The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost - October 19

We Are God's Currency
Matthew 22:15-22


Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s. The traditional translation of the phrase from today’s Gospel: Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's. This is surely one of Jesus’ all time best-known sayings. It is often brought into discussions on stewardship or the separation of church and state. But these take it out of context.

There is a lot going on in the encounter that is described in today’s Gospel reading. We’ve been reading our way through Matthew all summer and now into the fall. We are actually getting towards the end of the Gospel. The parables we’ve heard the last few Sunday’s and the event of today’s reading take place in Matthew’s Gospel after Palm Sunday, after the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Jesus is in the temple teaching. His audience is primarily the religious leaders of the time.

As today’s event begins disciples of the Pharisees and Herodians approach Jesus in a deliberate attempt to trap him. The only thing the Pharisees and Herodains hated more than each other was Jesus. Hatred creates strange bedfellows. Remember, that at this time Israel was occupied by Rome, the Jews were oppressed by the Roman Empire. The Pharisees were religious leaders in the Jewish community. Herodians were Jewish sympathizers with the Roman authorities. Both saw their power threatened by Jesus. So they set out to trap and shame him publicly.

It’s also worth noting that at this time Jews paid multiple taxes… The temple tax (21%), land taxes, customs taxes. The tax in question in this encounter was the imperial tax, a tax imposed by Rome on the Jews to support the Roman occupation and oppression of the Jews! If Jesus spoke in favor of that tax, the people would be angry with his apparent support of the occupying powers. If he spoke against it, he would be in trouble with those very powers.

All of this is the context for Jesus’ words. This is not just a preachy phrase about stewardship. The entire situation was highly fraught and tense. And Jesus’ response had implications for how the people would live the whole of their lives.

Into this fraught, tense, significant situation, Jesus places the focus on the idea of image. The image on the coin. In today’s translation Jesus asks, “whose head is on the coin.” The Greek word translated head is actually eikon, much better translated image. And it means even more than that. An ikon conveys the actual reality of what it represents. The coin with the image of the emperor bears the actual reality of empire.

In speaking about image Jesus almost certainly meant for his hearers then and now to make the connection with the creation story in Genesis. Where the story says that we all are created in the image of God; we all bear the image of God.

As I was thinking about how that coin with the emperor’s image on it bore the presence of the empire, I got to thinking about the power of money, what money actually does.

Money is the currency of many of the transactions in our lives. Do you think of your life as full of transactions? Do you consider transactions at all except when you’re struggling with the bank? Actually, our lives are full of all sorts of transactions. Transactions, by their very nature, always involve two parties. Two people or two parties, and some direct interaction or exchange. In a transaction, something changes hands from one person to another. And usually, the transaction produces some sort of result. There are always two parties or two people and something changes hands. Whatever it is that changes hands is the currency of that transaction.

Take a minute and think about the transactions have you participated in, say, the last 48 hours.

 There are all sorts of transactions. Not just financial. I spent Thursday and Friday of last week downtown at retreat for those of serving as regional Deans in the Diocese of Chicago. One of the things we talked a lot about was relationships. Relationships are built through a series of transactions. The currency of those transactions is usually not money, at least not for the relationships we cherish. I recently came across a great quote: The shortest distance between two people is a story. Stories are part of the currency that changes hands as a relationship is built. There are other currencies, also, in the transactions of relationship-building. Physical touch. Words and acts of caring.

In the last 48 hours you undoubtedly did participate in transactions where money was the currency. Lots of them. Think about who those transactions were with and what they meant.

And consider that in just a few minutes you will participate in a transaction right here at this altar. The language may sound strange, but the sacraments are transactions. The currency is God’s grace, changing hands from God to us. The effect of that transaction depends upon who we are and how we accept it. But it is a transaction between two parties. And the currency of any of the sacramental transactions is God’s grace.

So. Circling back to Jesus’ words in this morning’s Gospel.

That coin, which bears the image of the emperor, is the currency of the transactions of empire.

We, who bear the image of God, are the currency of God’s transactions!

That’s what I hope you will remember from this Gospel. We are God’s currency. What we say, what we do, what we spend, what we give… In all of these actions and transactions of our daily lives we have the potential to be God’s currency, the means by which God’s transactions in the world take place.

We are God’s money, printed with the image of God. We are the currency through which God buys things for God’s kingdom in the world. We are the currency for God to build things, including relationships. We are how God does things. We are God’s money.

Printed with the image of God, we are the currency of God’s transactions in the world. What an amazing gift and profound responsibility.