The Image of God

     What does it mean to live as good tax-paying citizens and faithful Christians? That’s a timely question as we head toward mid-term elections. It’s also a question Jesus addressed in this week’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel about paying taxes to Caesar. This reading isn’t simply a matter of the separation of church and state that allows us to feel good about supporting the state and going to church on Sundays. Give therefore to the Emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s (Matthew 22: 21) is not a surrender of all things political to the state and all things spiritual to the church. Both realms belong to God. Jesus wants his followers to understand that.

     He is challenged by two groups, the religious Pharisees and the political Herodians who didn’t agree with him. Both wanted to see Jesus destroyed. Rather than confront him directly, they sent an envoy to ask him a tax question. They thought they had Jesus in a “no-win situation” when he was asked in the temple whether or not it was lawful to pay taxes. Here’s the bind. If he told them to pay the Emperor’s tax, the Pharisees would be pleased because Jesus would alienate the Jewish religious community who suffered under Roman oppression. If he told them not to pay the tax, the Herodians would be pleased because Jesus would put himself in opposition to the governing authorities who paid the Hebrew Herodians to keep the peace.

     Not surprisingly, Jesus was not taken in by their flattery or unaware of their malice. He understands the way humans think. He took the question out of the narrow limitations of human concern, where we too often get stuck, and placed it in the expansive realm of divine concern. He asked to see a coin and then asked whose image was on the coin. The word often times translated as “head” can also be translated as image. That makes what Jesus is saying clearer. Caesar’s image was imprinted on one side of the coin. On the other side, the coin gave Caesar the title, “Son of God.” In the Roman Empire Caesar was God.

     That was not true for the Jewish people. It was idolatry to call Caesar or any human “God.” The same is true today for us. There’s only one God and it isn’t any of the political, social or economic leaders who entice us to follow. We and they belong to God. We’re each imprinted with the image of God… as is all of creation. There’s only one Son of God and he is the one the world and its Caesars crucified on a cross. He’s the one whom God vindicated so we would know that there’s truly nothing, not death nor taxes, that can keep us from the love of God. It’s Jesus, who the authorities of his day wanted to destroy, who died and rose from the dead, who opens us over and over again to the sovereignty of our creator God.

     In this exchange, Jesus is talking about more than paying taxes.He is reminding God’s people that we belong to God. The government belongs to God. Taxes belong to God. We are encouraged to consider the difference between living in God’s image and living under human law. Human law by its very nature, can’t be totally Godly. Human institutions can’t always be caring or compassionate. Some very legal laws are unjust and create victims. Sometimes “ fair is not equal.”  Blind justice with her scales of balance can’t see the people with exceptional stories or troubles, but God can. The legal system can’t take into account the needs of all people, but God does! Injustice may be part of any human system we devise (including the church), but God’s divine compassion and justice keeps flowing through us. Jesus makes sure of that.

     As Christians, created in the image of God and sealed with the cross of Christ forever, we owe our allegiance first and foremost to God. Sometimes that means paying our taxes and supporting the state in their efforts to make the world a better place. Sometimes it means bringing the spiritual into the political and refusing to separate the two. Sometimes it means being counter-cultural and demanding that those people the world cares least about be served with dignity and hope by our government no matter what their legal status.  As people of faith, imprinted with the image of God, we bear witness to God’s love and mercy wherever we are.

     The image of God may be distorted by our human nature, but it’s part of who we are… part of who you are.  God is reflected in us and through us. As we wrestle with what it means to be created in the image of God and what it means to be bound to God’s foreverness, we will surely disagree. We will disagree with one another and we will disagree with God. That doesn’t change the image, however! God is bound to the world by a love that cannot be erased or broken. Through the cross we are assured that the way of Jesus, the way of compassion, forgiveness and care for our neighbor, is the way to give to God the things that are God’s. We (You and I ) are baptized and blessed to do so!