What Belongs to God? A Sermon by Randy Harris

Highland Presbyterian Church

October 19, 2008

Psalm 96:1-9; Matthew 22:15-22

“Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the

things that are God’s.” It’s one of Jesus’ most memorable lines, delivered in the face of

impossible circumstances. On the one side are the Herodians, sympathizers with Rome;

on the other side are the young Pharisees, angry at their idolatrous Roman occupiers.

Both groups are threatened by Jesus’ ministry, and both have much to gain from Jesus’ answer to the question about paying taxes to the emperor. If Jesus says “Yes, it’s right to

pay,” then all the people who hate the Romans are going to turn against him. If he says

“No, we shouldn’t pay the tax,” then the Herodians can get him on charges of

insurrection against Rome.

Jesus is between a rock and a hard place, as they say; which makes his response all the more astounding. He asks for the tribute coin. Some believed that even to carry the

coin was idolatrous. But at least one of these disciples of the Pharisees had one, and he

brings it forward. “Whose image, whose icon, is on the coin? Whose inscription does it

bear?” Jesus knows the answer, but he makes them say it, and they do: “The emperor’s.”

The coin belongs to the emperor, they say. And so Jesus tells them, “Give this thing that belongs to the emperor back to him.”

And I think there is a pregnant pause, before Jesus says, “but give back to God what

belongs to God.”

Of course, the question arises, What belongs to the emperor? And what belongs to

God? That’s a question for us every bit as much as it is for those around Jesus then. We don’t have an emperor, but we do have a state, a nation. What is the proper role and

place for the state in our common life? And what is it that we would give to God?

Our Reformed tradition has made it very clear that nations are good, but not God;

that the nation is a gift from God, and is to be supported and respected, unless it oversteps

its bounds and begins claiming God-like respect. Jesus’ comment here is amazing in that it offers a twofold critique: (1) of those who give the state too little, and (2) of those who

give the state an almost divine too much.1

A former senator from South Carolina tells a story about those who would give the

government too little:

A veteran returning from Korea went to college on the GI bill; bought his house with an FHA loan; saw his kids born in a VA hospital; started a business with an SBA

loan; got electricity from TVA and, then, water from a project funded by the EPA.

His kids participated in the school lunch program and made it through college

courtesy of government-guaranteed student loans. His parents retired to a farm on

their social security, getting electricity from the REA and the soil tested by the USDA. When the father became ill, his life was saved with a drug developed through

NIH; the family was saved from financial ruin by Medicare...Then one day he wrote

1 Cf. Dale Bruner, Matthew: A Commentary. Vol. 2: The Churchbook (Eerdmans, 2004), pp. 400-01.

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his congressman an angry letter complaining about paying taxes for all those

[welfare] programs created for ungrateful people.2

All of us benefit greatly from the services that are provided by the state—all of us. Certainly some benefit more than others—particularly the most vulnerable among us.

But boy, how we grumble about the things that other people get!

And yet, there are also those who would give the government too much: too much

authority, without questioning. “My country, right or wrong,” some of them might say.

Dale Bruner says “The state becomes demonic in the measure that it asks for itself ‘the things of God,’ such as total commitment, unconditional obedience, or uncriticizing

allegiance.”3

The state has the power to ask too much, and sometimes it does. Our Book of

Confessions includes two 20th-Century confessions that express concerns about such

idolatrous overreaching on the part of the state: the Barmen Declaration in pre-World War II Germany, which calls the church to resist when the state attempts to claim the

church’s voice; and the Confession of 1967 from the United States that limits the state

when it says, “Although nations may serve God’s purposes in history, the church which

identifies the sovereignty of any one nation or any one way of life with the cause of God

denies the Lordship of Jesus Christ and betrays its calling.”4

All that is to say that Jesus gives a tremendous amount of respect to the state and its

place in God’s world; but he places a limit on it, too. Give it its due...but don’t give it

everything.

But what about God? Jesus’ reply was twofold, after all. Give to the emperor, yes; but then, give to God that which belongs to God. What might that mean? What belongs

to God? I think, strangely enough, that the coin is the key.

Where does one find the image of the emperor? The emperor’s image is on the coin

used to pay the tribute tax. But where does one find the image of God? Certainly not on

a coin! No, Jesus knew that anyone who knew their scriptures would know that there’s only one place you can find God’s image: on you and me. The coin belongs to the

emperor, because the emperor’s image is upon it. But you and I...we are “made in God’s

image” (Genesis 1:26-27). God’s image is on us. And so Jesus makes his point: the coin

belongs to the emperor, but as for us...we belong to God!

God’s image can’t be found on a coin! God’s images have two legs, and they walk around. “Give back to the emperor that which is in the emperor’s image, but give back to

God that which is in God’s image.”

“If Tiberius wants a few denarii, give them gladly, because giving them will remind

you that a person’s life does not consist in the abundance of his or her possessions.”5 But

we belong to God; indeed everything belongs to God. Your tribute may go to the emperor, but your life’s ultimate worth doesn’t. Your life belongs to God. The emperor

may ask for your tribute, and that’s fine—there is a cost for our common life, for the

things that none of us can or will do on our own. But Jesus says don’t give your ultimate

2 Bruner, p. 400.

3 Bruner, p. 400.

4 Book of Confessions, 9.45.

5 So Douglas R. A. Hare, Matthew (WJKP, 1993), p. 254.

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allegiance to the emperor, because that belongs to God alone. And so Jesus differentiates

between things that are of value, and things that are of greater, even ultimate, value.

