Whose Icon is Coined on Your Heart?
22nd Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 22:15-22
Friday morning our postal carrier knocked on my office door. That’s a bit unusual – he usually just puts the mail in the mailbox out front – but Friday he knocked, which nearly always means he has a package. I jumped up to open the door – I keep it locked to keep the riff-raff out, you know – and sure enough, there he was holding a package. I looked, and then it dawned on me – I had new books. And not just any new books – new Capon books. I know what I’ll be reading until Christmas.
I didn’t dig in – too much to do on Friday afternoon and all of that. But I did crack one of them open to the table of contents, and a big smile came over my face – I could feel it growing. The titles of the chapters were soooooo Capon. I knew immediately that I had struck the Mother Lode on this one. Not one, but two books from my favorite theologian.
You see, when you read Capon, you are transported into an entirely new way of thinking. Several years ago, he nearly single-handedly changed the way I view the parables. His approach to Christian thinking stretches my thinking way beyond what I’ve always been taught – to the point that he makes me start to think for myself again, and my heart literally beats more rapidly when I read his stuff.
We all have authors who are like that to us – or actors, or perhaps idols of some other sort. So, when we hear Jesus indirectly asking us this question, we understand immediately what He is asking. But we’re not sure how to answer. It’s a tough question. Whose icon is coined on our hearts? Yeah, it’s a tough question.
Pastor, my version doesn’t say that. It says, “Whose likeness.” Well, the greek word is eikon, and it means “image.” Kind of a double meaning with that one, isn’t there?
Isn’t it just like Jesus to answer a question this way? To be sure, the Pharisees were trying to trap him. That’s exactly the word Matthew uses – trap. They thought if they could trap Him into using a little theological double talk, and maybe get Him to twist and squirm around His words the way political candidates do when they’re not sure how to answer without getting into hot water – then they thought they could start to get the people to turn against Him, and perhaps they might not have to use such a heavy hand to get Him out of their misery. But his response was sooooo Jesus. He accomplishes the dual purpose of sidestepping their direct question and at the same time reframing the question so as to teach a principle of living that is so utterly beyond the way that most of us think most of the time. “Jesus, should we pay taxes.” “Yeah, give Caesar what belongs to him, and be sure at the same time to give to God all that belongs to God.” Batted that one out of the park and made it look easy.
Boy, this sermon could go so many ways. You know, this is one of those passages that is often used around Stewardship Sunday. We could go that way with it, and would be justified in doing so. We could comment about the stewardship which is ours as citizens of two kingdoms, and that we are expected to do our part, little though it may be, for both kingdoms of which we serve. In our case, we actually serve several kingdoms – local government (city and county), state entities, and then the federal government. We are bound to service of all three of those levels of government, even before Jesus reminds us in the same breath that we are also members of a heavenly kingdom, and that we have responsibilities there as well. We could go that way, for sure.
We could go the way of talking about both questions that are then posed for us as a natural outflow of Jesus’ statement. We could talk about our responsibilities to Caesar. We could talk about the myriad of ways that we are obligated to local, state and federal governments, and the fact that we should count it a privilege to contribute cheerfully to each of those levels of government. And then we could talk about the obligation that each of us has to vote when opportunity comes our way, and we could talk about the wide array of ways in which we can serve our fellow citizens by getting involved in government at all levels. We could talk about our privilege to not only support and encourage, but to question and hold accountable people who serve us at every level of government. And we certainly could talk about the gift of God that is government – the gift that comes out of our seeming inability to govern ourselves fairly, honestly, and systematically without the aid of outside influences. We could talk about all of those things.
Or the other question. What are our responsibilities to the kingdom of God? We could talk about that. We could talk about the great price that has been paid for our redemption, and then we could recall some adage like “freedom isn’t free – it cost Jesus everything.” We could do that. And we could talk about the way in which God has chosen to involve us – each and every one of us – in the building of His kingdom. We could talk about the fact that none of us are to sit on the sidelines when it comes to building the kingdom of God – that God indeed expects each of us to take care for our own souls, and then to involve ourselves in the lives of others through prayer and support and even direct witnessing from time to time. We could talk about all of that, and we’d be justified.
