Lucky Me, Lucky Mud
Imagine yourself in Boston in 1771. The Boston Massacre has happened. The Tea Party is yet to come. Imagine that you’re down on the Common, hanging out with a crowd of people listening to a popular preacher who’s visiting from out of town. Suddenly a group of local Tories arrive, parishioners of the Old North Church, along with a couple of British regulars in their famous red coats. And they ask the preacher, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth …” (Matt. 22:16) Tell us then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to King George III?
If he says “no,” they’re going to put him under arrest: that’s sedition. And if he says “yes” in front of this crowd—well, he’ll be lucky if all they do is throw him in the Harbor as a Tea Party of One. If you’re trying to undermine a rival who you see as a threat, this kind of trap isn’t half bad.
That’s more or less the situation Jesus is in, in today’s gospel. His religious rivals, the Pharisees, send some students to ask a politically-charged question: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” (Matthew 22:17) And they invite some of “the Herodians” to come along as well, some of the supporters of King Herod, whom the Romans had appointed to rule the province of Judea on their behalf. In Jesus’ day, Judea was in a pre-revolutionary moment of its own: in the years to come, multiple rebellions would erupt, leading to years-long wars with Rome.
But Jesus doesn’t answer the question directly. Instead, he asks, “Show me the coin that’s used for the tax.” They bring him a denarius, a Roman silver coin. A typical Roman denarius of the time would be stamped with the face of the emperor Tiberius, and the inscription “Caesar Augustus Tiberius, Son of the Divine Augustus.” He looks at the coin, and he asks, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” They answer him, “Caesar’s.” And Jesus answers them, in what’s become a familiar turn of phrase, “Then render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, but unto God that which is God’s.” (Matt. 22:21)
Most people throughout history would never catch a glimpse of the king or emperor who ruled them; there was no ancient television or newspaper to show his face. But coins told you who was in charge. To put the Sovereign’s face on a coin and spread it throughout the realm is a way to demonstrate the extent of his power. In fact, this is exactly why American currency doesn’t show the sitting President: the equivalent to a Sovereign in the United States is not the President, but our Republic itself, which we symbolize with the images of those who created it, not those who lead it now.
So the face of the emperor has symbolic value. But it’s also a part of the coin’s monetary value. A quarter’s only worth about 10 cents, if you melt it down; it’s the official stamp that gives it value. And while this was less true in the ancient world—a denarius really was made mostly of precious silver—the emperor’s face gave it some of its value even then. We don’t have enough time to talk about the debasement of currency over the course of the Roman Empire, but let’s just say that a denarius was worth more than the silver it was made of.
So Jesus says: This coin came from Rome. It signifies the emperor’s rule. Its value comes from carrying the emperor’s face. It’s a portable symbol of the emperor’s power a sign that even here, in far-away Judea, the emperor’s word is the ultimate authority. And you’re asking if it’s lawful to give it to him as a tax? It’s his coin in the first place, Jesus says. So “give to the emperor the things that belong to the emperor, but give to God the things that are God’s.”
Which raises a question: The coin belongs to the emperor because it’s been stamped with the face of the emperor. But what exactly is it that’s been stamped with the face of God?
It’s certainly not a coin, that we can look at to see God’s face. In fact, in our first reading today, God tells Moses, “you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live.” (Exod. 33:20) Moses is going to stand over there on a rock, and as the glory of God passes by, God’s hand will reach out and cover his face until God’s passed by. So Moses will see God’s back, but not God’s face. (Exod. 33:21–23) There’s a beautiful image in there somewhere about the nature of the spiritual life, in which—however faithful our worship, however deep our prayer—we never quite see the face of God, although on occasion we catch a glimpse of God’s back as the Holy One rushes past. But it doesn’t really answer the question.
But there is an answer to the question. Our translation says, “Whose head is this?” In the Greek text, the word that’s used is “icon,” meaning “image.” “Whose image is this?” This is the image of Caesar. So what is the image of God? That phrase might ring a bell. It comes from the Book of Genesis, in the story of Creation itself, when God says, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness.” God creates us, “according to the image of God.” (Genesis 1:26–27)
Every one of us is like a coin stamped with the image of God, a living emblem of the universal reign of God, a symbol of the peace of God that stretches further than any empire ever has. Every one of us has a value given to us by God, that no one can ever take away, a “dignity,” as Pope Leo wrote in a recent encyclical, “that belongs to every human being simply by virtue of existing, of having been willed, created and loved by God.”[1]
Every human being is made in the image of God: the people in this church, and our neighbors passing by on the street, and neighbors who live on the street. Every child born today anywhere around the world is stamped with that image, and so is person waiting on death row, and so are those who will put them to death. As different as our outward images may be, we are all made in the image of God, in some way that our human eyes can’t quite make out. And while that image may sometimes be obscured by the dirt and grime and smudges of our lives, God continually comes to us with the Windex of undying love, ready to restore us to the brightest versions of ourselves.
Wherever we go, and whatever we do, we carry that image of God, and so does everyone else. We do our jobs and pay our taxes and obey the law, we give to Caesar the things that belong to Caesar; but amidst all these things, we know that we belong to God. To give to God that which is God’s is to recognize the gift of this life, and to be good stewards of this gift, and then and to offer it back to God with gratitude and joy.
I was reminded this week of a scene from Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Cat’s Cradle, in which we hear the litany that’s said at the end of life in the imaginary satirical religion that the main character follows.
“God made mud. [the litany begins. “Papa” is the character saying the prayer.]
“God got lonesome.”
“So God said to some of the mud, ‘Sit up!’
“‘See all I've made,’ said God, ‘the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars.’”
“And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around.”
“Lucky me, lucky mud.” Tears were streaming down “Papa’s” cheeks.
“I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.”
“Nice going, God!” “Papa” said it with all his heart…
“I got so much, and most mud got so little.”
“Thank you for the honor!”
“Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep.”
“What memories for mud to have!”
“What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!”
“I loved everything I saw!”
“Good night.”[2]
Vonnegut sometimes called himself a “Christ-loving atheist” or a “Christ-worshipping agnostic.”[3] The “atheist” half shares with the Christian the idea that the human being is basically made of mud. But the “Christ-loving” half adds something more. We are the mud that got to sit up. You can almost hear where the writer and the Pope converge. There is a dignity “that belongs to every human being simply by virtue of existing,” because we have “been willed, created and loved by God.” Lucky me, Lucky mud.
It should shape our politics to believe that ultimate power lies not with the people whose images are on our coins but to the God in whose image we were made. It should shape our ethics to insist that human solidarity transcends the divisions we create; that we must respect the dignity of every human being made in the image of God. More than anything, it should shape our daily lives to remember. To look at this life, in all its messy beauty; to look at myself, with all my imperfection; to look at the people who frustrate me, and the people I love, and to remember that we are all just some of the mud that got to sit up? What precious comfort. What a gift. “Nice going, God! Thank you for the honor.”
[1] Magnifica Humanitas 52.
[2] Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle (New York: Dial Press Paperback, 2006 [1963]), 220–222.
