When we pay to Caesar what is Caesar’s and God what is God’s we should remember we are created in the image of God.

Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Yes or No. I was reminded reading todays bible reading of Jeremy Paxman interviewing Michael Howerd, or indeed any politician of any party. You can almost hear the hectoring command “Answer the question minister, yes or no?” Have you ever been asked a question where the only answers are yes or no, and you are damned if you say either of them.

This passage which we are looking at today is exactly that type of question. As we have heard, it was deliberately asked to trick Jesus. To put the story into context, in chapter 21 Jesus enters Jerusalem in triumph and casts the money lenders out of the temple court. Later in the chapter he is questioned by the temple authorities regarding whose authority he did these things.

Jesus then tells three parables; the parable of the two sons, the parable of the tenants and the parable of the wedding banquet. All of these parables are critical of the Pharisees and temple authorities. In chapter 21 verse 5 we are told that when the chief priests and Pharisees heard these parables they knew he was talking about them. They wanted to arrest him but they were afraid of the crowd, because the people held that he was a prophet.

So this question is the Parisees response and it’s quite a clever one, they planned to trap Jesus into condemning himself; they sent their disciples to ask him a question which was impossible to answer without consequence. They flatter Jesus, compliment him on his integrity. They ask him his opinion, who doesn’t like to be asked what their opinion is on something, and then they ask their killer question. “Tell us then teacher. What is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Yes or no. Answer the question.” Actually I added the last bit, but I thinks it’s implied by the text. This was a question with only two answers. Yes it is lawful to pay the tax, or no it isn’t.

So what was the tax they were talking about? There were a number of ways that Rome taxed its subjects but the one they were talking about here was the poll tax. It was a flat rate tax of 1 denarius payable by everyone who wasn’t a citizen of Rome. Some Jews were citizens of Rome but the vast majority weren’t. Like most flat rate taxes it hit the poor more than the rich.

The tax was one denarius, one day’s pay for a labourer, and this was a society where many people, most people, were labourers. It’s hard to draw an exact comparison because today’s society is very different, but a day’s work on the minimum wage today is about £60. Not massive, but not insignificant either. So this was an unfair tax, a tax on a conquered people, but most of all it was an ungodly tax.

Why was it an ungodly tax? Well the tax was payable with a silver denarius coin. This coin had the image of the Emperor Tiberius Caesar and the inscription Tiberius Caesar, August son of the divine Augustus. Both the image and the inscription were blasphemous. The image because for religious Jews all images were blasphemous. The second commandment is “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything” The word for idol is the same as the word for image. To create an image was to create an idol. The inscription was blasphemous because it proclaimed Tiberius to be the son of God.

So this is the test. It’s a simple one, and there’s no right answer. Jesus can say “Yes, pay the tax”, but that will destroy his credibility with the crowd who think he’s a prophet. Once he loses the protection of the crowd, the chief priests and the Pharisees can do what they want with him. Or he can say “No, don’t pay the tax”. The crowd will love him, but the Romans will arrest him as a rebel and probably execute him. Either way he is finished. “Yes or No Jesus. Answer the question”

Well the bible tells us that Jesus knew their evil intent and asks them for one of the coins used to pay the tax; a silver denarius. There, in the Jewish temple, one of Jesus own questioners produces one of these blasphemous silver coins, and Jesus asks them who the image is of, and who the inscription is of. “Caesar” they say. So Jesus says “Give to Caesar, what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s” And everybody is amazed at his wisdom and leave him alone.

Now I wonder what the Pharisees made of that. The bible tells us that they were amazed, but I suspect that they were amazed that he had got out of their trap. He hadn’t said Yes or No. I don’t think they were amazed at the profundity of his teaching because I don’t think it was ever a serious theological question. There is a danger that we do the same. That we see it as a story about Jesus cleverness, not as teaching.

I think that’s a mistake. I think Jesus is giving real teaching here. As is so often the case with Jesus, his teaching is both more gentle than the Pharisees and more demanding. I want to make three suggestions, three points, which we might take away with us. Points which might help us to understand how to apply what Jesus says here.

The first point is that Jesus is saying we should be obedient to governments put in authority over us. We might think this is obvious but it wasn’t obvious to God’s people at that time. Jesus doesn’t have a problem about paying tax to the Roman Empire and part of the reason is that Jesus knows times are changing.

