The Kitchen Sink
An occasional piece of paper
October 19, 2008
Vol. 11 no. 41

Everything But...
           People occasionally comment on the cryptic sermon titles out on the big sign at Victoria and Lorne. That’s good, gives them something to think about, and to my knowledge no one has crashed into another car because they were so shocked by the implications of these titles.
           But you wonder if some would think today’s title, “Bad Penny,” has anything to do with the world economic crisis? It is possible to turn the story of Caesar’s coin around to fit our dire circumstances, yet this Gospel confrontation is a lot stickier and a lot more dangerous than Wall Street and the TSX.
           Earlier this week there was an article about some of the Canadian Olympic medalists who were rewarded financially for their performances by their respective sport governing bodies and then found out that Canada Revenue wanted its piece of the coin. “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar” is certainly what is happening here, and none of the Olympians objected, just were surprised. I know the Canadian government doesn’t want to be considered imperial, but sorry, in this little episode, they are Biblically so.
           The irony of this encounter which Jesus played upon quietly is that the Pharisees usually made quite a fuss about being ritually pure and clean, certainly not being contaminated by the material substance of Gentiles, non-Jews. On many occasions they tried to damage Jesus’ reputation by pointing out how unclean and contaminated a life he was leading. Jesus asks for a coin and someone promptly hands him one with Caesar’s profile on it - a graven image if there ever was one. Even the purest want to have in their pockets filthy lucre. A bad penny is where the debate starts.