“Whose Image Is This?” (Matthew 22:15-22) - Mack Dennis

The encounter begins just after Jesus has told a parable that puts the authorities on the defensive. We're well into Matthew now, so they've been hearing what Jesus is saying and catching His meaning, and they've had just about enough of this Jesus fellow. So the Pharisees and the— now the Herodians are plotting to ensnare Jesus, and I think that's the perfect word, ensnare, because it conveys getting caught in one of those hidden nets where you get pulled up above the ground and you hang suspended and stuck and embarrassed in front of everyone. The specific way the authorities want to ensnare Jesus is in His words. As Matthew puts it, the Pharisees went and plotted to ensnare Him in His words. They want Him walking away from this riddle-me-this encounter thinking, I really shouldn't have said that. So they set Him up with this clever question. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, Or not. The questioners must be very proud of their or not, because that's what forces a certain kind of answer, a binary, a black and white answer. Without that tag, they leave the door open for Jesus to wax eloquent and dodge a clear response. By adding or not, they make it a yes or no question. If Jesus says yes, He angers the anti-Roman crowd and probably has a lot of explaining to do to His disciples, and probably His mother too, and to say nothing of all of His neighbors and all the people of Israel, period, who'd be very happy to be free of the Roman tax. and the imperial domination that those taxes fund. But if Jesus says no, he invites Rome's wrath, which as everyone knows is a very poor plan if longevity is your goal. If you generally enjoy things like freedom, and breathing, and keeping all of your appendages intact, saying no is a most unwise course of action. It's a very clever question. The answer has to be yes or no. Yes gets you labeled a traitor though, and no invites the accusation of treason. How's Jesus going to get out of this? What's more, they flatter Jesus in the lead-up to the question. Teacher, we know how sincere you are and how you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth, and we're all so impressed with what a non-anxious presence you are. And that parable you told, that was one of your best. And with their flattery, the leaders ironically confer upon Jesus a quality associated with God. Remember the Lord's directive to Samuel when choosing Israel's king. For the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. Oh, good teacher, we know you don't keep up appearances. You see through superficial images. How you do see through through the masks that people wear. But here, tucked neatly into their flattery, almost camouflaged, is a most interesting way of putting it. Here we begin to see the Pharisees and the Herodians ensnaring themselves. Listen carefully. Where these authorities flatter Jesus, for showing no partiality. Their literal words are, we know that you don't look on the face of anyone. Why do you test me, you hypocrites? Jesus says lovingly. Show me the coin used for the tax. And they bring him a denarius. Whose image is this? And whose title? To be sure, this is not a story about evenly dispersing our loyalties between church and state. Give a little bit to the emperor, give a little bit more to God. Rather, this is a story about whose image we reflect. When the die is cast, in whose image have we been stamped? Or to use what may sound like a more old-fashioned word, this is a story about idolatry and how over time our lives reflect what or whom we worship. Now note this: Jesus has to ask for a coin because he doesn't have one. He's not at all complicit in the empire's economy. But these authorities are, including the Pharisees' disciples, along with the Herodians. And where they were hoping to embarrass Jesus by ensnaring Him in His own words, these authorities have just produced from their own pockets a graven image of Roman Emperor Tiberius Julius Augustus Caesar, who reigned from 14 to 37 AD. How embarrassing, especially for the disciples of the Pharisees who surely knew by heart by now from their seminary classroom the second commandment, Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. Good teacher, we know that you don't look on the face of anyone. Now if you will come and stand alongside this group and witness as a bystander this very strange encounter. Listen to the tones of voice. On the one hand, we can imagine a certain tone of voice in Jesus as He asks the question, whose image is this, and whose title? In this version, we can hear him asking it with a kind of plain sense, matter-of-fact tone, and the authorities responding plainly in kind, the emperor's. Then again, we might imagine Jesus asking the question like an attorney cross-examining a witness and obtaining a key confession. and inspiring the jury to return a guilty verdict in the first hour. Whose image is this? And whose title? And the authorities on the witness stand, cornered and exposed, finally confess under their breath, the emperor's. But today I'm wondering if Jesus' tone of voice in this moment isn't one of heartbreak instead. Whose image is this? Whose title? As if to say, especially to the Pharisees' disciples, what are you doing with this? And what are you doing with them? Why are you children of Moses collaborating with the world's newest version of Egypt? Were you not bought with a price? If you attended or listened to the chapel study I taught earlier this year entitled The Art of Not Being Governed, a title taken from a book by sociologist James C. Scott, you may remember that I referenced the millions of minority residents of Southeast Asia. Including the Hmong and Lahu peoples who've intentionally fled from state control to escape taxation, military conscription, forced labor, and even things like epidemics. They just left and quite literally fled for the hills, and that's where they've been living for generations. Isn't that a great idea? I mean, on your worst days, we've got mountains right around here. We could just camp for the rest of our lives. No more taxes, at least. Anyhow, by relocating to the mountainous terrain that's too rugged for state officials and armies and tax collectors to access, one imagines the