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A sermon for Sunday, October 18, 2020, based on Matthew 22:15-22.

Would you pray with me?

God in whose image we are made, thank you for bringing us to this time and this place. By your Spirit, make your presence known here today. And may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Have you ever been mistaken for somebody else? I think it happens to most everyone. You’re walking down the street or picking up something at the store and you see someone you’ve never seen in your life waving at you and walking toward you. Well, maybe not so much these days, when we all have masks on and aren’t getting out of the house as much. I routinely don’t recognize people in masks. But think back to before. You see someone you don’t know waving at you and you have a couple options: run away, pretend like you know them, or tell them straight to their face that they’ve made a mistake.

If you choose that second option, pretending like you know them, you end up in this fascinating place where you can learn all you need to know about who this person thinks you are. What does this person think you do for a living? How does this person think they know you? Does this person actually like you or is this person just trying to get in some gossip? I’m not advocating that you take this route, at all, but if you did, it would be pretty interesting to dig deeper into this case of mistaken identity.

I think we have a case of mistaken identity in our gospel story this morning. Or, rather, a case of mistaken self-identity, which is maybe something else entirely.

Let me explain.

See, this story from Matthew comes just a chapter after Jesus’s Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, the thing we celebrate on Palm Sunday. Jesus comes into town, riding on a donkey, and the crowds go wild, shouting Hosanna, and Jesus takes that party all the way to the Temple, where he runs out the money changers. The next day, he comes back to the Temple, and people start challenging his authority. Who does this Jesus think he is? Just before our scripture for today, Jesus takes on challenges from the chief priests and the Pharisees, telling a couple of parables to answer their questions. So far, Jesus is undefeated against all who would challenge him to a battle of wits and wisdom.

But here is a new challenge for Jesus, not just from the Pharisees and the chief priests, but also the Herodians. Now, the Herodians are a group of Jewish leaders who support Herod the Great’s dynasty and want Judea to be ruled by Herod, independent of Rome. Everybody knows about these groups in Jesus’ day, how the Pharisees and the Herodians wanted Judea to be independent from Rome, but had different ways of thinking about it. And everyone knew, too, that anybody who challenge Rome would be in hot water. So, accordingly, they ask him a question about Rome.

They start out by buttering him up. “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.” And maybe there’s a little bit of a case of mistaken identity here. See, they think that Jesus is going to be like all the other potential messiahs. They think that he’s going to go off on some huge speech about the evils of Rome and taxation, riling up the crowd until they all charge off together to take on the Roman legion and reclaim Judea for the Jews! They think that Jesus has an ego big enough to do all of that, if only they flatter him in the just the right way. “Jesus, we know your heart is in the right place. Jesus, we know that you follow the one true God. Jesus, we know that you think everyone is equal. So tell us, Jesus. Is the emperor owed our taxes?”

They must think this question is so tempting to Jesus. After all, they’ve seen that he can draw a crowd. They saw how upset he was over the money changers in the Temple. Asking a question about money? This is a sure bet for getting Jesus to lose his cool, slip up, and get caught by Rome. Then, Rome takes care of this Jesus problem for them.

But the Herodians and the disciples of the Pharisees, they mistake Jesus for some other Messiah. This is why it’s so important for Jesus to tell his disciples so many times before they get to Jerusalem that he’s going to be crucified. Jesus is trying to show them, over and over again, that he’s not the messiah they think he is. He’s not here to overthrow the Roman government. He’s here for something bigger. You can’t mistake Jesus for any other Messiah.

The funny thing is, though, that the Herodians and the Pharisees both want Rome gone, just like they think Jesus does. That’s why Jesus calls them hypocrites. Here they are, trying to goad Jesus into rising up against Rome, while trying to pretend that they don’t want the same thing to happen. They’re trying to look innocent while being the exact opposite.

Jesus doesn’t fall for the trap, though. He asks for the coin, and he asks whose head and title is on it. He tells them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give to God what is God’s.”

Well, that’s not the outcome they wanted at all. Somehow, amazingly, Jesus wins all the way around. He avoids getting into trouble with Rome by telling people to pay taxes, but he keeps the crowd on his side by holding some back for God. This question that should have produced a no-win scenario for Jesus turns out to give him the biggest victory yet.

But we don’t have this passage in scripture because Jesus won an argument. We have it in scripture because it holds a deeper meaning. And that deeper meaning, for us and for the people of Jesus’ day, revolves around the head on the coin.

See, Jesus doesn’t say the Greek word for head, which would be κεφαλή, when he asks about the coin. He uses instead the Greek word εἰκὼν, meaning image or likeness, representation or resemblance. Fine, Jesus says. Give to Caesar what looks like Caesar, these pieces of metal that bear Caesar’s image, these dead, lifeless coins that seem to make the world go around. But you give to God what is God’s.

Which leads us to the deep question here. What in this world bears the image of God?

Well, us. We do. We bear the image of God. According to Genesis, we are made in the image of God.

Now, this is a deeply, deeply important thing. I don’t want us to miss it. You, me, all of us people, we’re all made in the image of God. And that means that Caesar has no claim over us. Caesar has no control over us. We belong to God. Before all things, we belong to God.

This is our case of mistaken self-identity. We think so often that we are icons of Caesar, made in the image of the people who are powerful in this world. But that’s not who we are. We are not made to do what Caesar thinks we should do. We don’t define ourselves in relationship to Caesar. It doesn’t matter what Caesar thinks of us. We are in the image of God. We are made for the good works God has set before us. We are beloved children of God. God holds us in unconditional positive regard. No matter who we are, where we’ve been, or what we’ve done, God loves us with an unending love.

Our goal in this world, as Christians who are always walking the path that Christ as laid out for us, our goal is to become unmistakable icons of God in this world. Our goal is to become so like Jesus that we never have a case of mistaken identity. No one ever looks at us and thinks of the powers of this world. People only ever look at us and see the image of God within us. And, after we’ve found this icon of God within ourselves, we practice looking for it in others, because it’s there. We know, always, no matter what else in the world might try to sway us to another way of thinking, that each and every person bears the image of God. Each and every person is precious, each and every person is loved with an everlasting love, and in each and every person, we see Jesus.

Turns out, this story was never about taxes after all. It’s about who and whose we are. And you, beloved of God, are made in the image of God. Nothing in this world can change that or make you any less. Nothing in this world has the power to mistake you for anything else other than a precious person, beloved in the eyes of God.

So don’t let it.

Amen.