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Text:
Matthew 22:15-21 22nd
Sunday after Pentecost More than Face
Value In the name of Jesus, dear brothers
and sisters in Christ: When we speak of
something’s “face value”, we refer to its apparent worth; that is, how
much it seems to be worth by just glancing at its surface. The expression comes to us, not surprisingly,
from the world of coins and currency in which it’s common to immediately
identify the value of any particular piece by looking at the face stamped or
printed on it. If you see the image of
George Washington’s face on a coin, you know it’s a quarter. And if you see Andrew Jackson’s portrait on a
note, you’re sure it’s a twenty-dollar bill.
The face tells its worth – and hence the expression: “face value”. But as you know, things are not
always worth what they seem to be on the surface. When you see Benjamin Franklin’s face on a
note, it’s a good idea to take a closer look because the bill on which he
appears is the one most frequently counterfeited. On such a note the face value is one hundred
dollars; but if it’s fake, it’s not worth anything at all. On the other hand, a US twenty dollar gold
piece says it’s worth twenty bucks – but the gold in it is worth a lot more
than that. And such a coin may be worth
still even more than the gold it contains because of its value to a
collector. So it’s possible for an
object to be worth more than its face value. And the reason I mention all of this
is not just because today’s Gospel lesson mentions coins and the faces on them;
it’s also because this Scripture reading itself is worth more than its face
value might suggest. On the surface, it
appears to be just another of the many instances in which Jesus cleverly
outwits those who attempt to entrap him.
No surprise there. At the same
time, it’s a text that might be used to expound the scriptural truth that all
human authorities have been established by God, and that we ought to pay our
taxes whether we like our rulers or not.
Certainly those ideas come through loud and clear; and at first glance,
that’s all I thought it was about. But I
don’t need to stand here and tell you that Jesus is smarter than his
enemies. And I preached a sermon on
human government and paying taxes just a few weeks ago; so I was tempted to
pass this over in favor of one of the others.
But on a hunch, I took a deeper look – beyond just the face of it – and
found there was a lot more here than first meets the eye. As has been the case for all the
Gospel readings we’ve heard for the past several weeks, today’s text is taken
from a series of conversations that took place in the Temple during the last
week of Jesus’ earthly ministry. Our
Lord’s comments there have been quite sharp and stern. He’s had some hard things to say to the
religious leaders who have rejected him.
The result is that his enemies, who have already determined to destroy
him, are now enraged and urgently seeking grounds to have him condemned or
discredited. They have plotted and
schemed together, and now they think they have found the perfect solution with
a question about paying taxes to Caesar. It’s a strange mix of people that
goes to present the question to Jesus.
On one hand you have the disciples of the Pharisees. Think of them as Pharisees in training. They are young, profoundly religious, and
proud of their Jewish heritage. They
don’t like the Romans who occupy their country; and like everyone else, they
don’t like paying taxes to Caesar – but they are not nearly as radical as
another group called the Zealots. The
Zealots are outlawed because they openly oppose paying Roman tribute
(that, and they want to conduct a guerrilla war against the Romans). On the other hand you have the
Herodians. These are the supporters of
King Herod, the puppet ruler the Romans have appointed to govern things for
them. Most Jews hate Herod, first
because he’s not a Jew yet he has been named the King of the Jews (that really
bugs them), and secondly because he is basically the lapdog of the hated
Romans. These Herodians, by hanging with
King Herod, are considered by most to be Jews who have sold out. They’ve schmoozed up with Herod and the
Romans in order to gain wealth and other advantages for themselves. So, if you’re following this, you can guess
that normally the Pharisees and Herodians didn’t have much use for each other –
but today they are united. That’s
because they both want to get rid of Jesus, and so they both want to be on hand
to hear his answer to their question. And it really is quite
ingenious: if Jesus says, “No, it’s not
right to pay taxes to Rome”, he becomes a threat to the Herodians. They’ll run off, report the matter to their
Roman masters, and get Jesus condemned as one of the anti-Roman Zealots. And if he says, “Yes, sure, pay your taxes”
the rest of the Jews will turn their backs on him. They believe the Messiah is supposed to free
them from that kind of foreign domination and servitude. If Jesus says it’s right to pay taxes to
Rome, the people will hate him as much as they hate Herod. Jesus can’t win it seems. “No matter what he says,” they think to
themselves, “he’s going to lose.” So confident are they of their plan
that instead of assuming their normally hostile posture, this time they come to
Jesus wearing friendly smiles and heaping compliments on him: “We know that you are a man of integrity and
that you teach truth about the way of God.”
