Bad Penny
Exodus 33:12-23; Matthew 22:15-22

October 19, 2008


A tale of two faces today, not two cities. It was the best of times and the worst of times, both in the ancient of days around Moses and in the new era around Jesus. Both tales, both faces, are not that simple to see. It is easy to see the face of a human being, yet it is never comfortable to see God.

The Pharisees were men of words. The word Pharisee means to “separate,” to “distinguish,” to “interpret.” They knew how to manipulate words to mean what they already had in mind, especially when they claimed these words to be God’s words. Not for the first time, they set out intentionally on this day to entangle Jesus in his own words. They had a good one. And they had muscle, of sorts.

They brought along with them some “Herodians,” the only place in the Gospels where this group is mentioned. Herod was the governor of Judea and not the most ethical individual if you remember John the Baptist’s losing battle with him. Herod, the King of the Jews by reputation, was actually a sell-out to the Romans, a Quisling if you remember the Second World War. The one thing Herod wanted was to keep the peace so that the Romans did not get on his case. Herod and his thugs, the so-called Herodians, made sure that no one complained the wrong way about Roman rule, including taxation, and that’s probably why these less desirable types were coming along to listen to a theological debate about which they would be normally bored to death.

The Pharisees started by obnoxious sweet talking, “Doctor, we know that you are a straight shooter, and that you tell God’s way like it is. And it doesn’t matter to you who you’re talking to, because you pay no attention to a man’s standing.” I don’t believe they intended to do so, but they had it right. Jesus didn’t care about a person’s social standing, whether it was high or low or lowest.

Now the Herodians perked up their ears for they knew what was coming, “Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should you have to pay Federal taxes?” Everybody standing in the vicinity leaned in to hear the reply. This was great theater.

Jesus knew what was going on and wasn’t about to be sucked into being a part of the play, or was he? He called them “hypocrites,” a term originally used in Greek theater for an actor who held a mask before his face so that you couldn’t see what he was really thinking. So he is really throwing back at them their oily greasy compliments and saying, “You have false faces.”

He asks for a coin, and somewhere out of the gaggle of Pharisees and Herodians one is produced. When it was slapped into his hand, Jesus almost had to look up with a silent and pregnant pause, for the Pharisees should not have been caught dead with such a coin, for it was idolatry personified, or least metallized. They had convicted themselves again of a hypocritical religious action, for they would have delighted in declaring impure or unclean loads of things for the average person. “Whose face is this?” he asked, pointing to the coin. “Caesar,” came the obvious response.

Money has come a long way in two millennia. In the Roman era, this engraving of Caesar on a coin meant that it belonged ultimately and finally to him. Queen Elizabeth has no such pretensions to our money or to British sterling. In the US, all the denominations of currency have someone dead on the note or coin, not quite all dead Presidents. This idea was one that conflicted with the Jewish perspective on life, just as it would for many with Hitler and the Nazi regime. Caesar thought the whole world belonged to him, for after all, and we have a few of the likely coins still around, he considered himself a god. The Jews knew that “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof; the world and those who dwell therein.” You worship the one whom you believe owns all of it.

So give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar - this puny coin - but give back to God what belongs to God, which is all of creation. A few years ago I referred to the opening lines of the 1934 Barmen Declaration of the Confessing Church in Germany, written by Karl Barth in response to the rise of the Third Reich and the new regulations for the German Christians stipulated by Adolf Hitler.

The Confessing Church reiterated its foundation was in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the one Word of God. The key phrase was “We reject the false doctrine, as though the church could and would have to acknowledge as a source of its proclamation, apart from and besides this one Word of God, still other events and powers, figures and truths, as God's revelation.” Hitler was insisting that the Church had to refer to him as first authority for all of life, even preaching.

Some of our members were concerned that this Barmen Declaration was a reversion back to a triumphal “there is only Jesus” in the midst of our multi-cultural, multi-religious world. Ah, context means everything! Hitler declared he owned it all, and certainly owned our bodies and our souls. Barth and others replied, No, the only one who owns us all is the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s a problem that still plagues worldly governments today, even democratic ones.

It’s a form of election fatigue, I know, but everywhere you went there were those posters with the candidates’ faces smiling at you. You’ve seen the photos in other countries where a form of dictatorship is in force, and at critical places there are the huge posters of the benevolent ruler. He usually isn’t smiling, just a demeanour of tranquil omnipotence - I have control of everything.

Get back to that long ago conversation between the Lord God and Moses. They talked a lot together like neighbours and Moses was considered special to God. Yet Moses had never seen God directly, despite the burning bush. He sidles up to God and asks to see God’s glory, a kind of code term for the real essence of God’s being. It doesn’t work that way, God replies, no human being can look me in the face. Nevertheless, just stay here on this rock and my whole Goodness will pass by you, but I will cover you with my hand until I have passed and then you will be able to see my back, but not my face.

You can see Caesar’s face - fill in the blank - who thinks he owns the whole world, but you can only see God’s backside if you are really lucky. Funny how it works that way. The face of God you and I get to see is in the faces of those who are young and open to hear all the truth, those who are suffering and are open to be given mercy, those who are in despair and are open to hope, those who are oppressed and are open to become free. Become neighbours to these faces and the people inside them, no hypocrites here, and you will see God.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan