An odd alliance: Pharisees and Herodians. Put together, it meant that both the official religious establishment AND the government were in cahoots to trap Jesus. Normally they couldn’t stand each other, but they both sensed in our Lord a threat and that was enough to make them bury their respective hatchets long enough to see if they could land the Galilean Teacher in trouble one way or another.First, the butter-up: “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone’s opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances.”
All of which, of course, was the exact truth and part of what drove them batty about the Lord. But they are not sincere in saying it, and he knows it. Yet he awaits their question. “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”
They are convinced they’ve got him. If he says, “yes” he’ll lose his popularity among the religious and the common people, who despised the Roman overlords. If he says, “no” they’ve got grounds for rebellion and treason.
But the problem with trying to trap Jesus is that it never works. He won’t be corralled, tamed, or broken in. He’s got other business to attend to. “You hypocrites,” he says “Show me the coin for the tax.”
They have one at hand. You can see him take it, look it over, and nod his head. “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” He asks them. Can they feel a trap closing on them with the question? In perplexity at what He is driving at, they admit: “Caesar’s.” “Ah,” says Jesus. “Caesar’s. Well, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” Let’s stop there for a second and think about that.
Government exists in this world. And it exists at the command of God. True, at times governments horribly abuse the very purposes for which God made it, but that doesn’t make it one bit less a divine institution. Christ calls upon us to honor and support it - and even to pay our taxes cheerfully. Caesar - the state - should receive the funding from us to accomplish that which accords for the common good: protection and maintenance of good order and all that makes our life together possible. Our Lord didn’t come to interfere with that order. “My kingdom is not of this world” He told Pilate.
But the kicker is that Christ didn’t stop with telling folks to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. As He handed the coin back He looked them in the eye and told them: “and render to God the things that are God’s.”
The things that are Caesar’s bear his likeness and his inscription upon them. Show who they belong to and whose authority and power backs them up. And likewise, there is a likeness and an inscription graven upon humanity. We do not belong to ourselves. We belong to Another. And when Jesus calls us to render to God the things that are God’s, He reminds us of that inscription and that likeness. “And so in the image of God, God made man, male and female He made them.”
If the image shows to whom we belong, then we are to render to God what is His. Our very lives, all that we have and all that we are, yielded to Him, placed at His disposal, doing His bidding with joy. We are not our own.
But that is precisely what humanity had failed to do. Each one of us, instead of rendering to God what is His, has claimed our life for ourselves - and thus made our lives hell as well as hell for those around us. Oh, we’re content to throw God a few pieces, a little bit of time, a sleepy hour in church once a week, a few bucks to keep the place going. But we want the rest of our lives to be OURS. To do with as we see fit. To give ourselves over to the pursuit of wealth or pleasure or both. “A little religion never hurt anyone” but God isn’t interested in a little religion. He’s downright uninterested in it. He wants your life.
Our first reading reminded us that wisdom is better than jewels, than gold or silver. Wisdom can give you a lasting inheritance. Our second reading challenged us not to walk as enemies of the cross of Christ - serving only our bellies and glorying in the things that ought make us ashamed.
Render to God the things that are God’s. It’s the only way to live a life that goes beyond the pointless chasing after wealth or good times meanwhile heading straight to the grave. And this is the life that our Lord Himself lived among us and lives still for it’s an eternal life. Do you recall how St. Peter could express this? “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us back to God.” 1 Peter 3:18
From the Father’s heart of love the Son is sent into a world where people are lost. They’ve forgotten who they belong to, and the inscription and image have been dulled beyond recognition. He came to give us all back to God, to trace once more upon humanity’s face the very image and likeness in which we had been created. And that image is love. Divine love, not mere human love that’s always calculates what’s in it for me. The total self-giving love that was born in Bethlehem and nailed to the tree of Calvary in order, by bearing all sins, to bring humanity back to God, to wipe out the record of our wrong, and to free us to love by uniting us to Himself, so that His love might live within us, that we might be given wholly back to God.
Give to God the things that are God’s, my friends! Yield to Him your very self, for He has yielded His self to you and stoops down to you today to fill you with His pardon, His peace, His life. The coin of the heavenly realm of which we are now citizens is divine love, not love LIKE that manifested on Calvary, but that very love itself living within us, changing us, renewing us, making evident to all the One to whom we belong.
Today He comes to you at the Altar, the very One who will one day transform your lowly body to be like His glorious body; He comes today to transform your soul already by giving you His love, His very self. The Crucified and Risen Lord holds nothing back, and being divine love incarnate, He forgives you all your sins. He comes to you to form within you in constantly growing clarity the image of His own Godhead: love, self-giving love. Lo, here is the wisdom that is more precious than jewels, and more important even than the duty of giving to Caesar what is His. “Render to God the things that are God’s” for He came and comes to render to you all that is His. To Him alone be the glory forever and ever! Amen.
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