Whose Image is on the coin of life?

The last few weeks we’ve been hearing about Jesus’s encounter with various Jewish authorities in the temple during Holy Week. Jesus has pressed them about believing John, about doing the Father’s will and about whether they produce the good fruits of God’s kingdom or rather rotten grapes. In this morning’s Gospel reading we get a new group coming to query Jesus, made up of some disciples of the Pharisees, and some Herodians whose allegiance would have been to Rome. This is a group the Pharisees have sent to find grounds from which to trap Jesus, certainly in an attempt to diminish his building influence in Jewish circles, but potentially to have him arrested or killed so as not to challenge their authority any further.

Pretending deference to his wisdom, they ask: “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” Paying taxes to the emperor of course presumes that one is a subject of Rome and of the emperor and so a no answer to paying taxes to the emperor could make Jesus appear to be a threat to Roman power; something the Herodians would be sure to tell the Emperor. On the other hand, saying it is lawful with the disciples of the Pharisees present could in fact make it appear that Jesus endorses the idea that Jews are subject first to Rome rather than to God. Either answer could be used to discredit at the least, and more likely make him a target for arrest.

But Jesus, knowing their hearts, cuts through their deception and their presumption: “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites?” Then he asks them to bring him the coin used for the tax and asks them: “Whose head is this, and whose title?” They answer, “The emperor’s.” And here comes the million dollar answer: “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” He completely undercuts the Pharisees’ plan to trap and expose him, and instead, he exposes the false choice posed by their disciples and the Herodians. The latter are amazed, and so leave.

What a fantastic response of logic drawn right out of Scripture. Those who question Jesus ask about what is owed the emperor, and in turn, what you and I owe to the authorities governing our lives. Jesus responds that yeah, we do have obligations to those who govern us; we also have an obligation foremost to God. But what does that obligation involve?

Well if you’ve been here the last several weeks, you’ll have heard parables where Jesus challenges the Jewish authorities who claim to be doing God’s will asking them if they are truly willing to respond to what God is asking of them. And what is it that he asks? There’s a clue that is unfortunately cut out of the version of the bible that we read. The Greek word translated “head” in the NRSV is eikon, meaning “image.” So what Jesus actually asks is: “whose image (rather than, whose head) is on the coin.” Does this word remind you folks of anything in Scripture? Hopefully those of you who went through our Bible study on Genesis last year remember this and so could hear the question Jesus was pointing right back at the Pharisees who should know their Scriptures well: whose image do we bear? God created humankind in God’s image.

Tertullian comments on this implicit connection in his work, On Idolatry: Caesar’s image is on the coin, while God’s image is in the human person. Give Caesar the money. Give God yourself. This of course is precisely what Jesus has been pushing the Pharisees to recognize throughout the parables we’ve been reading for the last several weeks: you have imagined that you’re fulfilling your obligations with your traditions, with your knowledge of words and ideas, with your accumulation of possessions and comfort, authority, and position. But you refuse to give yourselves over to God. 

It is your whole self that God demands. We know this not simply because Jesus gives us the 10 commandments summarized, that we must love God with all our heart, mind, soul and body, and that we must love our neighbours and enemies as ourselves; but because Jesus lives out these very commandments and in doing so, literally embodies them. We know that Jesus overcomes this particular situation with the Pharisees; but of course he does so as he will go and offer his life up for our sake to be crucified by Jews and Romans alike.

This should warn us that his answer and his witness not just to his Jewish and gentile questioners, but to all of us, is not one that will keep us safe, in control, in power, or comfortable. Jesus tells us that to do the will of the Father we must be willing to go where we do not wish to go just as his faithfulness to the Father leads him to the Cross; it will leader Peter to torture and imprisonment, and Peter, and many martyrs after him, to death.

To follow God, to bear the responsibility of being made in the image of God, well, it can often be very costly. At the very least, it might mean surrendering advantages we have; stopping a practice that provides benefits to us, but harms God’s own creation, particularly those made in his image; it may mean coming alongside people who frustrate us; it may mean keeping our mouths shut and listening, seeking clarification rather than jumping to immediate conclusions or triumphal pronouncements about what we think. It may mean obeying authorities when we’d rather go our own way, for the sake of others whom our decisions affect. For we must remember that God’s image is in every single human being God makes; not simply in us. 

It is our whole life that belongs to God: our money, our loyalty, our relationships, our decisions, everything we have and are, belong to God. These things are merely entrusted to us not simply for us, but so that through them we might point and draw others to Christ in how we act and speak, at every time and in every part of our lives. Not just on Sundays. Not just when we manage to think about it. But at every moment of our lives.

Jesus promises us that those who lose their life for his sake, will find life. Jesus commands us here to give ourselves to God, but does so because he has already given himself for us that our sacrifices would not be in vain. So we can let go of the things in this life we often use to defend ourselves, our comfort, place, purpose, authority, power; our demand for attention and the need to prove our worth by showing others to be wrong. Instead, we can allow Jesus’s own life to challenge and change us. For we know in light of his life, death and resurrection that in Christ, there is life that we cannot obtain with anything we have, no matter who we are. Thanks be to God. AMEN