. Like, for example, money.

So Jesus is saying a few different things in this gospel encounter. One is, watch out for what has a hold of you. Money – or success or family or a national identity. We think we can be in control of them and make them act the way we want – that they can serve us, rather than the other way around. But that’s not all those gods do. Money doesn’t always just earn interest and pile up. The numbers have a way of going the opposite direction, every time we shop for groceries or fill up the gas tank. So we worry over it and treat it as scarce, keep it for ourselves and count it up again and again. Success is slippery, here one day, gone the next – and once we’ve retired and left the firm – well, who are we now? And family, well, family just doesn’t always act the way we want them to. What did we do wrong? Suddenly the gods don’t deliver, or rather what they do deliver is control over us.

But Jesus also says, Give to God what is due to God. The coin with Caesar’s image and title on it, you can give that to Caesar. But look at yourself. Whose image do you bear? Whose title? You are made in the image of God, says the book of Genesis. Your title is, Child of God. You are marked as God’s right from the beginning. In fact, all of creation is, including Caesar and his coins. All of it belongs to God, whatever delusions we might have to the contrary.

So when we come to stewardship time, when we come to making decisions about our money and our giving, when we plan out our day and our lives and our final wishes, all we can do is give God what is already God’s. Because it’s everything. Give to God the things that are God’s.  And God will give us all we need.