Be Careful What You Wish For

You have to be careful what you wish for. I think these are words that every parent share with their child at some point in their lives. I believe this statement has been going on for generations and will continue to be one of those phrases that endures because of the truth that it holds for all time.

It was certainly true for the Israelites. I know that the text I am going to be spending some time talking about is not in our lessons today, but as I thought more and more about our Gospel reading about paying taxes to Caesar, this text kept popping up into my mind as something relevant to what we need to talk about. Before Israel was ruled by King David or King Solomon, the Israelites were ruled over by judges. Judges took care of matters of what our modern day judges take care of but that is not simply what a judge was. A judge could also be a war leader. There were different judges in Israel’s history and each one had their own unique talents they brought to the table, but a judge was not king or a ruler in the traditional sense of the word.

The king over Israel was God and God alone, however, in the people are no longer satisfied with being ruled over by judges. They see the other nations with their kings ruling over them and they get it in their heads that having a king rule over them is the best way to have a kingdom. They also see how Samuel’s sons are not quite as pure as Samuel is, so they demand that they be given a king to rule over them. They could have asked for different judges to be appointed over them instead of Samuel’s sons, but instead they want to be like other nations and have a king. Samuel prays to God and God gives the people a warning about what it will be like if they appoint a king to rule over them, and also tells Samuel privately to not be mad at the people, because they have not rejected him as judge but they have rejected God as their king.

Samuel tells the Israelites all about the drawbacks that will come from having a king but they refuse to listen because their hearts are set on being like every other nation in the world and having a king. They think that everything will be better when a king rules over them because a king will fight their battles and a king will govern over them justly. What I find interesting is that Samuel had just told them, and I know it says they refused to listen, that the new king will take their children and their husbands and turn them into his army, and yet it almost seems as if they don’t realize that the army they want him to lead will be made up of their loved ones. The king can’t magically make an army appear out of nowhere.

The people persist and God relents and tells Samuel to go and find them a king and they will have a king to rule over them. Be careful what you wish for. Although Israel had some great kings like David and Solomon and a few others, we also know about some kings that weren’t so great in the eyes of the people or of God, but that is who the people to chose to rule over them. And as we know as well, David and Solomon, even though considered the greatest kings of Israel, weren’t exactly flawless.

I tell you this story from to set up for us what we see happening in our Gospel text today about Caesar. Israel wanted so badly to be like other nations and to have a king rule over them, and now they are being ruled by a king from another nation. Not exactly what they wished for, but they were desperate to be like another nation and now that they were like other nations they don’t want that anymore.

The problem with being ruled by the Roman Empire is that Caesar and the Roman people in a twisted way took to heart what God had wanted for the Israelites back when Samuel was judge over the people. Caesar was their king, but Caesar was also the living embodiment of a god to them. Caesar was both king and god. That is what God intended for Israel, that God was their king. However, the Israelites believe that God is God alone, so to be ruled by another nation was bad, but to be ruled by a nation who believed their earthly king was also their heavenly king, so to speak, was an unforgivable offense in their eyes.

The Pharisees do truly try to trap Jesus by asking about paying taxes because not only are the Israelites being occupied in the land promised to them by God, but they are being ruled by a pagan gentile who thinks he is god. When the disciples of the Pharisees and the Herodians, followers of Herod, come and ask if it is lawful to pay taxes to Caesar there is a lot happening in that seemingly short and simple question.

As I mentioned they are being governed by another country with a ruler that thinks he’s the earthly incarnation of a god, and will one day join the other gods after this earthly life, but it doesn’t stop there. To further complicate the issue, the coin that was used to pay this tax was a Roman coin, and that coin had an image of Caesar on it. Not a big deal, right? I mean we have coins in our society that have George Washington on it and Thomas Jefferson. The idea of printing coins with people’s faces on it is neither new nor something we think is counter to our faith. However, when you add in the idea that the picture wasn’t of a ruler from 200 years ago but of the current ruler, who also thought he was the son of a god then you’ve got some issues. The coin Jesus holds up, has a picture of the current Caesar on it and it likely read on the coin, "Tiberius Caesar, august son of the divine Augustus, high priest." The Israelites were forbidden to make images of God, so the fact that this was a graven image and it was of a foreign god, and a polytheistic religion compounded the issue 1000%.

The issue being raised is both a religious and a political issue. It is an issue about paying a tax they never had to pay before to be a citizen of Israel, and impoverished them even more, and it was an act of idolatry in their minds. No wonder the Pharisees and Herodians thought they had Jesus trapped this time. If he tells them to pay the tax outright then he is conceding to Roman occupation, graven images, and idolatry and lose all legitimacy with the Israelites. If he tells them to not pay the taxes then he would be taking the side of his fellow Israelites, but he would be condemning the ruling government and be thrown into prison and most likely executed, a bonus for the Pharisees.

It seems so obvious for us who know the text, but Jesus expertly crafts an answer that neither gets him arrested by Rome, nor denounces his faith in God and Israel. I don’t know about you but I don’t think I could have come up with that answer on my feet. The leaders were so focused on the idea of paying taxes that they didn’t even bring up directly about the subject about God. Jesus reminds us that we have our obligations to the government, but that we also have obligations to our God. When Jesus asks whose head is on the coin and whose title in the word for head can also be translated as image. So Jesus wants to know who’s image is there and the response is the emperor’s. Then the next part says give to the emperor what is the emperor’s and give to God the things that are God’s, which is the famous answer we hear. What if we instead worded or interpreted that phrase like this:

Give to the emperor the things that bear the image of the emperor, and give to God the things that bear the image of God.

I know that basically sounds like the exact same phrase but with those few changes in our thinking of that phrase, I believe we can come to a much deeper meaning on this text. The things that bear the image of the emperor is the Roman tax coin. Pay the Roman tax coin. It costs money and it furthers an established rule that you don’t agree with but it is what you have to do to survive Roman occupation.

Here’s where the real change happens though. Give to God the things that bear the image of God. is the part of the story of God creating the world where he creates humankind. God doesn’t just create humankind, but God creates humankind in God’s image. So to give to God the things that bear the image of God is to give ourselves over to God. To give our whole createdness (which I know is not a word) over to God. We were created in the image of God and God wants to have that relationship with us. God wants to be our king, not to rule over our physical possessions and to determine how much money we owe the government, but to rule over our hearts and our lives.

In which we talked about earlier that is exactly what God meant. God wanted to be king in the sense that God was their God and they put their trust in God above anything and everything else. God appointed judges to cover the complaints and rulings over the earthly things like stealing and living together peacefully and who owed whom this much money. God left that up to people, God simply wanted to be king in the purest sense of the word. God still wants that today. Give to the emperor the things that bear the image of the emperor and give to God the things that bear the image of God.

What greater gift can we receive other than to have been created in the image of the one who created everything? What greater gift and blessing is there than for that creator king to want to have a relationship with us? There is nothing better, there is nothing greater than to be loved and wanted by God. Each and every one of you bears the image of God and reflects that image every moment of your lives. Rejoice and be glad that you are and always will be reflections of our God, who created heaven and earth and is our one and only king.

Amen.