But this question that Jesus asks haunts me. “Whose icon is on the coin?” That question, and the suggested question that comes as an extrapolation of His teaching – “whose icon is coined on your heart?”
I suppose that question haunts me, because deep down, I know the answer – and the answer is lacking – lacking in depth, lacking in fervor, lacking in consistency, lacking in truthfulness, and lacking in focus. I squirm. We squirm, just like that politician who isn’t quite sure how to answer. We want to answer well, but we know that we must be truthful. We want to answer. “Just look at my life, Jesus. Don’t you know that it is Your image that is coined on my heart?” But we know better than to brandish that kind of brashness. We know the answer, and it haunts us.
“Well, Jesus, you see – You’ve already identified our problem. The problem is that we live in these multiple kingdoms. Lots of folks have expectations of us. Certainly our families have expectations, and that’s just the way You’d want it, right, Jesus? And then we all work for a living, and our bosses all have expectations of us. We coach Little League, and we serve in Junior Welfare League. Those are good community service things, aren’t they, Jesus? And then there’s the church. We do all kinds of things at the church. We mow the lawn and we go to Ladies Bible Study and we collect shoeboxes for that Operation Christmas Child thing, and we sing in the choir and teach in Bible School, and You know we give our money. Doesn’t all that prove to you where our loyalties are? Doesn’t that prove to You that it is Your icon that is coined on our hearts? Tell us, Jesus. Please tell us . . .”
I think the thing that haunts us is that when we answer the question that way – when we recount all the things that we do to prove our loyalty to God - at the very same time we know in our heart of hearts that He is asking another question – or that He’s asking this same question at a deeper level – a level that is so deep that we’re not sure how to respond. It’s not this simple, but it’s more like He’s asking a “who are you?” question, rather than a “what are you doing for us?” question. And again, it’s not this simple, but it’s more like He’s asking a question about identity – “Whose image is coined, stamped, tattooed, ingrained on your heart?” That level of identity is about the only way that personally I can approach this question and feel like I’m starting to get a handle on it.
I tell you what I feel like when I hear this question. I feel like the times I have been out of the country, and have had to use the coin of the realm of wherever I was to purchase anything I wanted to purchase. In my lifetime, I’ve been in five different countries – England, Wales, Argentina, Chile, and Mexico. They have different money in those places. They had paper money for things that I was used to having coin, and they had coin where I was used to having paper. When I was there, I wasn’t sure how much things cost in their money, and I was always just sure that I was being ripped off when I paid for something. I didn’t know how to easily calculate the exchange rate, and then when I did, I didn’t know the value of something over there as compared to here. I felt as though I was at the mercy of the vendors in those countries whenever they would take my money.
I’ll tell you, I have a suspicion about something. I have a suspicion about how to translate this question into something that we can all understand. Maybe it will help. In our physical, temporal world – the world that you and I would describe as Caesar’s world – you and I know how much stuff costs. We know how much it costs, and we know, more or less, how to work the system to get what we want, either by working harder and longer, or by being diligent enough to save for something, or by inheriting tons of cash so that we can render unto Caesar, or by taking a loan out at the bank or on our credit cards. We know how much stuff costs, and we know how to get what we want.
But in God’s realm, we’re not sure how much stuff costs. “Just how much to repay a kindness offered to me in the name of Christ?” “What is the value of that Sunday School lesson that John or Jan or Gary or Debby taught this morning?” “What do I really owe God for the scriptures that I hold in my hand this morning?” We don’t know how much stuff costs, and we’re not sure how to begin to repay our debt. And then Sunday’s roll around, and the preacher stands up there in the pulpit and reminds us that Jesus died for us. Or we go to the movie and see Jesus hanging on that cross in “The Passion,” and we think we hear the answer. “Here’s how much it cost.” And we look at the outstretched arms of Jesus, and we know that we don’t have enough to even start to repay – and we’re trumped – because we’re used to living in a different world.
Jesus hung there on that cross – arms outstretched – but when they took Him down, He wrapped those arms around us, and said, “These are mine – I bought them.”
“. . . and to God the things that are God's."
Richard W. Dunn, PhD.
1. I was inspired to this title by my friend Keith Herron, in his sermon three years ago entitled "Coined in God's Image."
