What is the reputation of our church? What do people say about St. Andrew’s? This is not an idle question. As a member of the Vestry in the middle of a Rector search, our reputation is something I have been thinking about a lot. Any candidate considering a call to St. Andrew’s will surely ask around to find out about us. The Episcopal church is small enough that any priest will know someone who knows someone who knows us. What will they say?
Our reading from Paul’s Letter to the Thessalonians today is the very beginning of the first of the two letters we have from Paul to the church at Thessalonica. This epistle is one of the earliest writings of what is now the New Testament. Paul visited Thessalonica in the late forties or early fifties, that is, the first century CE, not the 1940’s. The letter, written from Athens, was written as a Pastor to his congregation. This opening section is an example of Paul’s “Thanksgiving” sections. He opens almost every letter to his churches by listing off their good qualities. In this case he compliments their “work of faith, labor of love, and steadfastness of hope.” Their reputation is so strong, Paul says, that he doesn’t even have to brag about the Thessalonians in his travels. The people he meets have already heard about them. Could the same be said of St. Andrew’s? Of the Episcopal church? Could it be said of any of us as individuals?
It probably could not be said of the Pharisees who approached Jesus in the temple in today’s Gospel reading. We do not, in general, think of the Pharisees as “laboring in love” or “having steadfast hope.” That’s not the reputation they have in the Gospels. But before I badmouth the Pharisees too much I want to pull back and take a look at the context for the story we heard today. This section of Matthew is about Jesus’ last week before the crucifixion. In chapter 21 Jesus flipped over the tables of the money lenders. After that we get some parables, today’s story about taxes, and then next week Jesus answers the question, “which is the greatest commandment?” All of this happens in the context of Jesus knowing that his death is imminent.
In today’s lesson Jesus is in the courtyard of the temple, just a few feet away from the Holy of Holies. It is Passover week, so the temple is crowded with ordinary Jewish people. The crowd doesn’t like the Roman occupation, or its taxes, and there were frequent riots. Because of the crowds and the riots the Roman soldiers were on high alert. The courtyard was heavily policed. The Jewish authorities here included the Pharisees, and also the Herodians, a group that generally sided with the Roman government. The two groups were not on the same side of most questions, but they agreed that Jesus, who was popular with the people, was a problem. So they teamed up to ask him a question. They started with a little pandering, a string of snide compliments, “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” and then they went in with the knife “Is it lawful to pay taxes?” It’s a tricky little question: Is it lawful under Jewish law to pay taxes to the Roman emperor.
Remember where Jesus is. He is in the temple, surrounded by crowds known to riot, surrounded by Roman soldiers ready to arrest anyone making trouble. If he says no, it’s not lawful, then the Herodians could have him arrested and crucified, and while Jesus knows that’s coming it’s not the right time yet. If he says “Yes, it is lawful” the crowd will turn against him.
So instead of answering, Jesus simply asks for the coin that is used to pay taxes to the Emperor. Jesus, of course, doesn’t have one, but one of his questioners produces one quickly. Jesus immediately calls them hypocrites, which they surely were, but why does he use that particular word at that moment? It’s because the mere act of producing the coin shows them to be disobeying the law while they’re in the middle of trying to get Jesus tangled up in the law.
Let’s go back to the compliment they gave Jesus. What is translated as “You do not regard people with partiality” in the New Revised Standard Version might better be translated as “You do not look upon the face of people” meaning something like “You see people for who they really are, not just the front they put on for others.” And then Jesus calls them hypocrites, a word that originally meant actors who wore dramatic masks that covered their real faces. He’s telling them that he sees past their masks; he knows what game they’re playing. It's a sly word play that is lost in our translation, but probably wouldn’t have been lost on the original readers.
The crowd would have noticed that the questioners were able to produce a Roman coin right there in the Temple courtyard, next to the Holy of the Holies. The coin was forbidden in the temple because it carried a graven image of the Emperor on it. Cesar called himself Lord right there on the coin. That’s part of why all those money changers were hanging around in the previous chapter, people traveling a long distance had to change whatever coin they had for temple coin because that was the only coin that was acceptable for temple taxes. So before Jesus said anything to them about the coin, the Pharisees and the Herodians had already lost their own game. The question they asked wasn’t about taxes. It was about relationship with the empire and the fruit of that relationship was there in the palm of their hands. Jesus could have walked away at that moment. There’s no need to get into an argument about the law with people who don’t follow it.
But Jesus is not interested in winning the game that the Pharisees and Herodians are playing. He’s working under a different set of rules. So He stays and asks another question. “Whose image and whose likeness” is on this coin? And of course they answered “It’s Caesar.”
Then Jesus replies with what has to be one of the most famous quotes from the bible, one that is known even by people who have never read it: “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and render unto God that which is God’s.” Like anything from scripture that is used out of context it is usually misused in debates about things like separation of church and state, which didn’t exist in Jesus’ time. So rest assured that I am not going to turn this into a polemic about paying our taxes or voting or any modern political concerns. Jesus wasn’t talking about our politics. He wasn’t even talking about the politics of the Roman empire.
The word that is translated as “render” here can also be translated as “give back.” Give back to Caesar this idolatrous coin. It is clearly his. It was always his. He has stamped his likeness on it. And then give back to God the things that are God’s – the things that are stamped with God’s likeness. The coin holds the image of Caesar. But it is humankind that is made in the image of God. We are God’s and we always have been. We owe our coins to the State, but we owe ourselves to God, and not just ourselves but all of creation.
So what does that look like? What does it mean to give ourselves and all of creation back to God? For the Thessalonians, it looked like work of faith, labor of love, and steadfastness of hope. It means, as we’ll hear next week, that we should love God and love our neighbors. It means in a few minutes when we celebrate the Eucharist we come to God’s table for solace and for strength; for pardon and for renewal. It means that we do not wait until next Sunday to seek out God. It means we see in our neighbors not the masks that they wear, but the face of God underneath. We see in the earth and sky not resources to be exploited but gifts to be stewarded. It means taking care of ourselves because we are imprinted with the image of God.
What do people say about the church? Have we built a reputation as a place that belongs to God? Do we show through faith, love, and steadfastness of hope that we are imprinted with God’s own image? It’s a question that is worthy of reflection all of the time, not just when we’re searching for a new rector. When we see success, let’s do what Paul did at the beginning of almost every letter and proclaim our Thanksgivings, building each other up. And when we find we have stumbled, which we will, let’s remember that we can always give ourselves back to God, because we were always God’s anyway.
Year A Proper 24 RCL Track 1
Exodus 33:12-23
Psalm 99
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
Matthew 22:15-22
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