Whose image?

One day some of the people who were vexed by Jesus’ ministry came to him with a challenge. They showed him a coin. The idea was to entangle him in an argument about whether or not it was right to pay taxes, as they would go to the occupying authority. Jesus challenged them back: Tell me: whose image is this? And they said, the emperor. So he said, what belongs to the emperor, give to the emperor; and what belongs to God give to God. (see Matthew 22:15-22)

O my.

And we may ask:  whose image is this, on all the people of Earth?

And then we remember:  “God created humanity in his own image…” (Genesis 1:27)

So we give to God what is God’s – ourselves.

And we respect the image of God in one another. 

So we seek to respond reverently, with respect for dignity and with charity for the needs of others, for in doing so we offer thanks – a gift of gratitude – to the Original in whose image they are made: the true living God who created all of us.

God’s glory is revealed among the nations, all the peoples of the earth, in Christ who becomes present to us as we the body of Christ go to work in the world, acting in concert with his works of mercy.

God has chosen us and called us to be his saints – imitators of the Lord and examples to all the believers. Like the people of the pagan past, who turned from false images of God, we turn from our own false idols to serve the living and true God, and our hope is in his son Jesus Christ.

This is what it takes to declare God’s glory among the nations and his wonders among the peoples: to go out and share your faith, not resting on past achievements – or simply maintaining what we have received; not hoarding it like a pile of old coins – but building up the kingdom.

The kingdom of heaven, the reign of God, the promise of peace, begins to come into being, as we ourselves live and work and act as its people.

As citizens of God’s kingdom, we are sanctified – set apart for a holy purpose – as God’s beloved people, who are called to be saints.

We are the salt of the earth. We are the light of the world.

We witness to the truth that through all things Christ’s light can shine, and that in Christ God’s glory is revealed to all.

Be witness, then, by word and deed, by your gifts of gratitude and works of charity, by your everyday labor and extraordinary kindnesses, as witnesses to the truth, and the grace and mercy and peace of God be with you all, that you, who are called to be saints, may be made holy people, made in the image of the living and true God.

As we look about us, we see God’s image in each other. As we look across the world, we see God’s image in complete strangers, far away. And yet they are, like us, God’s beloved children.

We are in the midst of a season of gratitude, of giving, of thanksgiving. We reflect upon the abundance of the grace of God, and the providence of his blessing.

May God who gives grace to us, give us grace to give others; may God who is merciful to us, and kind, bring kindness and generosity into our lives, that we may share the abundant love of Christ with those around us.

May we, seeking to do your will, find it in serving you; in seeking you to serve you; & find you in the face of others, friend and stranger.

May we, serving you in others, find ourselves at home; and find our home in you.

Amen.

JRL+

An edited version of this essay was published as 

"Serve God by serving others", Keeping the Faith, Home + Life, Arizona Daily Star, Sunday, October 8, 2023, page E3.

image of God

"Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples while judging ourselves by our best intentions, forgetting the image of God we should see in each other." (http://bbc.in/2yzpTh2) George W. Bush, on Thursday 19 October 2017 in New York.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness .... So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. (Genesis 1:26-27)

I’d like to thank President George W. Bush, a member of the United Methodist Church, for his comments providing insights into today’s gospel lesson. For he speaks about the image of God, and what is due to it, wherever it appears, under whatever guise, and his initial comment, too, exposes a real tyranny of the superficial that we see linked to an easy judgmentalism too often.

Indeed, the opponents, or crafty interlocutors, of Jesus, are up to something very like what the former president decries in his remarks given only last Thursday in New York. They sought to put Jesus in the very worst light and themselves in the best. We often do this casually; they did it with intent. They are not alone.

So to the lesson. Jesus, in context, is teaching in the Temple during the days leading up to Passover, and responding to the challenges of the established religious parties. Who in turn, it must be said, feel challenged by him! Even as Pontius Pilate was marching into the city from the Jaffa Gate (as conquerors do, then and now) the Lord entered by the Lion Gate on the far side of the town. Jesus rode down the hillside through olive gardens, as we know, and the people greeted him as he arrived, the very picture of the ancient desire of his people, the anointed one of God.

Anointed, it should be said, to do God’s purpose. Anyone, even Cyrus, the Persian king, could be “God’s anointed” in the sense that he was called to do God’s will. For Cyrus, to free the people of Israel from foreign bondage by an oppressive empire. Huh. In his case, Babylon.

Come to think of it, the Herodians and the Sadducees and the Pharisees and the Romans themselves had reason, deep reason, to be perturbed by this “messianic” arrival.

God accomplished his purpose through a foreign king, Cyrus, and now through a Galilean, from a town of small note, Jesus of Nazareth.

The challenge begins, on the day after Jesus’ triumphant arrival in the Temple (Palm Sunday).

Is it lawful, or not, to pay taxes to the emperor?

Show me the coin.

And on that coin is the image of Caesar, surrounded by words of power: Son of God, Prince of Peace.

To use it is to worship him, in some sense; certainly to accept his hegemony.

But what are they themselves doing with that coin on the Temple mount? You know it would have to be exchanged for a Temple special coin to make an offering in the Temple. But there they have it.

So whose eikon, whose image, is this?

And then he gives his enigmatic, challenging riposte to their question.

Render - that is, give back - to Caesar what is his own, and to God…

Here is where George W. Bush comes in, if we follow him to the end of his sentence.

We too often forget the image of God that we should see in each other.

There it is: what belongs to God? Where is his image found - today? In you and you and you and me.

In each other, and those far from us, in miles or attitudes, or deeds or beliefs.

Them at their worst, we at our best - but those with best intentions, even at the center, are not enough. We are all in the circle - the circle of the love of God, of the making by God, of those stamped with his image.

The imperial coin, the Roman coin, has an image of one self-styled great; Caesar. Let there not be another.

For we are receiving the mark of the presence of God, the love that he bears for us and we are called to bear as we look upon each other.

That is the image of God, the mark of the Christian: the undeniable stamp of one who is loved, by God, and one who loves another even as they love themselves.

How we carry out this love in the world, how we show the stamp of that image, is the next challenge.

Are we up to it?

Isaiah 45:1-7

Psalm 96:1-9, (10-13)

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Matthew 22:15-22

Year A
Proper 24
RCL

October 22, 2017
Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. (John 13:35)