1. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The message from God’s Word on this 20th Sunday after Pentecost is taken from Matt. 22:15-20 and is entitled, “Whose Image is on You?” Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. Our text today from Matthew 20 shares a conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees and Herodians who were questioning him, trying to pit him against Caesar. They asked Jesus, "Is it alright to pay taxes to Caesar?" (Matt. 20:17) That’s one question I wish Jesus had answered differently—then on April 15 you could be godly and rebellious at the same time! Jesus, so brilliant in his response says, "Give me a coin." And he took the coin, and he says, "Whose image do you see on this?" The Pharisees and Herodians say, "Caesar." Jesus says, "Give to Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and give to God that which is God’s." The dishonesty of the questioners is noticed in the fact that they didn’t come back with a second question. The Pharisees and Herodians should have said, "What belongs to God?" And Jesus would have said, "Whose image is on you?" Give to Caesar that which belongs to Caesar; give to God that which belongs to God. God’s image is on you.
3. Have you ever heard the expression “Image is everything”? I understand that saying to mean that truth and reality are not important. You can achieve your goal—getting elected, making the sale, or whatever it might be—if you only look good. A little schmoozing and selling yourself. Make folks think you are or have what they want, and the result will be the same as if it were true. Scripture has a word for people who live by this philosophy. It’s an ugly word. Jesus uses that word in our text: “Why do you test me, you hypocrites?” Jesus’ enemies were putting up a false image of flattery, to trap Jesus. Jesus sees through the false image, but then, he turns the tables. He shows his opponents—and us—that, the right image is everything.
4. The right image eluding us obscures everything. The Pharisees and Herodians were motivated by their false—and evil—image of the world. The Pharisees and the Herodians had very little in common. The Herodians were officials of the hated Roman authority. To the Pharisees, the guardians of Jewish tradition, Law, and hope for a messianic kingdom, the Roman Empire and those who served it were the great obstacles that stood in the way of all their hearts’ desires. But now they join forces with the opposition. The Pharisees have put their heads together to figure out a way to trap Jesus. They have a plan. It uses the Jewish laws and traditions as one jaw of the trap and the authority of Rome as the other. Strange bedfellows these, but they have a common purpose: get Jesus!
5. Their plan is perfect. If Jesus says it is right to pay taxes to Caesar, he loses with the people who consider any submission to Roman authority as against the will of God. If he says it is wrong to pay taxes to Caesar, the harsh Roman justice will get rid of Jesus for them. To the Pharisees and Herodians, Jesus is the evil one. He’s a threat to religious and political security. His popularity takes away from their own. Their worldview is turned upside down. Before them stands the image of the invisible God. Not only is he good, but he is good personified—and the only source of good for the world. But, they see only evil and threat. Lest we jump to a sense of superiority because of their blindness, we should probably give serious thought to its cause.
6. Like the Pharisees and the Herodians we all struggle to live rightly under authority. This is always the case for fallen human creatures. But, the need to reflect on submission to ruling authorities is pressing at this time. Just a few weeks from now, we Americans will elect a president for the next four years. Given the depths to which ads, campaigns, and debates have sunk, it’s necessary for us as Christians to use proper discernment on the next leaders we elect in office.
7. Jesus’ death and resurrection provides the foundation for all Christian thinking about who is in charge and how we live under God. How might we summarize that thinking? It’s simple. “Give to God the things that are God’s.” If we get this straight, we will be better able to get everything else aligned too. This includes our relationship to the things that are Caesar’s. Jesus says, “Give to God the things that are God’s.” What is God’s? Well, everything. He is the Creator, after all. Everything that exists is a result of His caring decision—including us. As the poet said, “In Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).
8. The idea that everything belongs to God invites us to think about stewardship. In His wisdom, God entrusts the things of this world to us. He does this on a personal level by giving us resources, families, vocational responsibilities, and other first article gifts. He does this on a social level by delegating to civic leaders a portion of His authority. The power by which rulers of the world rule is always on loan from God. Which is a reminder that (1) civic authority is always only temporary, and (2) those who hold it always remain accountable to God. Our elected leaders would do well to remember that. And because we, the people, participate in choosing them, we as American citizens should be doing the reminding.