It is, of course, counterfeit praise – they don’t mean a word of
it. But what they fail to see is that
their words are really priceless gems of truth.
Jesus is a man of integrity who does teach God’s truth. They don’t believe it. They are speaking without integrity or truth
– and they know it. They are
hoping their false praise will help trap Jesus – what they don’t see is that by
not believing what they are saying, they themselves are the ones in a terrible
trap. But what’s especially intriguing is
what they say next. The translation we
heard said: “You aren’t swayed by men,
because you pay no attention to who they are.”
That kind of captures the idea; but what the Greek actually says
is, “you don’t look at the face of men.”
That is to say, “You don’t look at a person’s face value – the surface
things like a person’s station, standing, wealth, education, outward
behavior – or even how they might try to butter you up with flattery; no,
you see right into the heart. You see
what a person really is.” Too bad they
didn’t believe what they were saying here either; because if they did, they
would know how transparent their evil plan is to Jesus. They say he can see right through them – and
they’re correct. And Jesus tells them so
plainly: “Hypocrites”, he calls
them. It’s a word that literally means
one who plays a role – like an actor.
He’s telling them that he knows they can’t be taken at face value. He then easily steps out of their perfect
trap by asking them to show him a coin used for paying the tax. They produce a common Roman denarius, which
was the currency used to pay the head tax charged by the Romans. Every adult subject of the Empire was required
to give this tribute annually. And as I
said before, the Jews really bristled at having to pay it. It’s not like they asked to be subjects of
Rome. “Whose image is this? And whose inscription is written here?” Jesus
asks them. “Caesar’s, of course”, they
reply, as if it were a really dumb question.
“Well, since you admit it belongs to Caesar, let him have it.” Jesus’ answer is loaded with meaning. He’s telling them it’s nothing less than
theft to use someone else’s property or services and not pay for it – and they
all used the Roman coins. It was
actually a great benefit to them because it simplified trade throughout the
entire Empire. But more than that was
what the coin represented. Roman roads
connected the world – everybody used them; and it cost money to build and
maintain them. Roman garrisons patrolled
these roads and kept them safe for travelers.
Roman fleets kept the sea safe from pirates for travel and trade. Roman aqueducts brought water to their
cities. Roman armies prevented war
between neighboring countries and kept the peace at home. All of this and more that the Romans did for
the Jews cost money. It was only right
that they help pay for it. “But,” Jesus continued, “give to God
what is owed to God.” And here Jesus’
words are just left hanging. It’s
obvious that the tribute that we owe the Lord is much greater and that it has a
higher priority than any worldly tax; but Jesus doesn’t say exactly what it is. He forces each listener to ask, “What do I
owe to God?” We’re told in the verse
that follows this morning’s text that his questioners marveled at his answer
and wandered off. No doubt they were
disappointed that their “perfect” plan had failed; but I’d like to believe that
some them were asking themselves the question Jesus’ answer put before
them: “What do I owe God?” If they had thought about it,
especially considering where they were standing, it might have occurred to some
that one of the things they owed was the temple tax. Each year every adult Jewish male was
required to pay a head tax for the temple.
It was to cover the cost of maintaining and renovating the
building. And it was only fair because
the temple served all the Jews – and so it was very much like the tax that they
paid each year to Caesar. But there was
one major difference: this tax couldn’t
be paid in Roman coin. The one place in
the whole Empire where Roman money was not accepted was in the temple of the
Lord God. It was deemed improper for
foreign money with portraits of pagan kings and their idols to be found in
God’s house. Here Caesar’s face and
inscription meant nothing, no matter how much the coin was worth. Instead, what you had to do was buy a special
coin minted exclusively for use in the temple.
It was holy money, if you will:
set aside for use in God’s house alone.
That’s what the moneychangers Jesus drove from the temple were selling –
it was wrong for them to conduct that sort of business in God’s house. But the point I want to stress is that common
currency, no matter what its value or how widely it was recognized, was not
good enough to offer to God. And that should have stuck a chord with these
Pharisees, because they knew that the temple tax was not the only thing they
owed the Lord. Far from it: they knew that they owed the Lord a life of
perfect obedience to him and to his commands.