Just before the passage we are looking at now Jesus taught three parables. It was these parables which the Pharisees took particular exception to and which led to them trying to trap Jesus. All of them were about the kingdom of God being taken away from those who were expecting it and being given to a people who weren’t expecting it but would produce its fruit. The old order of God’s people being a specific race in a specific location was coming to an end and a new order, of God’s people being in everywhere and from every race was going to begin. God’s people would be a minority in countries which did not owe their allegiance to God.

Paul expanded that point for the early church in his letter to the Romans, because the early church had exactly that problem. Paul says; “Let everyone be subject to the ruling authorities, for there is no authority except which God has established.” In other words God is sovereign. God is in control. God is king.

And it’s not that different today. Society is less and less tolerant of Kingdom values. Many Christians are pacifists, and many of those that aren’t are sceptical of the wars that seem now to be fought in our name. Many Christians deplore the fact that society seems to take less and less care of the weak and vulnerable.

To use just one example, many are concerned about the greater and greater acceptance of euthanasia. What is to happen to society? What persecution will we face in the future? Well Jesus says pay to Caesar what is Caesar’s. Paul says “Let everyone be subject to the ruling authorities. God is sovereign. God is in control. God is king. Let’s take comfort for that.


So this brings me to my second point. The first point is that Jesus is saying we should be obedient to governments put in authority over us. The second is that all our money is God’s including the bit we give Caesar. All our money is God’s including the bit we give Caesar. We give to Caesar, we pay our taxes, because Jesus tells us to.

There’s a danger that we think of our money like this. This you give to Caesar, and this you give to God, and they are quite separate. We can look at what we have earned and we can say, “Well that’s the money I’ve paid in tax, and that’s the money I’ve given to God, to church, to the charities I feel particularly called to support, so everything else is mine. I’ve paid my dues to the state and I’ve paid my dues to God.” I’ll be honest, my instinct is often to feel like that. It’s human. It’s also the mistake the Pharisees made.

The Pharisees tithed, that is they gave ten percent of everything to the temple. We know that the Pharisees were very strict about tithing because Jesus himself acknowledges this. He says to them, “You give a tenth even of your spices, but you forget the more important matters of the law –justice, mercy and faithfulness.”

This was Jesus criticism of the Pharisees. They were absolutely exact in making sure that they gave their ten percent, but they missed the greater importance of justice and mercy and faithfulness and they missed the fact that that they could be more generous than just giving ten percent.

It’s a bit like the passage about forgiveness. Do you remember where Peter asks Jesus how many time we should forgive? Seven times? Jesus replies “No not seven times. Seventy seven times”. In other words, don’t try and keep count. Forgive and forgive and forgive. Make a habit of forgiving. If we set a specific target of what we should do for God we risk sitting back in complacent self-satisfaction if we achieve it. But kingdom values don’t work that way. Jesus commended the widow who gave a mite, the smallest coin available, because it was all that she had. All that we have because God has given it to us. It’s all God’s money, the bit we give Caesar and the bit we give back to God.

My third point is this. Jesus response to pay to Caesar what is Caesar’s is based on the fact that it has Caesar’s image on it. In essence he is saying “Pay back to Caesar the thing with Caesar’s image on”. Now the bible uses the word image in two senses. One was in a negative sense as in ‘graven image’ something to be avoided, it carries implications of idolatry. Don’t make ‘graven images’ but the bible also uses it in a positive sense, when something is made in the true image, the image of God.

What, of all the things that God created, is the one thing that scripture tells us is created in the image of God...?

.........You are. You are. And I am, and every human being. “For God created mankind in his own image.” Whatever your race, or your sex, or your religion, whether you believe you are created in his image, or even whether you believe in God at all, you are created in the image of God.

Just as the silver denarius that Jesus held in his hand in Palestine all those years ago had the image of Tiberius Caesar stamped on it, so you have the image of the Lord God almighty stamped on your heart. What we give to Caesar, what we pay in taxes is only a part of our responsibility and response to God. The Pharisees thought that Jesus had come up with a clever response to their question, a way of saying “Yes and No” without offending either crowd or Rome. But he was doing more than that. He was doing more than saying all that you have is God’s, he was saying you are God’s. Give your whole self to God. In Jesus name. Amen

Preached on Sunday 19th October





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