10/20/2026
October 18, 2026 – Meditation
By Jackie St. Goddard
“God’s Currency”
There’s a saying you may have heard. “Paybacks are hell”. I don’t know if the Pharisees of Jesus’ day knew that saying but they were counting on it being true. We know they were angry, fearful and perhaps a bit embarrassed. They were looking for some Jesus payback. What they weren’t counting on was getting paid back.
Jesus was gaining great popularity among the Israelites. This was very upsetting to the Pharisees. They thought He was a threat to their authority. They tried everything they could think of to make Jesus look bad and yet Jesus had more and more followers every day. So, a group of Pharisees met and came up with a plot to trick Jesus into saying something that would discredit him among his followers.
Prior to our reading this morning Jesus had been whacking hard on the establishment, the religious leaders of the day. Our reading is actually Holy Week in the gospel. Jesus had ridden into town, went to the temple where he drove out the merchants and overthrew the money changers’ tables. Then he called everyone a bunch of thieves. And to make matters worse he had healed the lame and blind. That really made the chief priests and scribes angry. “Who do you think you are?” By what authority are you doing these things, they ask him.” He doesn’t answer them, instead he says that they are like a disobedient child, worse than the very people they judge and condemn as disobedient. But he doesn’t stop there.
He tells them a story about tenants of a vineyard who steal from the landlord and murder his son. They realize he is not talking about tenants of a vineyard; he is talking about them. They decide to get him but they are scared of the crowds. Jesus is on a roll so he tells them another story. This one is about a wedding banquet, the kind they would be invited to. But the story doesn’t end the way they expect. One of the guests gets tied up and thrown into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. You’ve heard those stories before.
Well, enough is enough. The religious leaders about whom Jesus is speaking plot how they can trap Jesus. Things are so bad that they bring in the Herodians as co-conspirators. They join forces with the very party that supports Rome’s domination of their own people. Politics, anger and fear are a dangerous combination that makes for unlikely alliances. And we certainly know all about that still in our day don’t we.
They start with flattery. “We know that you are true, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth; and show deference to no one.” They are buttering him up, hoping Jesus will let down his guard. “What do you think”, they ask, “is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?”
We have to admire their audacity, if Jesus says yes, he risks offending and losing his followers and all those whom Roman taxation is a daily reminder that they are dominated by foreign power in their own land. If he says no, he risks being charged with insurrection and treason., and Rome’s supporters, the Herodians, are there as witnesses.
Of course, Jesus saw right through their plan and he did a wise thing. He asked them for a coin, then he said, “Whose picture is on this coin?
We have got to understand that this question is not about taxes, the government, Roman occupation of the Jewish land or the separation of church and state. It’s about an agenda. The Pharisees and Herodians don’t care what the answer is, either way, they feel they’ve got him.
And thinking about this, the same thing continues to happen in our world today doesn’t it. The questions may be different but the Pharisaic-Herodian conspiracy is still part of our world, we just don’t call it that. It’s played out every time we over simplify complex issues, categorize people, pigeon hole parts of our lives and try to manipulate Jesus.
I have a couple of questions, simply to be used as examples of this conspiracy that is still a huge part of our world today, you don’t have to answer them out loud but they will give us all something to think about.
A question is asked, is homosexuality lawful? Say yes and we will be labeled a progressive who denies the authority of Holy Scripture. Say no and we will be accused of being homophobic, prejudiced and denying the gospel’s message of love and inclusivity.
Do we support wars? Say no and we will be seen as unpatriotic. Say yes and we must answer for the violence, death and destruction that seem so contrary to Jesus’ life and teaching.
And today especially, do we allow immigrants into our country, you know, those other people, into our country. Say no as you are labeled as racist, say yes and you are labelled as not caring about our jobs, our healthcare, our country, even though Jesus taught love your fellow man and do unto others etc.
I’m not here to debate these issues or any others, but in whatever form it takes, The Pharisaic-Herodian conspiracy is about power, manipulation and agendas. That always destroys relationships and undermines faith. Sadly, that is all too evident today in our political and economic systems as well as in some of our churches, in the past and still today. and of course, we are seeing it right now in Israel and Palestine, Russia and the Ukraine, the U.S. and others.
Jesus, however, will not allow himself to be used, manipulated or co-opted by anyone; the Pharisees, the Herodians or us. He asks them whose image is on the tax coin. “The emperor’s” they answer. Then give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and to God the things that are God’s.