But that was okay because, after all, they bore the image of God. “Didn’t Moses write we were made in his
image?” And God’s inscription was on
them: they had the law of God written on
their heads and hands. They knew the
requirements forward and backward. But I
mean that literally also: to show their
obedience they wore phylacteries (little pouches containing passages of
Scripture) on their heads and arms. They
took following the law of God very seriously – and on the surface it looked
like they were doing a good job of it.
Everyone would have agreed that the Pharisees were good and godly
people. If anyone’s life of obedience
had value, it was theirs. The same ones Jesus had just called
hypocrites. “You are not what you
pretend to be. You are counterfeit
coins. Your face value is good – but I
can see what you’re really worth.” And
you’d think the fact that they knew they were plotting a murder, cooperating
with people they considered to be traitors, standing in God’s temple lying
through their teeth, and still getting trounced in what they thought was an
airtight theological argument, just might have tipped them off to the
truth. Their kind of currency was
unacceptable in God’s house – and they should have known it. But they didn’t. As you know, this episode turned out to be
one more reason for them to continue to follow through with their plot to kill
Jesus. In the end, they would have to
trump up the charges and violate a few more of God’s commands to do it. They would even accuse him of saying that
taxes should not be paid to Rome – though we just heard that he didn’t. They decided they would do whatever it took
to get rid of Jesus. And the irony is that in so doing,
they did exactly what Jesus told them to do:
“Give to God what is God’s.”
Though they did not know the infinite value of the currency they were
dealing in, by putting Jesus to death they gave to God the one thing on earth
that truly bore his image and inscription:
his own Son. It was the only
thing they could offer that was good enough to be accepted by God. Though he had no face value in their
eyes, his perfect life and atoning death was the tribute demanded by God for
the sin of the world. And we know this
payment was accepted because God raised Jesus up again. He put his “Coin” back into circulation, as
it were, to show that mankind’s debt has been paid in full. And that’s important for us when we consider the question,
“What do I owe God?” A lot of Christians
struggle with this question. We could
try, like the Pharisees, to pay what we owe: attempting to live our lives for God and obey
his commandments. We could claim to make
Jesus the Lord of our lives, and say that we were submitting ourselves
completely to his holy will. We could
raise our hands and sing about how much we love God, and we could try our best
to be loving people and to share God’s message of love with the world—but all
that common “Christian” currency, no matter how much of it you heap up and no
matter how good it looks, if that’s what you’re counting on to pay what you owe,
is worth just one thing: and that’s a
damn – and by that I mean God’s damnation. Its face value is quite literally a damning
lie that leads people to an eternity of damned shame. The only thing you can offer to God
to pay what you owe is what he has already paid for you: the innocent suffering and death of his
Son. And the way you make that offering
is by confessing your faith: as we say
with Luther, “I believe that Jesus Christ … has redeemed me, a lost and
condemned person, purchased on won me from all sins, from death, and the power
of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with his holy, precious blood …” My friends, you really can’t give
anything to God, rather you have been bought with a price of infinite
value; and that means two things. First,
that you are not your own. God bought
you, so you belong to him. And now when
Jesus says, “Give to God what is God’s, he means that you are to give yourself
to him in trust and rely completely on him and what he has
done. That’s what most of you did first
as mere infants when the Lord pressed upon you the image of his Son and marked
you – inscribed you – as his own with the sign of the cross. You didn’t give anything. You weren’t able to. You only received his Holy Spirit, his grace,
and his forgiveness. The same is true
today. You can’t give anything of your
own; you can only receive what God has given for you and trust in it. But by impressing upon you his Son’s image,
and inscribing his name upon you, God has made you, a lost and condemned
sinner, a treasure worth far more than your face value. You still look and act like a worthless
sinner. But the more you are aware of
that, the more you trust in Jesus and put your faith in what he has done. And by your faith in Jesus, God is even now
producing in you the works of love and righteousness he desires. All in all, I’d say that there was a
lot of Gospel in this little passage about paying taxes – one of the last
places you might expect to find it. May
God who has today given us the grace to take his word at more than face value,
also give us the faith to trust it completely.
In Jesus holy name. Amen. Soli Deo Gloria! |
