In whose image?
Matthew 22.15-22 (Proper 24A Trinity 17)
A silver denarius of reign of Tiberius Caesar
Who does the baby look like? That’s a constant topic of conversation when you have a very small child. I've discovered when they've grown a bit, it changes: "We hope to goodness we don't look like you Dad!"
I had a real shock a couple of years ago when I was given a very faded press cutting from the 1930s, for there in the middle of the column of this yellowing print was my face staring across generations. It turns out I'm the spitting image of my great-granddad—his retirement photo could be a photograph of me. ‘The spitting image.’
And didn't I also see an image of myself in the distraught tear stained face of a Pakistani father mourning his daughter crushed to death in the rubble of her school after a massive earthquake? An image in the sense that my imagining of how I would feel in his place brought me to cry with him. I recognized a family resemblance. Yet so often we are tempted to an evil imagining that sees each Muslim man as at least potentially a threat?
Who belongs to whom? What belongs to what? How do we arrive at bonds of affinity or boundaries of hate?
Some of Jesus’ opponents sent people to trick him into saying something that would provide a pretext for his arrest. One of these spoke up, saying: “Rabbi, we know that what you speak and teach is honest; you pay deference to no one, but teach in all sincerity the way of life that God requires. Give us your ruling on this: are we or are we not permitted to pay taxes to the Roman Emperor?”
Jesus, as we heard, saw through their ploy and said to them, “Show me a silver coin.” When they produced one, he asked them: “Whose image is on this coin, and whose inscription?”
What was the trick? Well, the coin had Caesar’s image on it, with the inscription “Divus”—“God.” To the Jews, treating an emperor as a God was idolatry. So just using the coin itself might constitute idolatry in Jewish law, and thus be forbidden. To use the coin to pay taxes to this same Caesar was still worse! But by Roman law the taxes must be paid. So the “trick” was that by answering one way, Jesus would break Jewish law; by answering the other way, he would break Roman law. Either way, he would be in hot water—arrest loomed.
But Jesus didn’t answer the question, directly at least. Instead, he answered the question with a question. This, says the folklore, is an old Jewish habit. As it is taught, “Why does a Jew answer a question with a question?” Answer: “Why not?”
So Jesus answered: “Whose image is on this coin?”
The man who had challenged him answered: “Caesar’s.”
And Jesus responds: “So give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
This answer, say Matthew, Mark, and Luke, took all his opponents by surprise, and they went away and said no more.
What is Caesar’s, and what is God’s? One way or another, people have been arguing the point ever since. Are there two different spheres of life, one ruled by Caesar and one by God? Does it mean to submit to Caesar’s authority in the material world, while adhering to God in the spiritual world? And if that is the case, how are we to know where to draw the line?
The questioners go away. Do they leave frustrated because Jesus had avoided the horns of the dilemma they had brought? Or do they sidle away because they appreciate Jesus has uncovered a deeper meaning in the question?
Something I read from a Bruderhof Community comment on this passage suggests an answer. Here’s how it was put: the Jewish scriptures teach that God made Adam, and the human race, in the image of God. The rabbis described it like this:
Adam, the first human being, was created as a single person to show forth the greatness of the Ruler who is beyond all rulers, the Blessed Holy One. For if a human ruler [like Caesar, the Roman Emperor who was the ruler in their time] mints many coins from one mould, they all carry the same image, they all look the same. But the Blessed Holy One shaped all human beings in the Divine Image, as Adam was … And yet not one of them resembles another.
(Sanhedrin 38a)
The analogy is between the image a human ruler, Caesar, puts upon the coins of the realm, and the image the Infinite Ruler puts upon the many “coins” of humankind. The very diversity of human faces shows the unity and infinity of God, whereas the uniformity of imperial coins makes clear the limitations on the power of an emperor. That's the Jewish version.
Now let’s reread the gospel story remembering what the Rabbis taught:
“Whose image is on this coin?” asks Jesus.
His questioner answers, “Caesar’s.”
Could it be that Jesus then puts his arm on the questioner’s shoulder and asks, “And whose image is on this coin?”
Perhaps the questioner muttered an answer; perhaps he didn’t need to. Not until after this exchange does Jesus say, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”
You see, Jesus has not just avoided the question and evaded the dilemma: He has answered in a way that is much more radical than if he had said either “Pay the tax” or “Don’t pay the tax”—a way that is profoundly radical, but gives no obvious reason for arrest.
Jesus has not proposed dividing up the world and experience between the material and the spiritual. He has redefined the issue: “Give your whole self to the One who has imprinted divinity upon you! You, a fellow rabbi, know that is the point of this story. All I have done is to remind you. We are all the coinage of God.”
If we read the Jewish version and the Christian version together— they fuse the spiritual and the political, the religious and the everyday. In this reading, the claim of the Divine Ruler to rule over an emperor includes the political realm. God can create infinite diversity and eternal renewal, and so is far richer than the imperial treasury—which can create only uniformity and repetition. But this is not just a philosophical or biological point. Because God rules over all rulers, because God calls forth from every human being a unique face of God, each human being must follow God—not Caesar.
The Jewish (Talmud) version is addressing the nature and meaning of human individuality. Human beings certainly are different from each other; is this cause for contempt, or celebration? Shall we look down on others who are different from us, or honour our differences as a sign of God’s immense grace? Shall each of us honour in our own selves the uniqueness that makes each of us different from all others, or be ashamed of our own peculiarities? Who belongs to whom? What belongs to what? How do we arrive at bonds of affinity or boundaries of hate?
Jesus doesn’t avoid the political problem: How shall a devout Jew, a devout human being, respond to overweening power in the hands of Caesar? Indeed his response is rather more challenging than his questioner bargained for—he seems to be calling for a much more radical refusal to obey the commands of Caesar, much more commitment to follow God.
“Giving to God what is God’s and to Caesar what is Caesar’s” does not demand of us faith that insists on uniformity—faith must not be used as an excuse for violence, hard-heartedness or abusive power against another. That would be to follow Caesar as if Caesar were God—turning Caesar’s law of uniformity into a subversion of God’s love of difference. We are stamped by the image of God that gives each one of us a unique face, and a responsibility towards God and each other that is particular and special. Give to God what is God’s—the offering only you can make.
I had a real shock a couple of years ago when I was given a very faded press cutting from the 1930s, for there in the middle of the column of this yellowing print was my face staring across generations. It turns out I'm the spitting image of my great-granddad—his retirement photo could be a photograph of me. ‘The spitting image.’
And didn't I also see an image of myself in the distraught tear stained face of a Pakistani father mourning his daughter crushed to death in the rubble of her school after a massive earthquake? An image in the sense that my imagining of how I would feel in his place brought me to cry with him. I recognized a family resemblance. Yet so often we are tempted to an evil imagining that sees each Muslim man as at least potentially a threat?
Who belongs to whom? What belongs to what? How do we arrive at bonds of affinity or boundaries of hate?
Some of Jesus’ opponents sent people to trick him into saying something that would provide a pretext for his arrest. One of these spoke up, saying: “Rabbi, we know that what you speak and teach is honest; you pay deference to no one, but teach in all sincerity the way of life that God requires. Give us your ruling on this: are we or are we not permitted to pay taxes to the Roman Emperor?”
Jesus, as we heard, saw through their ploy and said to them, “Show me a silver coin.” When they produced one, he asked them: “Whose image is on this coin, and whose inscription?”
What was the trick? Well, the coin had Caesar’s image on it, with the inscription “Divus”—“God.” To the Jews, treating an emperor as a God was idolatry. So just using the coin itself might constitute idolatry in Jewish law, and thus be forbidden. To use the coin to pay taxes to this same Caesar was still worse! But by Roman law the taxes must be paid. So the “trick” was that by answering one way, Jesus would break Jewish law; by answering the other way, he would break Roman law. Either way, he would be in hot water—arrest loomed.
But Jesus didn’t answer the question, directly at least. Instead, he answered the question with a question. This, says the folklore, is an old Jewish habit. As it is taught, “Why does a Jew answer a question with a question?” Answer: “Why not?”
