Two groups come to trap Jesus in this chapter, and both leave amazed. After the first, 22"they marveled," and after the second the crowd was 33"astonished at his teaching." Each time someone arrives with a question built to corner him, and he answers by pointing to God's claim on everything.
The Pharisees and the Herodians make unlikely partners. Herodians were supporters of Herod's family, whom Rome kept in power, and the Pharisees chafed under Roman rule. Their alliance shows how much Jesus has unsettled them. They ask 17"Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?" A yes risks losing the crowd, and a no risks a charge of sedition. Jesus asks for the coin, a denarius that carries the emperor's image and name. 20"Whose likeness and inscription is this?" They answer 21"Caesar's." The coin bears his image, so it goes back to him.
The second half of the sentence reaches further. Human beings bear God's image (Genesis 1:26-27), and the earth and everything in it belong to the LORD (Psalm 24:1). Caesar can stamp his face on metal and collect what carries it. His claim is real and limited to what bears his mark. God's claim reaches every person in that crowd, taxpayer and tax collector alike, because each of them was made in his image before Rome existed.
Later that day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, try a trap built from Scripture. They describe a woman married in turn to seven brothers who each die childless, following the law that a brother must raise up offspring for a brother who dies (Deuteronomy 25:5-6). Then they ask 28"In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be?" The question assumes that resurrection life simply continues earthly arrangements. Jesus corrects the assumption first: 29"You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God." In the resurrection 30"they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven."
Then he argues for the resurrection from the books of Moses, which the Sadducees accepted. At the burning bush God said to Moses 32"I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob" (Exodus 3:6). He spoke in the present tense, centuries after all three men had died. A covenant God still claims belongs to someone who still lives, and he is the God of the living.
Both answers meet in the same place. Caesar's claim ends where a life made in God's image begins, and death's claim ends where God still says "I am." Within days Jesus himself will be killed and buried, and on the third day the God of the living will prove the argument over his own body.
Underneath both questions sits another: whose image do you bear, and whose claim on you outlasts every other? Give Caesar what is his today, and give God what has always been yours.
Prayer
Father, we carry your image and have spent so much of our lives rendering ourselves to smaller claims. Teach us to give Caesar what is his and to give you our whole selves. Thank you that you are still the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and that no grave has the last claim on anyone whose name you hold. In Jesus' name, amen.