Coin Flip: SALT's Commentary for Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost
Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost (Year A): Matthew 22:15-22
Big Picture:
1) As we’ve seen over the last few weeks, as Matthew tells it, this story takes place on the equivalent of Monday of the original Holy Week (the day after Palm Sunday), and Jesus, his entourage, and the crowds following him have now been occupying the Jerusalem Temple for the better part of two days. The authorities have already attempted to lure Jesus into blasphemy, and now some religious leaders come back for a second try, this time bringing some Herodians with them.
2) Herodians were supporters of Herod Antipas (King Herod’s son), Rome’s puppet ruler and collaborator with the empire. Pharisees were against the Roman occupation, so they had little in common with Herodians — except their mutual opposition to Jesus and the trouble he was stirring up among the people.
3) In the background here is the ancient prophet Zechariah, the same visionary whose words were enacted just yesterday: both in the dramatic entrance to the city (“Lo, your king comes to you...humble and riding on a donkey” (Zech 9:9)) and in the disruptive eviction of the money changers from the Temple (“there shall no longer be traders in the house of the LORD of hosts on that day” (Zech 14:21)). The prophet’s idea seems to be that the Temple’s financial dimension — set up to facilitate the buying and selling of temple sacrifices, and also to support the Temple as an economic enterprise — are part of a layer of separation between God and Israel that will one day be overcome, and on that day, the holiness associated with the Temple will pervade the whole world. These prophetic ideas, and Jesus’ declaration-through-action that this new era has now begun, are still ringing in the crowds’ ears on this second day of the Temple occupation.
4) This passage arrives this year as we in the United States are in what is already one of the most polarized, caustic election seasons in modern memory, complete with controversies about “taxes,” “law,” “religion,” governmental authority, bad-faith questions meant to trap adversaries, and a host of other resonant connections with this story. And so we may ask: What light does this passage throw on the coming election, and on our public life together?
Scripture:
1) Though they introduce their question with buttery compliments, the religious and civil leaders here (Pharisees and Herodians, respectively) have a plan in mind. If they can get Jesus to say that it’s “lawful to pay taxes to the emperor,” then he’ll offend the Pharisees and, more importantly, the crowds, who fiercely oppose the imperial occupation. And on the other hand, if they can get him to say that it’s unlawful to do so, he’ll offend the Herodians (colluders with the Romans), who will no doubt report him to the imperial authorities, who won’t be amused. Either way, he’s trapped.
2) Jesus senses their hypocrisy, and doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he asks them to show him a coin used for the temple tax, a silver denarius, and to tell him whose likeness and title it bears. This achieves three things at once: it shifts the spotlight to his adversaries; it gets them to produce a coin inside the Temple (and signals that he has none); and raises the theme of “image and likeness,” which will serve as the pivot point for his reply.
3) A denarius in those days likely featured the head of Tiberius Caesar, along with the inscription: “Tiberius Caesar, Son of the Divine Augustus, Augustus.” From a Jewish point of view, then, the coin was both a “graven image” (prohibited in the Ten Commandments; see Exodus 20:4) and a bite-sized bit of blasphemy. By asking for a denarius, then, Jesus lures his opponents into performing an unwitting, vivid confession. What’s more, the coin is a tangible emblem for the temple tax itself, in effect associating that tax with blasphemy and idolatry, and evoking (again) Zechariah’s vision of a Temple without money changers. Think of it this way: Jesus is the one who has just driven the money changers from the Temple, sending their blasphemous coins scattering across the Temple floor; and these religious and civic leaders, lo and behold, have one in their pocket.
4) Whose image is on that coin? “The emperor’s,” they respond. And then comes Jesus’ remarkable answer: “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21).
5) Over the years, some have interpreted this to mean that God’s interests have nothing to do with money or taxes or government, but rather are focused exclusively on the “spiritual” realm. Indeed, the line’s susceptibility to being heard that way is part of how Jesus wriggles out of the dilemma posed by the question in the first place: on the surface, he seems to be saying, “Sure, pay taxes to the emperor.” But that’s only half his answer — and the other half upsets the whole applecart.
