Render unto God - August 20

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 119:145-176; PM Psalm 128, 129, 130; 2 Samuel 18:19-33; Acts 23:23-35; Mark 12:13-27

In the Scriptures, it feels like religious leaders are always seeming to play games with Jesus, trying to prove he is a fraud and entrapping him in some religious violation of the law. In today’s reading, first, the Pharisees and Herodians asked about paying taxes to Caesar. Later, the Sadducees tested him with a convoluted riddle about resurrection. Both groups were trying to box Jesus into a corner, using politics and law to control the conversation.  Sound familiar?

But Jesus wouldn’t play by their rules. Holding up a coin, he pointed out that Caesar’s image is stamped on the money. What might be implied in the message, and certainly in our theology is that God’s image is stamped on us. He told them to give Caesar what belongs to him, and to give God what belongs to God. Then, to the Sadducees, he reminded them that God is not the God of the dead but of the living, showing that their legalistic puzzles couldn’t contain the mystery of resurrection.  When our burial liturgy says, “You are dust and to dust you are returned” it is implied that you were created by God, stamped with the image of God, and to God you return.   

What strikes me here is the limit of human power. Caesar’s empire was vast, but it didn’t extend to the eternal. The Sadducees’ logic was sharp, but it couldn’t capture the reality of God’s promise. Systems of government, laws, and cultural arguments—they may dominate the headlines, but they do not shape all aspects of our life. In fact, they fall short of the

In our own complicated time, it’s easy to feel crushed by the weight of politics, institutions, and even the tangled logic of social debates. But Jesus reminds us that all of these forces are temporary, limited, and fragile. They can affect how we live, but they cannot define who we are, and how we are called to love each other. We belong to God, and the God we belong to is the God of the living that calls us into the way of Jesus Christ.

That doesn’t mean we ignore the world around us. We still “render” what is due, we still participate as citizens, neighbors, and stewards. But we do so knowing that no human system is ultimate and by virtue of being human our earthly systems are by their nature, broken and sinful.

So maybe the invitation today is to loosen our grip on fear about the powers of this world. To see them in perspective. To live with the confidence that the God who made us in his image, who raises the dead to life, still holds us—and all creation—in hands that no Caesar can reach.  And thanks be to God.

John+

Question for Self-Reflection: “Where in my life do I feel most pressured by the powers and debates of this world? How might I remember that my truest identity is stamped with the image of God?”