Whose Image Is Stamped On You?
This is the sermon I'm preaching today at St. Timothy Lutheran Church. The text is Matthew 22:15-22.
The Pharisees were popular with the people. They disdained the actions of religious leaders who kowtowed to the Roman occupation and they were a kind of renewal movement in Judaism. In principle, they resented and resisted the tax, but did not go as far as the radical nationalists who publicly resisted its payment. Then there were the Herodians who wanted to maintain their standing and wealth, resulting from their support of the Roman occupation.
What’s the problem with the tax? This is a tax supporting the machinery of the Roman occupation. The occupied were being asked to fund the very occupation that made their lives miserable. The issue was far from abstract. In 6 CE, the Roman head tax was instituted when Judea became part of a larger Roman province. The annual tax of a denarius was roughly the amount a laborer would make in a day. Many faithful Jews were incensed at their forced participation in such activity. There was an immediate revolt, and a larger and disastrous revolt by the Zealots from 66-70 CE (Douglas T. King, Feasting on the Gospels: Matthew, Volume 2).
Jesus is between a rock and a hard place. If he agrees that the imperial tax should be paid, then he will experience the wrath of not only the Pharisees, but the people. Jesus sided with the poor and disenfranchised. Siding with those who believed in paying the tax went against everything for which Jesus stood. If Jesus said they shouldn’t pay the tax, then he could be accused of sedition, of rebellion against the government. Collaboration or treason are the two horns of the dilemma in which Jesus finds himself while the Pharisees and Herodians hope to stick Jesus on one or the other.
The Pharisees and Herodians were not asking Jesus an honest question, so he is not giving them an honest answer. He saw their hypocrisy, so was evasive.
I love this part of the story where Jesus asks his questioners for a coin. The denarius was the specific coin with which the tax had to be paid. Jesus asks for one and someone had one. Now this took place in the temple and here these ever so religious people had taken the coin into the temple. We may say, “Big deal.”
It was a big deal because as we find out in the story, the head of the emperor was on the coin. But that isn’t all that was on it. There was also the inscription, “Tiberius Caesar, august son of the divine Augustus, high priest.” The emperor was worshipped as a god. Here God’s commandments of no other gods and no images were being broken by these religious leaders, which was not lost on Jesus.
Jesus’ answer amazed them and they left.
The word translated “head” is eikon. It is this same word used in the creation account, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). In Genesis it’s translated “image.” Whose image do we bear?
Humanity is made in the image of God. We bear God’s likeness and we were made God’s own in holy baptism. What are we to give to God? The things stamped with God's image -- us! We are to give God ourselves -- our whole selves -- not just some part.
What does this mean? When we deny the divine image in others, persons are made less than human by political circumstances. Then Jesus’ words speak to both the oppressed and the oppressor.
We have much dissension today in our country. We vilify those with whom we disagree politically, considering them to be stupid and fools. Is this how we should treat those made in the image of God? Even those who are evil are made in God’s image, although that image is flawed.
We are God’s, completely and totally—all we are and all we have. We are called to serve as God’s agents, God’s partners, and God’s co-workers, being stewards of creation and extending to all the abundant life God wants for all. How does how we spend our money, our time, our energy, our resources, our gifts reflect that all of it and all of us have been imprinted with God’s very image? Take a personal inventory of your life—maybe starting with finances or your calendar. What might that reveal? By striving to give back to God what is already God’s, we are daily working out what that means. And that means all of me. That means all of us together. All the time. Amen.
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