You see, Jesus refuses to play the game. He doesn’t answer their question, at least not in the way they want. Instead, he deepens the question and turns it into a question of faith and life. If the coin belongs to the emperor because his image is on it, then the human being belongs to God because each has been marked with the image of its owner. We have been coined in the image of God. We have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.
The government has stamped images on our currency, but God has stamped his image on our hearts. We do and should obey our government in its earthly realm, but the things that are God’s don’t belong to the government and should be given only to God. Human governments are legitimate, mostly. If they need taxes to fulfill their calling, we must be prepared to pay them. Just as we are to give to governments what belongs to them, we must give to God what belongs to God, and that means our love and faithfulness.
What does faithfulness look like in the issues that we all struggle with? It too is a hard question, one that is answered neither easily nor quickly. For most of us it is the work of a lifetime. Jesus doesn’t offer simple yes or no type answers. So why should we? Faithfulness demands more than that. It means we are continually learning to pay back, surrender and render to God, ourselves and one another. How will we do that for ourselves, those we love, our neighbour, our enemy?
The key it seems is knowing to whom we belong. It’s one of those answers however that cannot be told or taught, only learned and experienced. Faithfulness is more about struggle and practice than it is the answer. It is done at the depths of our image. Get the image right and most everything else will follow.
Sometimes we will feel that we have to choose between the kingdoms of the world and God’s kingdom, but Jesus tells us that we can live in both kingdoms, if we let our faith interact with the world and the people in it. In this way we live in society as good citizens and neighbours, and we fulfill our role in whatever our chosen field is. In all we do, and in every interaction with others, we allow God’s reign, God’s love, God’s purpose, to be expressed in the world through us.
There will always be issues to address: taxes, economics, church-state relationships, war, hatred, capital punishment, personal finances, marriage, children. The list will go on and on for every generation. Some issues are global while others are more local and personal. The danger is that in dealing with the issues we sometimes deny, confuse or forget in whose image we and “all the others” have been coined in.
In spite of the differences between back then and now, we still live in a world where different entities constantly make competing demands on our loyalties. What part of us, our gifts, our resources, our time and our energy, do we give over and to whom do we give it
A couple of examples of what this might mean:
Do we stop to help elderly or handicapped people in the grocery store, or do we quickly move on because we are in a hurry?
Do we ignore the abuse other people are going through?
Do we show up for a community meeting to speak out either for or against a particular issue even though we may be ridiculed or do we just not go at all because we don’t believe our voices will make any difference?
Do we vote in order to have our voices heard or do we simply stay home believing our vote won’t matter.
Do we practice recycling or do we throw our plastic and paper in with the rest of the trash because we can’t be bothered or we’re pressed for time or it seems like it is just too much effort?
Do we take the time to call our local, provincial or federal representatives and advocate for a just budget that includes proper spending to fight issues such as poverty, or the lack of affordable housing, or do we make the excuse that we are too busy and assume that someone else will do it?
How does the way we use our resources reflect the truth that all of us have God’s image stamped on us.
When we look at how we use our personal resources, what do we see? Do we use them to do God’s work in our world?
In what ways can our worship be more aligned to God’s values if it needs to be?
Are the doors kept wide open for the poor, the marginalized and the least to be welcomed?
do we measure the financial wealth of our churches rather than the level of sacrificial service we offer? Do we seek to be comforted and encouraged in our quest for worldly success, influence and material objects rather than be challenged to give up these things for the sake of eternal values?
Jesus is not just talking about where to locate loyalty. Jesus is suggesting that loyalty tends to be accompanied by hope. Our loyalties to things in our lives, whether political figures, teachers, spouses or friends, are deeply and always intertwined with hope. We are loyal to a political party because we hope it can make certain changes. We are loyal to certain authoritative figures such as teachers because we hope we will learn something. we are loyal to friends because we hope, in part, that they will be loyal to us in return. We are loyal to spouses because we have hopes for companionship and future partnership. we are able to have hope, not because of blind naivete but because we have experienced something that makes that hope possible.
If we are sincere in our desire to be Christ’s disciples, our answer to the question, “whose image is this?” is carved into our very souls and in our very breath because we are created with the very breath of God.
Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and to God the things that are God’s. Jesus is not separating the secular and the sacred, spirit and matter, divine and human. He is inviting us to hold them together, to unite the two and in so doing we become the currency of God’s life in the world, a world right now that needs God in all corners as never before. We are Disciples of the Christ. We are the image of God, each and everyone of us, all of us.
Thanks be to God for leading us always. Amen.
