Sadly, I messed up the recording for this service!
I don’t know about you, but since the pandemic
began I’ve hardly ever paid cash for anything.
I tend to use contactless payment via my phone, and even in places like France or Germany, which were far slower off the mark to adopt contactless payments, most places now accept cards.
But cash is still there, and for some things you have to use it.
I tend to use contactless payment via my phone, and even in places like France or Germany, which were far slower off the mark to adopt contactless payments, most places now accept cards.
But cash is still there, and for some things you have to use it.
And
we’re used to our coins, aren’t we –
we barely even notice that they have a picture of the Queen on one side, and a few odd remarks in Latin printed round the picture. The first coins featuring King Charles are to be issued next month, I understand, starting with a 50p piece.
we barely even notice that they have a picture of the Queen on one side, and a few odd remarks in Latin printed round the picture. The first coins featuring King Charles are to be issued next month, I understand, starting with a 50p piece.
Our coins basically say Elizabeth, and will say Charles.
and then DG, which means by God’s grace;
Reg, short for Regina, means Queen or Rex, which means King,
and FD means Defender of the Faith –
a title, ironically, given to Henry the Eighth when he wrote a book supporting the Pope against the Protestant Reformation,
and then DG, which means by God’s grace;
Reg, short for Regina, means Queen or Rex, which means King,
and FD means Defender of the Faith –
a title, ironically, given to Henry the Eighth when he wrote a book supporting the Pope against the Protestant Reformation,
long
before he wanted to divorce Katherine of Aragon and had to leave the
Catholic church.
When
I was a little girl, though, before decimalisation, coins were even
more interesting, as they didn’t all have pictures of the Queen on
–
the old shillings, sixpences, florins and half-crowns had often been issued during the reign of George the Sixth and pennies were often even older –
the old shillings, sixpences, florins and half-crowns had often been issued during the reign of George the Sixth and pennies were often even older –
it
was not unusual to find a penny that had been issued during the reign
of Queen Victoria, even!
We didn’t have pound coins back then;
We didn’t have pound coins back then;
they
were always banknotes
and there was also a banknote for what we now know as 50p, but was then called ten shillings.
It was quite a lot of money back in the day
a useful amount for visiting godfathers to tip one!
and there was also a banknote for what we now know as 50p, but was then called ten shillings.
It was quite a lot of money back in the day
a useful amount for visiting godfathers to tip one!
My father used to make us guess the date on a coin,
based on which reign it was, and if we were right we got to keep it
based on which reign it was, and if we were right we got to keep it
Not that we ever were right, so it was a fairly safe game for him,
but it made sure we knew the dates of 20th-century monarchs!
Different countries have different things on their coins, of course;
if
you look at Euro coins, they have a different design on one side
depending on which country issued them:
the
German ones have a picture of the Brandenburg gate, or a stylised
eagle;
the
Irish ones have a harp.
Those
Euro countries which are monarchies have a picture of their monarch
on them,
and
the Vatican City ones have a picture of the Pope!
This
convention, of showing the monarch on your coins, dates back
thousands of years, and was well-known in Jesus’ day.
But
unfortunately, this raised a problem for Jesus and his
contemporaries,
as
the Roman coins in current use all showed a picture of the Emperor,
and
the wording round the side said something like “Son of a god”,
meaning that the Emperor was thought to be divine.
You
might remember how the earliest Christians were persecuted for
refusing to say that the Emperor was Lord, as to them, only Jesus was
Lord? Well, similarly, the Jews couldn’t say that the
Emperor was God, and, rather like Muslims,
they were forbidden to have images of people, either.
So
the Roman coins carried a double whammy for them.
They
got round it by having their own coins to be used in the Temple –
hence
the moneychangers that Jesus threw out, because they were giving such
a rotten rate of exchange.
But
for everyday use, of course, they were stuck with the Roman coins.
And
taxes, like the poll tax, had to be paid in Roman coinage.
You
might remember the episode where Jesus tells Peter to catch a fish,
and
it has swallowed a coin that will do for both of their taxes.
But
that was then, and this is now.
Now,
Jesus is in the Temple when they come to him –
in
the holy place, where you must use the Jewish coins or not spend
money. “They”, in this case, are not only the Pharisees,
who
were out to trap Jesus by any means possible,
but
also the Herodians, who actually supported the puppet-king, Herod.
The
question is a total trick question, of course.
They
come up to Jesus, smarming him and pointing out that they know he
doesn’t take sides –
so
should they pay their poll tax, or not?
If
he says, yes you must, then he’ll be accused of saying it’s okay
for people to have coins with forbidden images;
it’s
okay to be Romanised;
it’s
okay to collaborate with the occupying power.
And
if he says, no don’t, then he’ll be accused of trying to incite
rebellion or terrorism.
So
Jesus asks for a coin.
I
expect it was the Herodians who produced one –
the
Pharisees would probably not have admitted to having one in their
pockets, even if they did.
And
he asks whose image –
eikon,
the word is –
whose
image is on the coin?
And
they said, puzzled, the Emperor’s
of course, whose else would it be?
And
we all know what he said next:
Give
to the Emperor what belongs to the Emperor;
give
to God what belongs to God.
It’s
kind of difficult, at this distance, to know what he meant.
Was
he saying we need to keep our Christian life separate from the rest
of life?
God
forbid, and I mean that!
