A Penny for Your Thoughts

Sermon at St John The Baptist Felixstowe – 20th Sunday after Trinity – 22nd October 2023

Text: ‘Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’  (Matthew 22v21)

God give you peace my sisters and brothers.

Summer Holidays in South Africa in our family always took place in the Drakensberg alongside the annual Scripture Union Camp for High School students.  It was a bit of a ‘busman’s holiday’ but it did not cost much and our boys grew up to love the outdoors and our Lord.  My birthday always fell during these holidays and, if you are on camp on holiday, it is the rule that you have to stand on a table while everyone sings ‘Happy Birthday’ and then open your presents in public. 

Well… I’m not an easy hit for the average birthday present for men and choice is limited.  After all, socks don’t go with sandals,  after-shave is not needed if you wear a beard, and a tie is somewhat surplus to requirements when you wear a dog collar to work.  What presents did I receive year after year to show off to the gathered teenage throng?  Underpants!  Which is why now, when asked by family members what I would like for my birthday, I ask for a contribution towards the cost of this year’s set of definitive UK coins!

Mind you this year’s coins are a special memento being the first year in which they bear the face of King Charles III instead of our late and much-loved Queen Elizabeth II.  

Does this mean they are less valuable?  Well the face value has not changed and, as with most years, the cost for my birthday present has definitely increased!  But the value of coinage, as Jesus points out to his mischievous inquisitors is not in its face value but in the value we put on the face of the coin.  If you are an amateur numismatist such as myself you will know that every £5 coin – yes a different £5 coin is minted each year – is worth more than £5.  The one in my hand is currently worth anywhere between £10 and £25 and its value will keep on increasing.

But we know that Jesus is not being asked about the face value of Caesar-faced denarius.  The Herodians (an early day version of HMRC inspectors) are asking Him about who He trusts and what things around Him are valuable.  They, already on the side of Rome, want Jesus to stand with them and in so doing add grist to the mill of the Jewish Leaders.  Jesus refuses to play their party-political games and chooses the common good over a political or religious manifesto.

They are amazed, not simply because he confounds their cleverly devised trickery, but also because he lays before them a challenge as to in whose hands they put their own trust.  Jesus is asking them who they trust, Caesar who made the coin or God who made Caesar.  Sadly putting the words ‘In God We Trust’ on our coinage, as do our cousins in the United States, does not in fact mean that we trust in God!

Down the years preachers have taken these words of Jesus and expanded them.  Many have suggested that just as Jesus questions the Herodians as to whose ‘image and likeness’ the coin bears Jesus is challenging them to determine whose ‘image and likeness’ they carry themselves.  If they are to render to Caesar all that carries his image should they not render to God everything that carries God’s image?  After all do we not all carry the Imago Dei and are made in ‘image and likeness’ of God?  Does not every fibre of our being belong to the one who made us?

But this is as difficult for us as it was for the Herodians.  We all have pressing commitments on our pocketbooks and we can’t go around splashing out on giving more to finance the Church.  It’s all very well saying we should not submit to human authority but Income Tax, Fuel Tax, National Insurance and the absurdly named ‘Value Added’ Tax must be paid or we will have more than the Herodians to worry about!

Do we have to give it all away?  Does Jesus’ command that we ‘Give to God the things that are God’s’ mean that we will need to start employing Securicor to take away the collection after church?  

Does His command mean we should withdraw from participating in civil society and become some sort of Holy Huddle quarantining ourselves from any infection by The World, The Flesh and The Devil’?

Does He mean that we must imitate the early Church in their total giving away of everything to each other?  After all this is what happened in the Acts of the Apostles…

 All who believed were together and had all things in common; ⁴⁵ they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. ⁴⁶ Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts. ⁴⁷ praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.  And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.  (Acts 2v 44-47)

For some of us, notably those who have a calling to live in Convents and Monasteries, that is indeed the case and their lives remains a witness and a challenge to those of us held fast in the bondage of filthy lucre.  For those of us who are called to ‘follow the ordinary professions of life (as we say in the Franciscan community) the calls of home and family, work and friends, community and other causes and concerns, are urgent and we may find ourselves leading lives that feel meagre and hedged about with penny-pinching instead of overflowing with the joy of the Holy Spirit.

Unlike the Herodians and the other Religious Leaders of the day, we must not reduce our faith to the meticulous keeping of Sabbath Day ordinances, dietary rules, and arguments over how much tax we should render to Rome or how much we must give to the Temple (Matthew 17.24-27).  If we are to truly ‘Give to God the things that are God’s’.  Our offering to God should not be a miserly 10%, a tithe, but all that we have and all who we are.  

And this is how we are to do it….

For the Christian life cannot be separated into Sacred and Secular.  Either all of life is holy, and everything is done to the greater glory of God, or none of life is holy.  

One of the prayers that is sometimes used at the presentation of the collection during the communion service reads:

After all what choice do we have?  If we do not offer ourselves completely we run the risk of living out a Herodian shaped half-faith obsessed with the coinage of our lives instead of proclaiming the glory of God.

Please, take us Lord, and all that we have and hold on to, that your work may be done in the world and the world, seeing us busy about your business will with us proclaim, ‘Blessed be God for ever!’

This blog ‘A Penny for your Thoughts’ is copyright © Andrew Dotchin 2023.  It may be reproduced free of charge on condition that the source is acknowledged.

Matthew 22.15-22 – The Question about Paying Taxes

The Pharisees plotted to entrap Jesus in what he said. ¹⁶ So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, ‘Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. ¹⁷ Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?’ ¹⁸ But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, ‘Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? ¹⁹ Show me the coin used for the tax.’ And they brought him a denarius. ²⁰ Then he said to them, ‘Whose head is this, and whose title?’ ²¹ They answered, ‘The emperor’s.’ Then he said to them, ‘Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ ²² When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.