Some thoughts for our BCP Communion service using the readings for the 23rd Sunday after Trinity (Philippians 3:17-end and Matthew 22:15-22):
Our readings raise the issue of the relationship between heaven and earth, God and Caesar.
In our epistle, we have a contrast between two examples, two cultures: those who are earthly minded and those who are heavenly minded.
The earthly minded are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, their god is their belly, and whose glory is their shame.
And then, in contrast, there is Paul and those who live according to his example.
Our citizenship is in heaven, from whence we also look for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Just as Jesus is able to transform our lowly bodies, so too he is able to transform this world.
Jesus is able to subdue all things unto himself, including this world and all its powers.
So in the meantime, we are to live as citizens of Philippi, or of
As the modern song puts it: “There is a higher throne, than all this world has known.”
Whatever our commitments here on earth, we have a higher loyalty.
So the wicked earthly minded Pharisees and Herodians try to entangle Jesus in his talk:
“Is it lawful to give tribute – to pay taxes – to Caesar?”
Show me the tribute-money, Jesus says.
Whose image is on the coin?
Easy: Caesar’s.
So Jesus said, “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s”.
Simple: yes, the money is Caesar’s, pay it to him.
But that is to think about the coin in an entirely earthly minded way.
Think again.
Whose image is on the coin?
It’s a depiction of a man.
So whose image is man?
Man is made in the image of God!
The coin bears the image of God.
This coin, and indeed all things belong to God.
Yes, render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.
All things are God’s.
Remember that even Caesar is God’s creature – Caesar belongs to God.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the King of Kings: Caesar is rebel a subject of his Empire.
So we are to pay our taxes – God requires it.
Our duty to God includes all our other duties.
We love God and we love our neighbour.
Our duty to God provides the ground and basis for all our other duties.
If there were no God, then there would be no obligation for me to love my neighbour.
Without God, it might be survival of the fittest and if I could get one over on my neighbour and get away with it, that might be the best thing to do.
From an earthly minded point of view, why not fiddle your taxes if you can evade Caesar’s enforcers?
In the end, Jesus gives us a coherent vision for earth and heaven.
Sometimes Christians are accused of being “too heavenly minded to be of any earthly use”.
C. S. Lewis would have disagreed. He said:
“If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.”
“Aim at heaven,” Lewis said, “and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.”
This is an earthly meal with a heavenly meaning.
As we eat here on earth, we commune with the risen Christ in heaven by the power of the Holy Spirit.
We pledge ourselves to live here on earth as citizens of heaven: To render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.
And we have prayed: “your kingdom come, you will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”.
We commit ourselves to doing all we can to make earth a bit more like heaven.
And we look for the coming of our Saviour from heaven who will subdue and transform all things.
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