Matthew 22:15-22
Friday morning our postal carrier knocked on my office door. That’s a bit unusual – he usually just puts the mail in the mailbox out front – but Friday he knocked, which nearly always means he has a package. I jumped up to open the door – I keep it locked to keep the riff-raff out, you know – and sure enough, there he was holding a package. I looked, and then it dawned on me – I had new books. And not just any new books – new Capon books. I know what I’ll be reading until Christmas.
I didn’t dig in – too much to do on Friday afternoon and all of that. But I did crack one of them open to the table of contents, and a big smile came over my face – I could feel it growing. The titles of the chapters were soooooo Capon. I knew immediately that I had struck the Mother Lode on this one. Not one, but two books from my favorite theologian.
You see, when you read Capon, you are transported into an entirely new way of thinking. Several years ago, he nearly single-handedly changed the way I view the parables. His approach to Christian thinking stretches my thinking way beyond what I’ve always been taught – to the point that he makes me start to think for myself again, and my heart literally beats more rapidly when I read his stuff.
We all have authors who are like that to us – or actors, or perhaps idols of some other sort. So, when we hear Jesus indirectly asking us this question, we understand immediately what He is asking. But we’re not sure how to answer. It’s a tough question. Whose icon is coined on our hearts? Yeah, it’s a tough question.
Pastor, my version doesn’t say that. It says, “Whose likeness.” Well, the greek word is eikon, and it means “image.” Kind of a double meaning with that one, isn’t there?
Isn’t it just like Jesus to answer a question this way? To be sure, the Pharisees were trying to trap him. That’s exactly the word Matthew uses – trap. They thought if they could trap Him into using a little theological double talk, and maybe get Him to twist and squirm around His words the way political candidates do when they’re not sure how to answer without getting into hot water – then they thought they could start to get the people to turn against Him, and perhaps they might not have to use such a heavy hand to get Him out of their misery. But his response was sooooo Jesus. He accomplishes the dual purpose of sidestepping their direct question and at the same time reframing the question so as to teach a principle of living that is so utterly beyond the way that most of us think most of the time. “Jesus, should we pay taxes.” “Yeah, give Caesar what belongs to him, and be sure at the same time to give to God all that belongs to God.” Batted that one out of the park and made it look easy.
Boy, this sermon could go so many ways. You know, this is one of those passages that is often used around Stewardship Sunday. We could go that way with it, and would be justified in doing so. We could comment about the stewardship which is ours as citizens of two kingdoms, and that we are expected to do our part, little though it may be, for both kingdoms of which we serve. In our case, we actually serve several kingdoms – local government (city and county), state entities, and then the federal government. We are bound to service of all three of those levels of government, even before Jesus reminds us in the same breath that we are also members of a heavenly kingdom, and that we have responsibilities there as well. We could go that way, for sure.
We could go the way of talking about both questions that are then posed for us as a natural outflow of Jesus’ statement. We could talk about our responsibilities to Caesar. We could talk about the myriad of ways that we are obligated to local, state and federal governments, and the fact that we should count it a privilege to contribute cheerfully to each of those levels of government. And then we could talk about the obligation that each of us has to vote when opportunity comes our way, and we could talk about the wide array of ways in which we can serve our fellow citizens by getting involved in government at all levels. We could talk about our privilege to not only support and encourage, but to question and hold accountable people who serve us at every level of government. And we certainly could talk about the gift of God that is government – the gift that comes out of our seeming inability to govern ourselves fairly, honestly, and systematically without the aid of outside influences. We could talk about all of those things.
Or the other question. What are our responsibilities to the kingdom of God? We could talk about that. We could talk about the great price that has been paid for our redemption, and then we could recall some adage like “freedom isn’t free – it cost Jesus everything.” We could do that. And we could talk about the way in which God has chosen to involve us – each and every one of us – in the building of His kingdom. We could talk about the fact that none of us are to sit on the sidelines when it comes to building the kingdom of God – that God indeed expects each of us to take care for our own souls, and then to involve ourselves in the lives of others through prayer and support and even direct witnessing from time to time. We could talk about all of that, and we’d be justified.
