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20th Sunday after Trinity

Updated: Oct 27, 2023

Preached at 11.15am Morning Prayer with Baptism



In today’s Gospel we find Jesus in a lose-lose situation. The question put to him has been carefully crafted. Designed to trap him. ‘Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?’ Those seeking to entrap Jesus know that whichever way he answers will be his undoing:


  • If he says ‘yes, pay your taxes’ then he would gain favour with the Roman officials but would risk losing favour with the religious establishment – whose support is likely to be the best protection against arrest.

  • If he says ‘no, don’t pay your taxes’ then he would keep the popular vote but would expose himself as a radical, inciting resistance to lawful authorities.


But Jesus doesn’t answer the question directly, which is probably not a surprise to us, and turns it back on them. He asks them whose image the coin bears but the question he implies in asking that is ‘what is it that bears God’s image?’

 

‘What is it that bears God’s image?’

 

Over the past few weeks in our readings from Isaiah we have been hearing about the reach of God’s embrace. Two weeks ago, this was limited to a vineyard, then last week it was extended to a banquet on a holy mountain for all people, and then this week it has extended to include those who were not originally part of the household of faith. With each passage the circle of God’s embrace expands to include more people. Often God is domesticated to become part of our household, a risky strategy that can create an exclusive relationship meaning that God only acts on behalf of our particular household and therefore only works within the household for the benefit of those also inside. We heard in today’s passage of Cyrus, a Persian emperor who finds himself in the middle of God’s embrace, though God is not known to him, and he does not know what his role is to be in God’s plan – I’m sure this is something most of us can relate to. And perhaps today as we welcome E it is a good time to remind ourselves that God knew us before we knew God, in fact God knew us before our parents knew us – as we were being formed in the womb. God tells Cyrus and reminds Israel that as God brought forth creation, so God is creating something new. Cyrus is a new person, who has suddenly found himself in the inner circle, in our particular household of God.

 

Within the church there are many friendly churches, there is plenty of room in the pews for new people. Visitors are welcomed with smiles, warm greetings, and occasionally gifts. And these friendly churches have conversations about how they can welcome new people into their church. But if churches are simply friendly, there is a risk that they have an informal, covert vetting system – a set of questions to try and glean whether this person ‘fits’:

  • What church were you at previously?

  • What’s your family background?

  • What are your personal interests?

It goes back to that story in Isaiah two weeks ago when we were seeking to tend to our vines and keep out the weeds which might destroy our hard work.

 

Instead of being friendly we should seek to be more open. In today’s Gospel we hear that Jesus does not regard people with partiality, in some translations the Greek is translated more plainly as ‘you do not judge on the external appearance of people’, by seeking to be more open we might ask:

  • How will we share God with others?

  • How is God sharing others with us?

And in doing so being open to widen our circle of discipleship, in the same way that God’s embrace has been widening to include all of God’s chosen people.

 

So, ‘What is it that bears God’s image?’

 

If we are to give to God the things that are God’s, what are those things? What is it that bears God’s image?

 

Perhaps a better question would be ‘who bears God’s image?’

 

Of which the answer is of course us.

 

God created all things, but it is only us that is made in the likeness of God. So, when Jesus talks about giving to God that which is God’s, he is referring to ourselves. We bear God’s image. As Christians, we know that God loves all people and that embrace that has been growing in the readings from Isaiah is for everyone. Later in Isaiah we read:

 

‘Can a woman forget her nursing child?... Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands’

 

This tender compassion of God for God’s children is the inspiration for all that we give. We bear God’s image – as the palm of God’s hand bears ours – with the same impartiality that the Pharisees and Herodians see in Jesus. Sometimes that image becomes distorted or hard to recognise. When we look at each other, or in the mirror at ourselves, we see the marks that our interaction with the world has left on us: we are what we look like, what we have, what we wear, what we do and the company we keep. This makes our external appearance different from one another, something that Jesus sees through easily, something that we might find it harder to see through. But deeper, beyond those marks, is the one that matters to God. In a moment E is going to receive the sign of the cross made with oil on his forehead an acknowledgement that he is known by God, an invisible mark that will stay with him forever, as it remains with us when it was placed on our heads at our baptisms. And at the end of the service E will receive a candle, lit from the candle that was first lit on Easter Day to symbolise Jesus’ resurrection. E, with a little assistance, will carry out that light into the world, reminding him and us that we walk in the light of Christ for the rest of our lives and that light isn’t confined to these stone walls. The image of God that we bear goes a lot deeper than what is visible on the surface, and it is an image that we all share, etched in the palm of God’s hands. And deeper still in that image is the reminder that God’s law is to love God and to love our neighbours as ourselves.  So, this week I invite you to think about how we might demonstrate God’s embrace and reflect on those two questions:

  • How will we share God with others?

  • How is God sharing others with us?


Amen.

 

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