What to do with God’s Gifts? / Matthew 22:15-22 / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Sunday October 22nd 2023 / The Season Of Pentecost / Mount Olive Lutheran Church

Mount Olive Lutheran Church / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Sunday Oct 22nd 2023: Season of Pentecost / Matthew 22:15-22 “What to do with God’s Gifts?”

Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle [Jesus] in His words. And they sent their disciples to Him, along with the Herodians, saying, “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. Tell us, then, what You think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put Me to the test, you hypocrites? Show Me the coin for the tax.” And they brought Him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said, “Caesar's.” Then He said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.” When they heard it, they marveled. And they left Him and went away.

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in Your sight O Lord. Amen.

Grace peace and mercy to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Good Christian Friends.  Jesus says, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.” What does Jesus mean by these words? While our offerings of time, talents and treasures are in fact an act of worship to the LORD they are not the highest most desired sacrifice of the Christian. King David who had all the wealth of Israel at his disposal while he was the anointed one of God wrote in Psalm 51, “For You will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.”[1]

As has been the case over the last weeks, today, again our Gospel Reading comes from Tuesday in Holy Week, that week leading up to Jesus’ Cross and the crucifixion. Two day’s earlier Jesus had come into the city in Triumph, on Monday He cast the money changers out of the Temple with great authority, then came this Tuesday and earlier that day when [Jesus] entered the Temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to Him as He was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave You this authority?” Jesus answered them, “I also will ask you one question, and if you tell me the answer, then I also will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, from where did it come? From heaven or from man?” And they discussed it among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From man,’ we are afraid of the crowd, for they all hold that John was a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And He said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”[2]  

Jesus asked them an either or question and they refused to answer it: after that Jesus teaches some parables and when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they perceived that Jesus was speaking about them. And although they were seeking to arrest Him, Saint Matthew tells us they didn’t as they feared the crowds, because the crowds who listened to Jesus held Him to be a prophet.[3] Of course Jesus was more than a prophet – but they weren’t willing to admit that.  And after another parable they regrouped and came at Jesus again and this is the Gospel reading for today.

The Pharisees members of a religious group, and the Herodians members of a political group, came at Jesus with His own tactic: They planned to trip Him up just as He had with them, they planned to produce a real gotcha moment, they planned to ask Jesus their own either or question – a real sticky one that would ruin Jesus if front of everyone. They came to pick a fight; they wanted to stir up conflict, and they wanted to win. Now as modern readers, as modern hearers we often miss the genuine danger in the question that these men asked Jesus, this question was a hot button issue a real pot boiler, something that people were concerned with. If the crowds who loved Jesus turned on Him their work of getting rid of Jesus would be all the easier, of course they had another card up their sleeve one they thought was a real Ace of Spades. 

First they came to Jesus with flattery, they attempted to butter Him up with things that Jesus knew they didn’t believe, they said to Him “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.” This is sort of like saying you don’t judge a book by its cover and you don’t try to suck up to anyone, and you’re honest. They of course don’t believe any of this, not long before this they had accused Jesus of being in league with Satan[4] that is why Jesus responds to their false flattery by calling them hypocrites.

The actual question they planned to trip Jesus up with went like this “Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” They believed that they were so clever because they thought that if Jesus answers in favor of Rome, the people would hate Him, because they hate paying taxes; but if Jesus answers in favor of the people, then He would get Himself in trouble with the Romans, who will see Him as a threat to their power and stability in the area. That was their Ace of Spades. You see some fifty years earlier there was a war fought in Palestine over this very thing and the Pharisees and the Herodians believed that there was no right answer to this question; Jesus was, they thought, was going to be caught between a rock and a hard place, they thought He was trapped for sure and in the end they would come out smelling like roses. They believed that the conflict they were creating would ruin Jesus, but it didn’t.  

Jesus says to them “Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought Him a denarius, a coin that added up to one day’s wages at the time. And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said, “Caesar's.” Then He said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.”[5] Jesus did the unexpected He presented to them a third option, which they had not anticipated. He presented the fact that there are two kingdoms in which we live, a spiritual world and a physical world: God is the ultimate ruler of each of them, St. Paul explains this when he writes in Romans, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.”[6] In our modern context with elections for prime ministers and presidents we either get the government that we want or the government that we deserve and in either case they are use by God the way He wants not necessarily the way we want, because all authority comes from Him not from us.

After Jesus gives the answer, “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's” the Pharisees and the Herodians are said to marvel at the answer Jesus gave. This doesn’t mean that they walked away changed people; it doesn’t mean that they were in reverent awe of Jesus, it means that they were surprised, they still hated Jesus and wanted Him dead or discredited at the very least. Their gotcha moment had evaporated and all their cleverness vanished, Jesus simple outmaneuvered them again and they were dumbfounded as to how He did it.

