Matthew 22:15-22 (NRSV Updated Edition)
Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. 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. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, “Whose head is this and whose title?” They answered, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” When they heard this, they were amazed, and they left him and went away.
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Exegetical Notes
1. v 16, “for you do not regard people with partiality.” The Greek is, 'ou gar blepeis eis prosōpon anthrōpōn', which more literally translates as, “for you do not look upon the face of a man.” The phrase means what the NRSV indicates, but the literal translation is interesting since the episode involves the face of the emperor on a coin.
2. v 17, kēnson, more specifically, a “census tax” paid directly to the emperor, not an ordinary tax. The more general Greek word for “tax” is phoros (used in Luke’s version of this story, Luke 20:22). The census tax might have been more controversial to students of Torah because it’s paid to the emperor using coins with his image on it. Ordinary taxes are covered in the Torah as a common part of life.
3. v 20, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” Why translate eikōn as “head” rather than “image”? Yes, it was probably just the emperor’s head on the coin, but it causes the reader in English to miss the vital connection that I believe Jesus wants us to make: God makes each one of us in God’s image. This coin may bear Caesar’s image, but you and I bear God’s image.
- Paul Nuechterlein, from Girardian Lectionary page for Proper 24A (link in comments below)
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"The biblical position represented by Jesus’s famous response in this passage holds human law as separate from God’s sovereignty but doesn’t vacate that sovereignty by too radical of a separation. God’s law, especially as fully revealed in the love of Jesus the Messiah, remains as a prophetic critique of human law. This becomes even more crucial in the fulfillment of prophecy that Jesus brought about: that the fallenness of human law is finally fully revealed as under the power of the sin...
"That’s why the movement of secularism is actually a consequence of the Gospel in the West. Secularism is the corrected worldview which separates everything human from theological justification. Human law is simply human; human politics are simply human; etc. But secularism goes too far to the other extreme from the biblical middle ground if it completely removes all that’s human from any possibility of critique from a transcendent perspective. This is tricky business, because any reassertion of theological perspective that lacks humility can easily collapse back into a false theological justification of the human.
"And that’s why prophetic critique can be more effective if it is offered in terms of anthropological hypothesis - which is once again a benefit of Mimetic Theory. A Christian prophetic stance against the status quo doesn’t have to settle for an authority based solely on, “Because God says so.” Rather, it can offer an analysis of what it means to be more truly human from the perspective of Jesus the Messiah, an hypothesis that becomes part of the conversation on matters of best politics, economics, ethics, and so forth.
"‘Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s’ can thus be understood as an anthropological hypothesis. Jesus asks whose image (eikon) is on the coin. This recalls the Imago Dei, being made in the image of God (Gen 1:26). Yes, it’s a theological statement. But even more so it’s an anthropological statement. In a secular age, the emphasis is on the latter such that it becomes a proposal for understanding what it means to be truly human, or human-at-our-best. It is the ongoing conversation of what it takes to fully flourish as individuals and as a species."
- Paul Nuechterlein, from "Opening Comments" on the Girardian Lectionary page for Proper 24A (link in comments below)
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"[Jesus is] teaching them about God and God's complete unrivaled being, in the presence of whom idols are as nothing - rulers are not in any sort of rivalry with God - and that therefore the question of what is good is going to have to be worked out by them in obedience, but also aware that following God's commands could put them into trouble eventually. This is the complete response that he's given them with a rabbinical authority.
"So it's then that they say when they heard this they were amazed and they left him and went away. In other words, not only did he sidestep their trap, actually he spoke straight into the midst of what they were asking and actually gave them an answer. I suggested that this wasn't a text about the separation between church and state, and it isn't. It's a text about the unrivaled power of God to do everything. But part of its effect, and one of the reasons why that reply lingers through the ages, and should linger through the ages, ... is that it has set us up in a world which is actually part of the Christian understanding of things, whereby we have learnt to de-divinize all forms of earthly power.
"There is nothing sacred in any of our legal systems. There is nothing sacred in any of our constitutions. They are all to be worked through at a human level, treated as just the human things that they are. In obedience, as far as we can be obedient to them, but then changing them when they need to be changed because they don't reflect the wisdom that shines and brings things into being, which is the command of God.
"In other words, part of the amazing secularization, if you like, of law, which has been one of the results of Christianity, [is that] we do not think of God fundamentally as a lawgiver. The commandments, our oath to God, God's command, is given us in the person of Jesus going up to his death and revealing what is at the base of so much civil and religious law - various forms of scapegoating, vengeance and oppression. [Those things] of course [are] the reverse of the command of God, and our task is always to work, with great freedom and sometimes at great risk, to make sure that our laws are obey-able by those who are seeking to obey our oath to God."
- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 29 in Ordinary Time Year A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogfiOoBjvvg)
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1 Thessalonians 1:6-7 (NRSV Updated Edition)
And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy from the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.
"The Spirit is not some amorphous entity that brings ecstatic experience in order to ground faith. Rather, the experience of the Spirit is given for the benefit of the community. Thus one’s experiences of the Risen Christ are not to be seen as ego boosts, as though those who have them are better than those who don’t. The work of the Spirit creates conformation to Christ where experience of the divine, in ecstatic praise, harsh persecution, or the mundane task of labor, all contribute to the formation of the believer into Christ’s image, who is the Image of God."
- Michael Hardin, The Jesus Driven Life (2nd Ed), pg. 258
[Source of Paul Nuechterlein quotes, and for discussion and resources on all of this week's lectionary texts, see: http://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/proper24a/]
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