The Things That Belong To God

Most of us, I suspect, have a set of clothes that we only wear on Sunday, a suit, a tie, a dress, a special wrapper or skirt, a special hat or headpiece. It is our “Sunday Best.” We wear other clothes to work or to school, but when we put on those clothes, we are going to church. We have our Sunday “voice,” a way of singing hymns and church songs, and another voice for singing along with the radio or singing in the shower. We do the same thing with our manners, our way of behaving, the way we talk. There are words we use on Sundays, or words we never use on Sunday, and the way we talk when we are at home or on the streets.

We easily tend to compartmentalize our lives into different zones of action, what we are at work, what we do at home, with our families and friends, what we do to have fun, and what we do at church. We segment our lives into what is ordinary and what is special, what is secular and what is sacred. We have “our time” during the week and at home, and then we have “God’s time” here at church.

But how do we really determine what is God’s time and what is ours? How do we decide what is sacred and what is not? How do we determine what belongs to God and what belongs to me?

That is what the Pharisees were asking when they confronted Jesus that day in Jerusalem. They knew it was truly a difficult thing to decide. Whatever answer Jesus gave to that question will stimulate another answer on the other side. They knew this, and were trying to trap Jesus, trip him up and get him in trouble.

“Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?” And by lawful, they were referring to religious law, the Torah, the laws of God. The tax they referred to was the census tax that was paid to the Roman authorities and it could only be paid with Roman money, the denarius.

The Pharisees were known for their resistance to the Roman occupation of Israel. They hated the Romans and considered the Roman presence in their land an abomination, an insult to God. They stayed away from the Romans as much as possible. They even tried not to touch Roman money. So when a denarius was asked for in this story, it was most likely the others in the story who produced it.

The others were the Herodians. They were Jews who accepted the rule of King Herod, who was in fact a puppet ruler for Romans. The Herodians did not like the Romans either, but they believed that resistance to Rome would lead to their destruction. Going along with Romans meant that they would live.

Both the Pharisees and the Herodians hated Jesus. Both of them were trying to trap Jesus when they asked him the question. If he said they should not pay their taxes, Jesus could be arrested for treason. If he said they should pay money to Caesar, he would be cast as a collaborator with Romans. Either answer would be the end of him.

So Jesus asked for a coin. “Whose image is on it? Whose inscription?” The answer was clear: “Caesar’s.” In fact the image on the ancient coin is that of Tiberius Caesar and the inscription says “Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus Caesar.” The inscription in effect says that Tiberius is the Son of God. To use this money is blasphemy to the God of Israel; not to use it is open rebellion against Rome.

So Jesus answers their trick question with a trick answer: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that belong to God.” With that answer, both the Herodians and the Pharisees were stymied and frustrated. It is lawful to pay our taxes but it is also necessary to give allegiance to God. But Jesus’ answer also causes us to ask a follow up question: What are the things of God? What belongs to the secular world and what belongs to God? Looking at the coin Jesus asks, “Whose image is this?”

This past week I sent some of our pictures from our recent trip to Scotland to my uncle, my father’s brother in North Carolina. Like me, he is interested in our family genealogy, so I sent him a picture of me in front of the church in the small village of Currie, outside Edinburgh. He wrote back and said, “When I look at that picture, I see the image of my brother, your father.” He said I also look like his other brother, bill, who like my father has also passed away.

I am not usually aware of it, but now that I am in my fifties, I look in the mirror in the mornings and see some one else. I saw an old man. I have developed my “old man face.” I am not the twenty-year old that I have in my mind for myself. I am in fact more like the image of my father as I remember him. I look down and I see my father’s hands, the same hands that used to hold mine. Some say I talk like my father. Marsha says that sometimes when she looks at me from behind, I walk just like my father used to walk.

There is also a lot of my mother’s family in me too, the large torso, the bald head, and the receding chin. I have in my personality a mix of both my parents, my mother’s compassion and faith, and my father’s strength and loyalty—some of their weaknesses too I am sure. I am the image of those who made me. We all bear the image of those from whom we come.

But there is a deeper image within us that marks from where we come. It is an image that defines to whom we belong. Within all of creation is the mark of the one who shaped it and created it. And within all of us is the mark of the one who shaped and created us. Within all human beings is the image of God. God made us from the dust of the earth, breathed into us life, the breathe of God, and gave within us the image of God. We are God’s kin. We have God’s hands, God’s voice, and God’s smile. We have God’s walk, the shape of God’s eyes and chin. We are a mix of God’s character, God’s creativity, intelligence, beauty, justice and love. It is all within us. No matter how it is corrupted by sin and brokenness, the image of God remains the mark of our lives. It marks to whom we belong.

Jesus saw the denarius and asked, “Whose image is this?” The face was that of Tiberius. But the image was the same as within all of us. No matter how distorted by his violent, treacherous and blasphemous rule, the image of God is still there. And so the answer to the question, what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God, is ultimately the same. It all belongs to God. There is no separation between the things of God and the things of Caesar. There is no separation of what belongs to the world and what belongs to God. There is no secular and sacred. All of creation bears the mark of the one made it.

All of our lives show the mark of the one who dreamed us into being, who sustains our life every moment of every day, and the one who saves us from our sin and destruction. All of our days, our hours, and our minutes are sacred time—our getting up in the morning, our laying down at night, our working, our playing, our living and our loving. All that we create or build, all that we tear down or destroy, all that we spend and that we save, all we possess and all we give away, it all came from God and it all belongs to God.

It is the height of arrogance and pride to assign six days of the week as our own, and give God just one. Sunday clothes, Sunday voice, Sunday time, as if there were just one holy day in the week. The dollar you put in the plate on Sunday is never enough. All that you have is God’s—give it all. The time you spend getting here, the time sitting in the pew, singing, praying, it is never enough. All your time is God’s. Give it all back. Make all your life an offering. Make all your time serving the one to whom you belong.

Everything we have, everything we do, everything we say, everything we give, everything we take, belongs to God. Make it all holy; make it all your gift to God. We are not owned. In life and in death, we belong to God.