Christian Pathway

This a story about loyalty, and allegiance. Where does that ultimately lie, with family, with church, with God, who ultimately is the lord of your life. How we balance all of the things in our lives, that we need but may pull us away from God.
Loyalty and Allegiance are Old fashioned terms that are revolutionary, and counter culture for a world that moves with the latest fashion.
So they flatter Jesus . call him teacher, and say he is a man of God (they got right).

I always think they let on a bit of why they hate him when they say

You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are.

Some people like you to pay attention to who they are, especially those in elevated positions. They feel they earned this place why aren’t you paying more attention to it. Lesson for those that hold power, jesus does not care, neither should you because all is vanity.

all is vanity as they say in Ecclesiastes they knew he could give a jot about any of that, and they hated him for it.

However

so Jesus doesn’t fall for that old flannel and asks them to show them what coin they have.

There’s a reason he asked.

They give him a denarii, this is very telling as the jews had their own money, without any faces as God was their lord, but the pharisees had denarii Caesars money. Denari were how you paid the poll tax to Caesar and how Caesar paid you. He knows now who paid for this trap.

Matthew our gospel writer understood this very well, hence he pointed this out, he collected these taxes, and swapped the money over, so when he wrote this gospel he knows Jesus has shown them who owns them. He was owned by them, they paid taxes to the occupier by them. He was ,adr free thrush Jesus
But the he asks them who’s face is this
On first glance this looks a very binary however
Jesus wasn’t asking them to choose when he says whose face is this , he’s making the point they are already bought and sold. By having that coin, they were already lost, byt being obsessed by the earned position of life they had already lost the plot.

He is being asked this in front of two audiences, Herodians agents of Caesar and the pharisees self-styled agents of God. Asking him to choose would be death as both sides had a claim and could call him out.

Jesus says its not either or, most the time when he says

“So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

the cesar but is clear, but what does it mean to give to god what is Gods?

jesus knew what he meant, see people obsessed with cesar see separation, people who love god see this.

Its all Gods?

That’s the point of this story soon as you realise that. By answering this way he side stepped the trap, but he answered the simple fact its all gods, so give to god what is gods.

St Benedict who formed all the Benedictine monasteries got this point when he said that the hoe and the plough can be as sacramental objects as the sacraments on our table today?

Because they can all be given to God, they are all God, we can bring god into our gardening , our work, our knitting and drawing, In fact we cannot exclude him, hes already their hes present in everything. He doesn’t fade away this God, he is with us every moment of the day. When we pray we simply focus ourselves back on him, but God never lost focus on us.

So when he says give to God what is Gods, he knows gods there already.

This is the lesson for today, on first read it can seem like Jesus has drawn a line.

But he hasn’t, when you pay your tax Jesus is there, when the powers that occupy our land take it he is there, he is always there.

Cesar is gods and we are gods creation and subjects.

The question is whom do you call lord when you deal with Caesar and what will you do if he asks you to do something that bring your allegiance and loyalty into question.

Who is your lord, your lofty position, your money or him. Is God in everything you do or is it compartmentalised.

Jesus gave you the answer today,

for people of god there is no division no compartment, cesaer needs whats his , but in all things , jesus is lord, and with us all the time.

Give to god what is Gods is what you should do. But the pharisees saw it as separate or instead of, jesus actually meant all the time
That means everything all the time in everything wee do
Because that’s what he does for you