But this question that Jesus asks haunts me. “Whose icon is on the coin?” That question, and the suggested question that comes as an extrapolation of His teaching – “whose icon is coined on your heart?”
I suppose that question haunts me, because deep down, I know the answer – and the answer is lacking – lacking in depth, lacking in fervor, lacking in consistency, lacking in truthfulness, and lacking in focus. I squirm. We squirm, just like that politician who isn’t quite sure how to answer. We want to answer well, but we know that we must be truthful. We want to answer. “Just look at my life, Jesus. Don’t you know that it is Your image that is coined on my heart?” But we know better than to brandish that kind of brashness. We know the answer, and it haunts us.
“Well, Jesus, you see – You’ve already identified our problem. The problem is that we live in these multiple kingdoms. Lots of folks have expectations of us. Certainly our families have expectations, and that’s just the way You’d want it, right, Jesus? And then we all work for a living, and our bosses all have expectations of us. We coach Little League, and we serve in Junior Welfare League. Those are good community service things, aren’t they, Jesus? And then there’s the church. We do all kinds of things at the church. We mow the lawn and we go to Ladies Bible Study and we collect shoeboxes for that Operation Christmas Child thing, and we sing in the choir and teach in Bible School, and You know we give our money. Doesn’t all that prove to you where our loyalties are? Doesn’t that prove to You that it is Your icon that is coined on our hearts? Tell us, Jesus. Please tell us . . .”
I think the thing that haunts us is that when we answer the question that way – when we recount all the things that we do to prove our loyalty to God - at the very same time we know in our heart of hearts that He is asking another question – or that He’s asking this same question at a deeper level – a level that is so deep that we’re not sure how to respond. It’s not this simple, but it’s more like He’s asking a “who are you?” question, rather than a “what are you doing for us?” question. And again, it’s not this simple, but it’s more like He’s asking a question about identity – “Whose image is coined, stamped, tattooed, ingrained on your heart?” That level of identity is about the only way that personally I can approach this question and feel like I’m starting to get a handle on it.
I tell you what I feel like when I hear this question. I feel like the times I have been out of the country, and have had to use the coin of the realm of wherever I was to purchase anything I wanted to purchase. In my lifetime, I’ve been in five different countries – England, Wales, Argentina, Chile, and Mexico. They have different money in those places. They had paper money for things that I was used to having coin, and they had coin where I was used to having paper. When I was there, I wasn’t sure how much things cost in their money, and I was always just sure that I was being ripped off when I paid for something. I didn’t know how to easily calculate the exchange rate, and then when I did, I didn’t know the value of something over there as compared to here. I felt as though I was at the mercy of the vendors in those countries whenever they would take my money.
I’ll tell you, I have a suspicion about something. I have a suspicion about how to translate this question into something that we can all understand. Maybe it will help. In our physical, temporal world – the world that you and I would describe as Caesar’s world – you and I know how much stuff costs. We know how much it costs, and we know, more or less, how to work the system to get what we want, either by working harder and longer, or by being diligent enough to save for something, or by inheriting tons of cash so that we can render unto Caesar, or by taking a loan out at the bank or on our credit cards. We know how much stuff costs, and we know how to get what we want.
But in God’s realm, we’re not sure how much stuff costs. “Just how much to repay a kindness offered to me in the name of Christ?” “What is the value of that Sunday School lesson that John or Jan or Gary or Debby taught this morning?” “What do I really owe God for the scriptures that I hold in my hand this morning?” We don’t know how much stuff costs, and we’re not sure how to begin to repay our debt. And then Sunday’s roll around, and the preacher stands up there in the pulpit and reminds us that Jesus died for us. Or we go to the movie and see Jesus hanging on that cross in “The Passion,” and we think we hear the answer. “Here’s how much it cost.” And we look at the outstretched arms of Jesus, and we know that we don’t have enough to even start to repay – and we’re trumped – because we’re used to living in a different world.
Jesus hung there on that cross – arms outstretched – but when they took Him down, He wrapped those arms around us, and said, “These are mine – I bought them.”
“. . . and to God the things that are God's."
Richard W. Dunn, PhD.
1. I was inspired to this title by my friend Keith Herron, in his sermon three years ago entitled "Coined in God's Image."
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