Fred Craddock tells a story that helps us see the difference. It’s about a missionary family in China who was forced to leave the country sometime after the communists took

over. One day a band of soldiers knocked on the door and told this missionary, his wife,

and children that they had two hours to pack up before these troops would escort them to

the train station. They would be permitted to take with them only two hundred pounds of

stuff. Thus began two hours of family wrangling and bickering—what should they take?

What about this vase? It's a family heirloom, so we've got to take the vase. Well, maybe

so, but this typewriter is brand new and we're not about to leave that behind. What about

some books? Got to take a few of them along. On and on it went, putting stuff on the

bathroom scale and taking it off until finally they had a pile of possessions that totaled two hundred pounds on the dot.

At the appointed hour the soldiers returned. “Are you ready?” they asked. “Yes.”

“Did you weigh your stuff?” “Yes, we did.” “Two hundred pounds?” “Yes, two hundred

pounds on the dot.” “Did you weigh the kids?” “Um, . . . no.” “Weigh the kids!” And in

an instant the vase, the typewriter, and the books all became trash. Trash! None of it meant anything compared to the surpassing value of the children. That was a moment of

truth, when everything became clear—what was of worth, and what was of greater

worth.6

And that’s where I think we get a sense, at least in part, of what stewardship is all

about. A significant part of stewardship is about seeing in ourselves and in one another the reality that we are made in God’s image, that we belong to God, all of us! And in

light of that ultimate identity that we share with God’s children near and far, it’s about

adjusting our lives so that the way we spend our time, the way we give our money, the

way we use our God-given gifts, is in keeping with our ultimate commitment to God. We

do so for sake of God, and of God’s children (of every age!): the ones in our midst, and particularly the most vulnerable ones in our community and around the world.

Stewardship is about shifting the way we use such things as time and money from things

that are of worth to things that are of greater worth, in keeping with our ultimate

allegiance to God.

What might stewardship of this ultimate allegiance look like? Well, in part it looks like what we’re doing here this morning, here in worship. When we could be somewhere

else, we have gathered here in keeping with the 96th Psalm to sing our praise, and to pray

our thanks, and to hear a word from the Lord. We see the font, and the table, and the

empty cross, and we remember the faithful promises of God, and who we are as God’s

children. Sometimes ultimate allegiance looks like time off spent not in leisure, but with a

child who needs tutoring, or with a children’s Sunday School class.

At other times, ultimate allegiance to God looks like prayerful discernment, whether

alone or with friends, as we struggle with what God would have us to do in a particular

6 Fred Craddock tells a version of this story in his sermon “Have You Heard John Preach?” in A Chorus of Witnesses: Model Sermons for Today’s Preacher, edited by Thomas G. Long and Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.

(Eerdmans, 1994), p. 41.

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situation. Not just “what should I do?”, nor “what would you do?”, but “what should I

do, or what should we do, as ones made in God’s image?”

Sometimes, it looks like sacrificial generosity, whether for the church, or for our neighbors in need—seeing God’s image in another person, and reaching out in love so

that they might have bread, or grow in their knowledge and love of the one who is the

Bread of Life. (Indeed, it may involve sponsoring someone for the CROP Walk, or even

walking yourself!)

At other times, our ultimate allegiance to God takes the form of clasping our hands in prayer, which, as Karl Barth says, is “the beginning of an uprising against the disorder

of the world.”

Sometimes, our ultimate allegiance to God leads us to reevaluate the very way that

we live our lives and use the resources of this world—especially when our patterns

endanger the lives of God’s children, or the integrity of God’s good creation. At other times, ultimate allegiance to God means that we will go to work, and work

honestly and fairly, seeking what is best for all, and not be consumed by the greed that

threatens the very fabric of our society in these days. Or that we’ll go to school with a

commitment to develop the smarts that God has given us, and to be a kind person as we

go along. Whatever form it takes, it is a reminder that we belong to God, in life and in death,

and that we live and share our lives with gratitude.

Last week, our colleague Bob Dunham over in Chapel Hill shared his response to

an inquiry from a younger minister about just what in the world you say about

stewardship in such a time as this. Here’s what he said: For what it’s worth, I plan to preach what I’ve always preached about

stewardship: that stewardship is not fundamentally about budget-raising, but

about consciousness-raising… it’s about raising our sights to the surfeit of grace

all around us, even in very hard economic times – even when the ground is

moving beneath our feet. It’s about responding to that grace graciously. A proper stewardship is about a life of demonstrated gratitude, regardless of the economic

circumstance. I will acknowledge that gratitude is easier to hold to when

everything is going great, and it is exponentially harder in the wilderness. I am

aware of the wilderness lots of folks in the congregation are experiencing….But

ultimately, I will come back around to naming and claiming gratitude for the grace we have known and know even now… and I will speak of those far more

vulnerable than we.7

Sisters and brothers in Christ, fellow bearers of God’s image: What will we do as

we seek to answer with our own lives the question Jesus asks of us about the significance

of our allegiance? How will what we do with all that has been entrusted to us reflect our commitment to give thankfully to God?

Amen.

7 From “Even in the Wilderness,” a sermon preached at University Presbyterian Church in Chapel Hill, NC

on October 12, 2008.