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Whose Image Is This? 

22:15-22 

There are some questions in life that are not really questions.  

For example, when someone asks ,“Did you notice anything different about the house?” Now, technically, this is a question. But it’s also an announcement that something has changed, you were supposed to notice it, and apparently you have already failed the first part of the examination.  

Some questions are not really questions. They are traps. And the trick is recognizing the trap before you walk right into it. 

Which brings us to this morning’s scripture lesson. When the Pharisees and the Herodians approach Jesus in Matthew 22, they have come prepared with what they believe is the perfect question. A question so carefully constructed that no matter how Jesus answers, he is going to get himself in trouble.  

I imagine they are feeling rather pleased with themselves. They have thought through the possibilities. They have considered the consequences. They have even rehearsed a rather flattering introduction about how honest Jesus is and how faithfully he teaches the way of God. And then they ask him the question they’ve been waiting to ask 

Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not? 

Now, that might sound like a perfectly reasonable question. But remember, some questions are not really questions. And Jesus knows exactly what they’re trying to do.  

Matthew tells us that the Pharisees sent their disciples, along with some Herodians, to question Jesus. This is already an unusual arrangement. Because the Pharisees and the Herodians were not exactly friends. The Pharisees were deeply concerned with faithfulness to Jewish law and religious tradition. The Herodians, on the other hand, were associated with the political establishment that maintained its power through cooperation with Rome. 

These were not two groups that ordinarily agreed on much of anything. But, apparently, they had found one thing they could agree on. They wanted to get rid of Jesus. And so they approached him with a question about paying taxes to the emperor.  

Now, we need to remember that Jewish people were living under Roman occupation. They were subject to Roman authority, Roman laws, and Roman taxes. And those taxes were not particularly popular. For many Jewish people, paying taxes to Rome was a painful reminder that they were living under the authority of a foreign empire.  

So when they ask Jesus whether it is lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, they are putting him in a very difficult position. If Jesus says no, don’t pay your taxes, his opponents could accuse him of encouraging rebellion against Rome. Either way, somebody is going to be unhappy. And that’s precisely the point.  

They aren’t interested in learning what Jesus thinks about taxation. They want him to say something they can use against him. But Jesus recognizes the trap immediately. He calls them hypocrites and asks why they are putting him to the test. Then he asks them to show him the coin used to pay the tax. They produce a denarius, a Roman coin bearing the image and title of the emperor.  

This gives Jesus an opening to ask a question of his own.  

Whose head is this, and whose title? 

They answer The emperor’s.  

And Jesus says: 

Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.  

Matthew tells us that when they heard this, they were amazed. They left him and went away.  

Now, I don’t think the point of this story is to demonstrate that Jesus is cleverer than his opponents. Because buried inside his response is a much bigger question. If the coin bears the image of the emperor, and therefore belongs to the emperor, what bears the image of God? 

And that’s where this conversation becomes about something much more important than taxes.  

If we go all the way back to the beginning of the Bible, to the first chapter of Genesis, we find these words: 

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

According to Genesis, every human being is created it in the image of God. And I think that gives us a different way of hearing Jesus’ response to the Pharisees and the Herodians.  

When Jesus asks whose image is on the coin, the answer is obvious. Caesar’s. The emperor has stamped his image on the currency of the empire. It is a symbol of his authority, his power, and his claim over the people who live under Roman rule.  

But Caesar’s image is not the only image that matters. Because long before Caesar stamped his image on a coin, God stamped God’s image on humanity. And that means the question of what belongs to God is much bigger than the question of what belongs to Caesar.  

Now, I think we sometimes hear Jesus’ response as though he is dividing life into two separate categories. There are the things that belong to the government, and there are the things that belong to God.  

Pay your taxes. Go to church. Everybody stays in their own lane. But I don’t think that’s quite what Jesus is getting at. Because if we take seriously the claim that we are created in God’s image, then our relationship with God cannot be confined to Sunday mornings.  

It shapes how we treat our neighbors. 

It shapes how we use our resources.  

It shapes how we exercise authority, how we respond to people who disagree with us, and how we care for those who cannot care for themselves.  

In other words, belonging to God is not one responsibility among many. It is the relationship that shapes every other responsibility we have.  

And I think that’s particularly important in a world where so many different things compete for our loyalty. Our employers make demands upon our time. Our families make demands upon our energy. Our communities make demands upon our resources. And the institutions we belong to make demands upon our allegiance. Many of those demands are perfectly legitimate. We have responsibilities to our families, our communities, and the institutions that make our common life possible.  

Jesus doesn’t tell his listeners that they can ignore their responsibilities. But he does remind us that those responsibilities do not have the final say in who we are. Because no employer, no government, no institution, and no human authority gets to determine our fundamental worth or claim our unquestioning allegiance.  

That belongs to God.  

And there’s another implication here that I don’t want us to miss.  

If I bear the image of God, then so do you. 

And so does the person sitting across the sanctuary from you. 

And so does the neighbor who drives you crazy. 

And so does the person whose life has taken a different path than you would have chosen. 

We don’t get to decide who bears God’s image based on whether we like them, agree with them, or approve of their decisions. That image is not something we earn though good behavior. It is something God has given us in creation. And that means when we encounter another human being, we are encountering someone who belongs to God.  

Which brings us back to the coin. Jesus asks his opponents to look at a denarius and identify the image stamped upon it. They can answer that question without hesitation. But perhaps the more difficult question is the one Jesus leaves hanging in the air.  

When people look at us, whose image do they see?  

Do they see the compassion of the God who created us? 

Do they see the mercy of the God who forgives us? 

Do they see the generosity of the God who has given us everything we have? 

Because the question isn’t simply what we owe to Caesar. The question is what it means to live as people who belong to God.  

You know, the Pharisees and Herodians came to Jesus that day wanting to know what they owed Caesar. And Jesus sent them away with a much bigger question. What do we owe God? 

And the answer is not simply an hour on Sunday morning, a few dollars in the offering plate, or a prayer before dinner. The answer is our whole lives. Not because God is demanding some kind of payment from us. But because we already belong to God. We belonged to God before we accomplished anything, before we earned anything, before we had anything to offer in return.  

And even when we forget whose we are, God does not forget who we are. We are God’s beloved children, created in God’s image, claimed by God’s grace, and called to reflect God’s love in the world.  

So the next time you find yourself wondering what you owe to your family, your community, your country, or any of the other things that make demands upon your life, remember the question Jesus asked that day.  

Whose image is this? 

Because Caesar may have his image stamped on a coin.  

But God has placed God’s image on you. 

And that makes all the difference. 

Thanks be to God.  

In Jesus’ name, 

Amen.