Now whether we have a lot of money or a little, whether we are still making money or whether we are on a fixed income, whether we feel like the government has its hand in our back pocket or not either way we  are called to “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God,” as Saint Paul right, “pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.”[7] Therefore each of us grapples with this very thing in our lives.

Today is LWML-C Sunday and the Lutheran Women’s Missionary League famously gathers together coins in their mite boxes to support mission work both near and far and if you’re keeping track you’ll remember that the account of the widow’s mites is also from Holy Week and comes a little after today’s confrontation so we can think of these accounts linking together. A mite is not a day’s wages like a denarius; it’s much less than that, even if you had a couple of them they would be pennies by comparison. Saint Mark and Saint Luke both recount this moment in the Temple during Holy Week, here’s how Luke tells us about it, he tell us how “Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and He saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And He said, “Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”[8] Whether an offering is big or small is not the point remember where we started in Psalm 51 where King David who had all the wealth of Israel at his disposal while he was the anointed one of God wrote how the LORD, “will not delight in sacrifice,” saying “or [He King David] would give it;” No, David says of the LORD, “You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” When it comes to the LORD and your sacrifices and offerings, when your heart isn’t in the right place, it really doesn’t matter how much or how little you give. Remember what Saint Paul writes in 2nd Corinthians “each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”[9]

At the cross what does Jesus pay Caesar with? At the cross what does Jesus pay for your sins with? Saint Peter tells us “that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.”[10] Jesus didn’t pay for your sins with widow’s mites or with denarii, not with American Green Backs or British Pounds Sterling or Canadian Dollars, as they cast lots for His last stitch of clothing Jesus didn’t even have a pocket to put a penny in, no at the cross He hung there with a spirit broken by your sin; He hung there with a broken heart, saying of the people who were causing His death “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”[11] With all our sins upon Him, as His heavenly Father turns away from all the times you failed to be contrite, Jesus calls out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”[12] In love He went to His death in your place without complaint paying with His life what was owed for the wages of sin.

Money can certainly do great things but “If money is all that you love, that's what you'll receive.” Judas received thirty pieces of silver as payment to hand over Jesus to those Sadducees and Pharisees, Herodians and Scribes who’d plotted His death and when Judas realized what he’d done they wouldn’t take the money back. Joseph of Aramathia by comparison a very rich and well respected man used his wealth and influence to have Jesus removed from the cross after His death and placed in a tomb, the tomb Joseph presumably had purchased for himself and his family. The widow with her mites and Joseph with his wealth both could use money well, this isn’t a rich poor thing, it’s a heart thing. Jesus teaches this in His response in the Temple to their questioning which about the coin with the likeness of Caesar on it. Saint Paul teaches us that it’s “the love of money [which] is a root of all kinds of evils.” He reminds us that, “It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.”[13] Those seeking Jesus’ death saw money as a trap; perhaps because they were already trapped in that trap themselves, Jesus did not. Financial concerns did not dominate Jesus’ life neither was He shy to talk about financial concerns.

When it comes to your day’s wages, when it comes to your wealth whether large or small remember your Lord Jesus and His attitude towards these things. He approached it all in faith, because of this groups like the LWML-C are now free to do the same, and each of us too, considering how all that we have whether it is used in our daily lives, taken in taxes to the government or given as sacrificial offering to the LORD ultimately belongs to God. If you feel trapped by your money turn to Jesus and study His word and what it teaches. As Saint Peter says before the very people who asked this question from our Gospel after Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension “This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”[14] This is the Jesus we aim to share with our community, and the world. Amen.    

Let us pray:

Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us, Lord have mercy on us, “take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire; for the sake of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen.

[1] Psalm 51:16–17
[2] Matthew 21:23-27
[3] Matthew 21:45-46
[4] Matthew 12:24
[5] Matthew 22:19-21
[6] Romans 13:1-2
[7] Romans 13:7
[8] Luke 21:1–4
[9] 2nd Corinthians 9:7
[10] 1 Peter 1:18–19
[11] Luke 23:34
[12] Matthew 27:46
[13] 1 Timothy 6:10
[14] Acts 4:11–12

Photo Credits: Main Photo detail of The Tribute Money (Le denier de César) by James Tissot from the Brooklyn Museum; detail of photo of red paper heart from pexels; detail of painting “The Pharisees Question Jesus” (Les pharisiens questionnent Jésus) by James Tissot from the Brooklyn Museum; detail of painting “Jesus Speaks Near the Treasury” (Jésus parle près du trésor) by James Tissot from the Brooklyn Museum; detail of The Tribute Money (Le denier de César) by James Tissot from the Brooklyn Museum; detail of Roman Coins from pexels; detail of the painting “The Widow's Mite” (Le denier de la veuve) by James Tissot from the Brooklyn Museum; detail of the painting "The Raising of the Cross" (L'élévation de la Croix) by James Tissot from the Brooklyn Museum; detail of the painting "The Death of Jesus" (La mort de Jésus) by James Tissot from the Brooklyn Museum; detail of giving hands from pixabay.