Sunday Meditation: Caesar’s Coin

Finally in this Sunday’s reading, we don’t get a parable, but we do get a deep insight from Jesus.  In the parables in recent Sundays, Jesus has boldly confronted the Pharisees by placing them in the villain’s role of the little stories.  The bad son who agrees to tend the vineyard but doesn’t, the tenant farmers who kill the landlord’s son, the guests who refuse to go to the royal wedding are all stand-ins for the Pharisees.  And the Pharisees know it, and so they plot against Jesus.

 

The Pharisees went off

and plotted how they might entrap Jesus in speech.

They sent their disciples to him, with the Herodians, saying,

"Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man

and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.

And you are not concerned with anyone's opinion,

for you do not regard a person's status.

Tell us, then, what is your opinion:

Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?"

Knowing their malice, Jesus said,

"Why are you testing me, you hypocrites?

Show me the coin that pays the census tax."

Then they handed him the Roman coin.

He said to them, "Whose image is this and whose inscription?"

They replied, "Caesar's."

At that he said to them,

"Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar

and to God what belongs to God."

~Mt 22:15-21

Is Jesus more confrontational in Matthew’s Gospel than the others?  It’s hard to say without putting the four gospels side by side but it does feel it given the recent Sunday readings.  The Pharisees are certainly trying to be confrontational with Him here, but He doesn’t back down one iota. 

Father Geoffrey Plant does a superb job in providing the entire context.  Only he of the various explanations I looked up explains why the Herodians are in the mix.  See if you can catch it.  The video is a bit long, but well worth it.

 

So the Herodians are spying to see if Jesus says no to paying the tax.  They are Caesar’s representative here.  And the puritanical Pharisees (they are the “separated ones”) are there to catch Him saying yes to paying the tax.  Notice also, for all of their purity, they actually have a Roman coin with the graven image and heretical saying on it. 

Now Fr. Geoffrey’s explanation was a great historical and even theological lesson.  But I found an excellent pastoral exegesis on this passage from Jeff Cavins from Ascension ministries.  So I include two for the price of one.  This is worth it too.

 

Meditation: "Then repay…to God what belongs to God."