9. Christ’s command to live differently than the world around us will provide all of us opportunity for repenting. We have all been guilty of imitating the wrong people. Either we have abandoned our part in the political process, or we have engaged in unchristian political talk and action, or we have put too much trust in princes, policies, platforms, or Supreme Court appointments. For such, the Law calls us out.
10. But, we exercise our godly stewardship in this world through participation in the political process. At the very least, this means voting. But it also involves engaging in civic conversation, speaking up not only for righteous ends, but also through righteous means. In other words, Christians should model Christian political engagement. Quietism is a constant temptation, but so is the scorched-earth policy that characterizes most campaigns and much online rhetoric. We as Christians live by a higher standard. We refuse to play in the dirt and sling the mud. Instead, we demonstrate respectful engagement, even when we are the only ones playing by these rules.
11. We must recognize that all of us have been born without the right image, the image of God, meaning that our nature is evil. The problem goes back to the time when Adam, who had been created in the image of God, took the serpent’s advice, and attempting to be like God, chose to be his own judge of what is good and what is evil. Since that time all men—Cain, the Pharisees and Herodians, you and I—have been born with our knowledge of good and evil turned upside down. That’s why, when good takes on flesh and God walks among men, he seems to be turning everything upside down. “Many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first” (Mt 19:30). “Whoever wants to be first must be slave of all” (Mk 10:44).
12. The right image clarifies how the invisible God works in the kingdom of this world. Jesus turns the tables. His answer, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s,” turns his enemies’ vision of the world on its head. The question “Is it right?” is, from them, a religious question: “Is it God pleasing?” Their assumption is that to give anything to Caesar would be to give to him what should rightly belong to God. Jesus’ answer is astounding because it shows that there are things that, according to the will of God, legitimately belong to Caesar. To give rightly to Caesar, then, is to serve God!
13. God is at work in the secular authority. In the Old Testament Reading for today, Isaiah points out that Cyrus, the pagan king of Persia, in spite of all outward appearances, is God’s instrument. The Lord is using him to work out history for the ultimate good of his people. Likewise, when Pontius Pilate boasts of his authority either to release Jesus or to let him go, Jesus tells him, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above” (Jn 19:11).
14. The right image makes visible the workings of God for our salvation. The right image of God is Jesus on the cross. The irony of the message on the cross, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews,” is not that the title “King of the Jews” is too exalted for this battered and bloodied man. The title is too lowly! Jesus is not merely “King of the Jews” but “King of kings and Lord of lords!” He it is who used Cyrus, king of the Persians, to deliver his exiled people from captivity! He granted Pilate the authority by which his crucifixion was ordered. Now, when his enemies have been successful and he is killed, “the Son of Man is glorified.” Here, in the battered body of this condemned man, the image of the invisible God is revealed.
15. The right image of everything is that God is on the cross for us. In the image of God nailed to the cross is the ultimate reversal of reality as we see it through sin-distorted eyes. We are born of the flesh of Adam. We want to be like gods, deciding for ourselves what is good and what is evil. We, like the Pharisees and Herodians, would compartmentalize God. We would restrict him to the religious and ban him from the secular parts of our lives. The condemnation we deserve he has chosen to take in our place. He takes it to the cross—his death for our life, his damnation for our salvation. The blessed reversal of the cross is the clearest image of the invisible God!
16. So, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, whose image is on you? If we take the phrase, “Image is everything,” in its usual meaning, a sinful expression of the notion that truth and reality don’t matter where success is the goal. But when it comes to the ultimate truth, our relationship to God, it is a profound truth. When troubles come and doubts arise, when conscience accuses, then, “image is everything!” On the cross Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews is, for us, the image of the invisible God. In that image you see what the God of the universe has done to make you his own! “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Rom 8:32). Now the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.