6) In effect, Jesus says, Give the emperor his due — and by the same token, do the same for God! Give the emperor the things that bear his image — and tell me, what bears God’s image? Human beings, of course (Gen 1:27)! Our whole lives should be “given” to God in the sense of participating in God’s mission, listening to God’s law, doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with the Giver of all good things — a way of life that can only involve opposing cruelty, injustice, and arrogance in their various forms. Jesus isn’t dividing the world up into “financial” vs. “spiritual,” or “political” vs. “religious.” He’s pointing out that “spiritual” is a much, much bigger category, encompassing finance, politics, and virtually everything else: our bodies, our actions, our lives, and our life together in community with each other.
6) Is it lawful to obey the emperor? Sure. And by the same token, how much more lawful is it to obey the God of love, justice, and mercy! To care first of all for the least of these, the most vulnerable of our neighbors, and to treat each other with honor and respect, not cynical questions meant to entrap. Hearing Jesus’ answer, his opponents realize they’ve been outplayed. They are “amazed” and speechless; “and they left him and went away” (Matthew 22:22).
Takeaways:
1) On one level, this is another “Houdini story”: confronting a trap, Jesus deftly slips through and turns the tables on his would-be entrappers. But there are bigger themes at work here, including Jesus’ declaration of a new era, in which the Temple’s holiness is newly accessible to all, freed of financial barriers and biases. And perhaps most significant — and most salient as this divisive election season gets underway — is Jesus’ view of what today we’d call “religion and politics.”
2) On one hand, Jesus pointedly eschews politics in a narrow, partisan sense. He doesn't side with those among his contemporaries who sought to overthrow the Roman occupation by armed insurrection (an attempt to do just that some forty years after Jesus’ death ends up leading to the Temple’s devastation by the Roman army). Nor does he side with those who collude with the occupiers, like the Herodians. He does say it’s lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, but in the same breath he sends the clear message that our highest loyalty is due to God and God’s love, justice, and mercy. Jesus’ opponents try to draw him into the partisan fray — but he will not go there.
3) Instead, he casts a theological, spiritual vision that is political in a much broader, more fundamental sense. Loving our neighbors and caring for God’s creation is always already political, of course, just as any thinking about how our beloved community should be designed is always already political — but it need not be partisan. It need not be mean-spirited. It need not be infused with hypocrisy and false compliments. It need not be driven by schemes to entrap our opponents, to embarrass them, or to hurl invectives at them from afar.
4) But if Jesus’ vision isn’t mean, hypocritical, and false, how is it political? It’s political precisely in the sense that it involves wanting the best for our neighbors, around the world and across the aisle. It’s political precisely in the sense that it starts and ends with the question of whom we belong to, whose image we bear. It’s all too easy to feel as though we belong to our partisan encampments, our parties or clans or circles of friends, Fox News or MSNBC, not to mention our jobs, or our families, or our carefully cultivated images. But in truth, in the deepest, most important sense, we don’t belong to any of those things. We belong to God. We bear God’s image. And so we are called to a higher politics, above and beyond crass partisanship, that cares for each other as we care for ourselves. That strives to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God and neighbor in everything we do — including how we build up and repair and maintain our communities.
5) The good news of the Gospel is that there is this wider, deeper, more beautiful politics, bigger than any particular party or policy or nation, and that Jesus and the Hebrew prophets before him call us to live it out. And here’s the challenge of the Gospel this week and over the months ahead: as we make our way through this polarized election season, try making a special effort to reach out and connect with someone you disagree with in terms of partisan politics — not to argue with them, but to see how they’re doing, and to let them know that you’re thinking about them in this crazy, difficult, divisive time. That even though you disagree, you think of them as a neighbor, as part of your community, as a child of God created in the image of God. For if there’s anything we need during this fragmented time of so many cracks and chasms, it’s kindness and connection. A hundred little bridges, a thousand little threads, a million tiny repairs in our communal fabric that must, one day soon, be made whole.