Lectionary Readings – Year A, Proper 24

Today’s Gospel is another one of those interesting passages in the Bible that needs a bit more context. It starts out today with, “They were trying to entrap him,” but unless we’ve been reading straight through, we may have forgotten why that is.

This conversation is right in the middle of a back-and-forth with Jesus and the leaders of the people that started right after he had flipped over tables in the temple and accused the high priests and teachers of the law of abusing the people in the name of God. And then he called them bad stewards of the vineyard that is Israel, and told them that they were going to kill God’s own son. So, naturally, the chief priests and teachers of the law are a little miffed. And they want to get rid of him, because he is seriously disrupting their little kingdom. And so they come up with a question they are sure will trap him in something they can hold him accountable for, and send him to jail – or worse, death.

So how was this question supposed to trap him? The question, of course, is if it is “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” Now, they brought along the Herodians, which were people who were loyal to King Herod, the puppet king of Israel, put in place by the Roman forces. These people wanted to stay in power, and so they wanted to do anything to make the emperor happy. If Jesus had said, “No, you should definitely not pay taxes to the emperor,” then these people loyal to King Herod and the emperor would have jumped on him and taken him to jail for treason. If, however, he said, “Yes, you need to pay taxes to the emperor,” then the Pharisees would have jumped all over him, and, they hoped, the people would have gotten mad too. You see, the slander going around about Jesus was that he was a friend of sinners and tax collectors. Those evil tax collectors who cheated their own people for profit in order to stay in the good graces of the emperor. And, the coin used to pay the emperor had a picture of the emperor on it, and an inscription that said he was the “son of a god.” The Pharisees believed that no one of their religion should use that coin, because it implied that they were worshipping a god other than the God of Israel. So, either Jesus is a traitor to Rome, or he is a traitor of his own people, and an idol worshipper.

Kind of a lose-lose scenario. A question that a bunch of them thought was an air-tight argument. I’m sure some of them were bouncing around all happy like, saying, “Let’s see him get out of this one.”

And, of course, Jesus’ answer amazes them. But why?

Jesus knows what they are trying to do, so he asks them for a coin, and then he asks, “Whose image is on this coin? And whose inscription is this?” Jesus is telling them, this coin that you have, this coin that this man whose image is on the coin, this man runs the empire, and this man demands that you pay him with his own currency. You are subject to the emperor. You have no choice in that. You are under the rule of the emperor and his loyal people. So do as he commands: “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.”

Now, if Jesus had stopped there, he probably would have been taken in by the Pharisees and the people who hated paying taxes. He would have been branded a traitor to his own people, and an idolater. But Jesus didn’t stop there. He went on, and said, “And give to God what is God’s.” And this is the part that made his answer so good.

If the currency of the emperor is a coin that bears his image, then “What is God’s currency?” Jesus is asking. What bears the image of God? For the teachers of the Law, they would have known that Jesus was referring to them. To all people. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And God said, “Let us create humanity in our own image.” The currency of God is the heart of his faithful people, and they “give to God what is God’s” by giving of themselves, “with all their heart, with all their soul, and with all their might” (Deuteronomy 6:5)

Now these guys felt that they were super righteous. They were the type of people who were so meticulous in giving their tithe that they even took ten percent of all the little garden herbs they grew and gave it to the temple. Things like mint, and dill, and cumin. Or, for those of you who prefer more folksy herbs, it was like giving ten percent of their parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme from their little backyard garden. 

They felt that they were doing all the things that they were supposed to do in order to look good. But Jesus knew that they were forgetting the important things, like justice, and mercy, and being faithful (Matt 23:23). They might have paid their tithe – even the tithe of garden herbs – but they turned a blind eye when they saw injustice. They might have paid the tithe, but they ignored mercy and put heavy burdens on the people in order to bleed them of their livelihood, just so that the poor could be declared righteous. They might have paid the tithe, but nothing of what they were doing was in any way a sacrifice for them, and so they were not being truly faithful to the God they claimed to worship. They were just doing the outward things to look good, but ignoring the weightier parts of the law, for their own pleasure. 

And Jesus knew this. And so did the leaders of the people. They knew that he was calling them out for being hypocritical of their own work, and yet forcing everyone else to live to a higher standard than they themselves were willing to do. If they were the image of God, and if their hearts were God’s currency, God’s coin, then they were the ones who were being idolaters. They were the ones who were not giving to God what is God’s, because they were not willing to sacrifice their own comfort in order to serve justice, mercy, and be faithful to the God they claimed to worship.

And that’s why they were amazed. And that’s why they walked away. They had no response to that. Because Jesus had seen through them, and pointed out the one thing that they were unable to deny – their own hypocrisy.

Now, the obvious take away from all of this is that we would ask ourselves if we are holding something back from God. Are we doing all that God has asked of us? Are we unwilling to sacrifice something because we prefer our own comfort over fighting for justice, over showing mercy, or over being faithful in all things?

I say that’s the obvious way to go, because I’m not going to go down that path. I’ll leave that for all of us to ponder on our own time.

What I think is so amazing about today’s Gospel is the fact that God’s currency, the method of payment that God has put into this world is us. We are God’s currency, stamped with God’s image, and with an inscription that reads, “Child of God.” And it is with this currency that we “give to God what is God’s.”

Ascribe to the Lord the glory of his name, and worship the Lord in holy splendor (Psalm 29:2). 

Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name, bring an offering, and come into his courts. Worship the Lord in holy splendor; tremble before him, all the earth (Psalm 96:8-9).

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, on the basis of God’s mercy, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable act of worship (Romans 12:1).

Scripture is full of how we “give to God what is God’s,” and we, because we are made in the image of God, stamped with his image as the currency in God’s kingdom, worship him with our complete selves, because “The earth is the lord’s, and all that is in it” (Psalm 24:1). 

I believe that when we realize that we are the image of God, and that everyone we look at is also the image of God, that it becomes far easier to live out those things that bring love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). It becomes far easier to remember the more important parts of the law, like justice, mercy, and integrity. 

And then everything we do and say becomes worship. Everything we do becomes a joyful offering to God. And who we are becomes what we give to God.

[This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on October 18 2026.]