question, should you pay taxes to Caesar or not doesn't come up very often. But for most of us, even as we live in or near higher elevations, these options are neither likely or really possible. Nevertheless, Christians through the centuries have done the very difficult work of reflecting Christ's image in the face of worldly powers. The Anabaptists, for instance, wrote a document called the Schleitheim Confession, which forbade Christians from taking up the sword, among other things. There are 7 articles. The 6th says in part, Jesus himself forbids the use of the force of the sword. saying, the worldly princes lord it over them, but not so shall it be for you. In other words, there are certain Christians before and during the Reformation refused to take jobs that might require them to take someone's life. They knew that being made in the image of God meant that there are certain jobs and ways of life that Christians won't do. And while I don't mean to present this as a blanket statement for all times, I offer this as an example of conscientious Christians wrestling with how or whether to render under Caesar. Discerning what effect their participation in the world's affairs would have on their image, and not just their image, but Christ's image. What forms our own wrestling and discerning will take will look different in every generation of Christians. For our part, I believe Jesus' encounter with the Pharisees and the Herodians, at the very least, should put us all on notice that Christ's own reputation is at stake by how we live, and how we spend our time, and how we work, how we invest, how we raise our children. At the very least, how we live should not leave others wondering about us, whose image is this? In a time of reckless warmongering, where are the Christians who will refuse to render under Caesar? In a time of distressful ugliness, where are the Christians who are concerned to create beautiful music and eloquent prayers and sacred spaces for gathering and moral imagination and mutual encouragement. In a time of so much meanness and casual cruelty, where are the Christians who will embody the tenderness and kindness of God even to their enemies? In a time of thoughtless consumption, where are the Christians who are recovering and reclaiming the virtues of thrift, preservation, and careful tending of our little plot of God's creation, wherever it may be. In a time of harried, busy-bodied, busy busyness, where are the Christians who are saying to themselves and to one another, And to their children, there are times for work, and there are times for play, and there are times that we are going to protect for our families and for nurturing our friendships. Where are the households who are saying to themselves and to one another and to their children, however busy the rest of our week is, we're going to protect This night, or this afternoon, or this hour, and this table, and we're going to gather phone-free, screen-free, with our full attention and affection directed at one another. And where are the churches who are helping families to feel like they're not trying to do this by themselves. This little story in Matthew offers us a glimpse of Jesus crashing into our idols and exposing our graven images and our injust and unjust economies that captivate and beguile us. This is Jesus even revealing his concern for those who, in the pursuit of power and privilege and comfort, recast themselves in the image of a counterfeit currency and warp the image of their Creator. This is another bracing instance of the living God looking us in the eye and asking, Will you be made in my image? You're already made in my image. This week multiple households in our congregation encountered yet another consequence of one of the idols that so captivates our nation. Many of you heard about the shooting in Bend, Oregon. This came especially close to 2 families in our congregation, to Paul and Tammy Swinney, whose grandson is a student at the school. To Nancy and Mindy Flippin-Allen, whose godson's wife is best friends with the teacher who was killed. Many of us who knew that they were so deeply affected during the hours that they were waiting to hear who had and had not survived Members across our congregation waited with them, holding our breath and choking back tears and wondering, when will this stop? And I know when these kinds of things happen, all of us are wondering those kinds of questions, and it's so difficult to have the kind of conversations we need to have. as a society, as a civilization, to meet these moments faithfully. Often we get involved in the kinds of trick questions that only lead us to black and white answers. But I remember being part of a Christian community that gathered around the places where people had been shot. in my former town of Durham, and there was a crew of folks, and they weren't all Christian, it was just people of goodwill who would gather at the place where someone had died by gunfire, and they would circle that place and they would pray right out in the open, in public, and anyone could join and anyone could speak. It was a people's liturgy of grief and lament and the people's liturgy of hope. And I remember at one of those gatherings, there were 2 guys came off a bus and were walking down the sidewalk and encountered the group of the prayer vigil that had been taking over half the street and all of the sidewalk, and they had to walk around us to get past. And stumbling upon the perimeter of that gathering, they looked at a couple of people and said, what is this? What's going on here? And it reminds me of the ending of this story, because when Jesus says his answer, give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's, they walk away amazed. Well, these 2 guys who got off the bus, they come and they ask the question, what are you people doing here? And they said, we're praying for Keith, and we're giving thanks for his life, and we're shedding tears for the costly loss, and we're expressing our hope in God for a different kind of future. Amen. And both of those guys looked back at them and said, That's good. That's amazing. Y'all keep doing that. And they walked off amazed and giving thanks. I imagine they had seen the image of God staring right back at them in this precious moment. Amen.