If
our commitment to God means anything at all,
it
should be informing all we do, whether we are at worship on Sunday
or
at work on Monday
or
out at the pub on a Friday!
There
is a crying need for Christians in all walks of life;
whether
we are called to be plumbers or politicians,
bankers
or builders,
retired
or redundant!
Wherever
we find ourselves, we are God’s people,
and
our lives and values and morals and behaviour need to reflect that.
So
what is Jesus saying?
It’s
about more than paying taxes or not paying them.
It’s
not about whether we support our government or whether we don’t.
We
know from Paul’s letters that in the best of all worlds,
Christians
should pay their taxes and live quietly under the radar,
exercising
their democratic right to vote and not taking part in violent
overthrow of a legitimate government.
Doesn’t
always work like that, of course, but by and large.
Maybe
the clue is in that word image - eikon.
For
are we not told that we are made in the image of God?
If
our picture were on a coin,
it
would say round the side “A child of God”–
not,
as for the emperors,
meaning that we are gods ourselves,
but
meaning, quite literally, that we are God’s beloved children.
Sure,
sometimes God’s image gets marred and spoilt, when we go astray.
I’ve seen coins that have been buried in the earth for years,
and
they go all tarnished,
and
sometimes, if they’ve been there for centuries, they build up an
accretion of gunk round them to the point that you can’t possibly
tell what they are.
But
even that gunk can be cleaned off, with care –
do
you remember those ads where the man dipped a penny into some cleaner
or other, and it came up bright and sparkling?
Maybe
Jesus is saying that this is not an issue to divide people –
Caesar
gets what belongs to him, which is the coin,
and
God gets what belongs to him, which is us!
No
need to choose –
you
don’t have to be either a quisling or a resistance worker.
We
don’t separate what belongs to Caesar from what belongs to God –
we
give ourselves to God, and the rest follows!
Is
it, then, about possibly owing a small amount of money in tax,
but
owing God a far greater amount –
our
very being?
Yes,
that is definitely part of it.
It
was, I think, fifty-one years ago last
month that I first consciously said “Yes”
to God;
and
yes, that does make me feel old!
But
the more I go on with God, the more it seems not only possible, but
also sensible.
You see, God created us in His image and likeness,
and
not only that, but God redeemed us through Jesus,
and
empowers us, by the Holy Spirit.
So
yes, we do owe God our very being –
we
are created by him, and without him we wouldn't exist.
It's not so much that we owe him the duty of giving ourselves back to him –
we
do, of course, but we know that!
It's
more about not being able to fulfil our potential on our own.
We
are made in God's image, but unless we allow God to indwell that
image,
to
empower it,
we
will never really fulfil our potential as human beings.
So
we owe it to ourselves, almost as much as we owe it to God,
to
say “Yes” to him, to open ourselves to Him.
So
we are made in God's image, and as such we owe it to both God and to
ourselves to give ourselves back to God.
But
we also owe it to God and to ourselves to make sure that our image
reflects God.
We
owe it to God and to ourselves to make sure our image reflects God.
There's
a wonderful book by an author called Georgette Heyer,
I
don't know if people read her much these days,
but
this book is called “These Old Shades”, and in it, one of the
characters –
a
child –
is
taken to Versailles and sees the king, and her rather sleepy reaction
at the end of the evening is, “He is just like on the coins!”
I
wonder whether anybody would recognise God after having seen us.
Would
they say, “He's just like on the coins”?
The
thing is, we do mar God's image in us –
I
mentioned earlier how coins can be so covered in the gunk of ages as
to be unrecognisable.
But
coins can be cleaned, renewed, restored....
Our
prayer of confession today was one of the alternate Anglican ones,
which I have always loved for the words “We have wounded your love
and marred your image in us.”
“We
have wounded your love and marred your image in us.”
This,
for me, reflects the fact that we are made in God's image, and that
sometimes that image gets distorted.
I am
well aware that this sort of thing is apt to make us all feel guilty,
apt to make us feel we must be terrible Christians, and so on.
But
that's so not what I want to do here.
After
all, there are plenty of other ways of distorting God's image –
look
at the Pharisees, for instance, who tried to turn God into a set of
rules and regulations.
Or
in our own day, look at some of the more extreme Christian sects in
the USA.....
Yet
all of those are following God to the best of their ability.
Yes,
they have got things tragically wrong.
Yes,
they are distorting, marring, God's image in them.
But
they are not, I think, any more evil than you or I are.
And
God will, I pray, help them find their way back.
Because
that, in the end, is what God is all about.
God
minds far more about our relationship with him than we do!
We
wander off, we get lost, marring God's image in us,
distorting
Christianity into something very much less than it is –
oh
yes, I've been there and done that –
and
yet, every time, the Good Shepherd pulls on his coat and wellies,
grabs his crook, and goes looking for us to bring us back into the
fold.
We don't have to do it ourselves.
Indeed,
it's when we try that the distortions are apt to happen.
We
just need to be open to allowing God to keep us clean and polished
and ready for action!
The
coins that bear the emperor's
image on them need to be given to the
emperor.
But
the coins that bear God's image –
we
ourselves, each and every one of us who names the name of Christ as
Saviour and as Lord –
those
coins need to be given to God, reflecting His glory, and allowing Him
to work in our lives to make us more and more like Him, and more and
more the people He designed us to be.
Amen.