So Jesus answered: “Whose image is on this coin?”
The man who had challenged him answered: “Caesar’s.”
And Jesus responds: “So give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
This answer, say Matthew, Mark, and Luke, took all his opponents by surprise, and they went away and said no more.
What is Caesar’s, and what is God’s? One way or another, people have been arguing the point ever since. Are there two different spheres of life, one ruled by Caesar and one by God? Does it mean to submit to Caesar’s authority in the material world, while adhering to God in the spiritual world? And if that is the case, how are we to know where to draw the line?
The questioners go away. Do they leave frustrated because Jesus had avoided the horns of the dilemma they had brought? Or do they sidle away because they appreciate Jesus has uncovered a deeper meaning in the question?
Something I read from a Bruderhof Community comment on this passage suggests an answer. Here’s how it was put: the Jewish scriptures teach that God made Adam, and the human race, in the image of God. The rabbis described it like this:
Adam, the first human being, was created as a single person to show forth the greatness of the Ruler who is beyond all rulers, the Blessed Holy One. For if a human ruler [like Caesar, the Roman Emperor who was the ruler in their time] mints many coins from one mould, they all carry the same image, they all look the same. But the Blessed Holy One shaped all human beings in the Divine Image, as Adam was … And yet not one of them resembles another.
(Sanhedrin 38a)
The analogy is between the image a human ruler, Caesar, puts upon the coins of the realm, and the image the Infinite Ruler puts upon the many “coins” of humankind. The very diversity of human faces shows the unity and infinity of God, whereas the uniformity of imperial coins makes clear the limitations on the power of an emperor. That's the Jewish version.
Now let’s reread the gospel story remembering what the Rabbis taught:
“Whose image is on this coin?” asks Jesus.
His questioner answers, “Caesar’s.”
Could it be that Jesus then puts his arm on the questioner’s shoulder and asks, “And whose image is on this coin?”
Perhaps the questioner muttered an answer; perhaps he didn’t need to. Not until after this exchange does Jesus say, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”
You see, Jesus has not just avoided the question and evaded the dilemma: He has answered in a way that is much more radical than if he had said either “Pay the tax” or “Don’t pay the tax”—a way that is profoundly radical, but gives no obvious reason for arrest.
Jesus has not proposed dividing up the world and experience between the material and the spiritual. He has redefined the issue: “Give your whole self to the One who has imprinted divinity upon you! You, a fellow rabbi, know that is the point of this story. All I have done is to remind you. We are all the coinage of God.”
If we read the Jewish version and the Christian version together— they fuse the spiritual and the political, the religious and the everyday. In this reading, the claim of the Divine Ruler to rule over an emperor includes the political realm. God can create infinite diversity and eternal renewal, and so is far richer than the imperial treasury—which can create only uniformity and repetition. But this is not just a philosophical or biological point. Because God rules over all rulers, because God calls forth from every human being a unique face of God, each human being must follow God—not Caesar.
The Jewish (Talmud) version is addressing the nature and meaning of human individuality. Human beings certainly are different from each other; is this cause for contempt, or celebration? Shall we look down on others who are different from us, or honour our differences as a sign of God’s immense grace? Shall each of us honour in our own selves the uniqueness that makes each of us different from all others, or be ashamed of our own peculiarities? Who belongs to whom? What belongs to what? How do we arrive at bonds of affinity or boundaries of hate?
Jesus doesn’t avoid the political problem: How shall a devout Jew, a devout human being, respond to overweening power in the hands of Caesar? Indeed his response is rather more challenging than his questioner bargained for—he seems to be calling for a much more radical refusal to obey the commands of Caesar, much more commitment to follow God.
“Giving to God what is God’s and to Caesar what is Caesar’s” does not demand of us faith that insists on uniformity—faith must not be used as an excuse for violence, hard-heartedness or abusive power against another. That would be to follow Caesar as if Caesar were God—turning Caesar’s law of uniformity into a subversion of God’s love of difference. We are stamped by the image of God that gives each one of us a unique face, and a responsibility towards God and each other that is particular and special. Give to God what is God’s—the offering only you can make.
