This coming Sunday is the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The word “give” in Jesus’ answer, can mean “give back” (apodidomi). The word was used in the sense of “paying back” a debt in the parable of the unforgiving servant (18:25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 34). It is the word used of the new tenants who will “give (back)” the owner the fruit at the proper time (21:41). The word carries the sense of giving (back) that which already belongs to the other person. How do we know what things belong to Caesar? They have his image on them! How do we know what things belong to God? They have God’s image on them!

The word for “image” (eikon) is used in the LXX in Gen 1:26-27: “Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; . . . . So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” And in Gen 5:1: “This is the list of the descendants of Adam. When God created humankind, he made them in the likeness of God.” And in Gen 9:6: “. . . for in his own image God made humankind.” What are we to give to God? The things stamped with God’s image. That would be us! We are to give God ourselves, our whole selves, not just some part.

When they heard this they were amazed, and leaving him they went away. As Keener (526) notes: “Here people marvel at Jesus’ response (22:22); elsewhere people marvel at his teaching (7:28), his nature miracles (8:27), his healing (9:8), his exorcism (12:23), and in the Passion Narrative Pilate marvels at Jesus’ silence (27:14). In all these cases, Jesus confounds others’ expectations.”

Still there is much to consider. While Matthew is clear that loyalty to God is a different and higher category than loyalty to Caesar, this text is not instruction on how people who live in a complex world of competing loyalties may determine what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God. It simply declares that the distinction between what belongs to Caesar (as some things do) and what belongs to God (the ultimate loyalty) must be made, and he leaves it to readers in their own situations to discern, in the light of our own life to ponder the distinction (cf. 5:21–48).

A final thought; as Patricia Datchuck Sánchez notes: “Perhaps it is tempting to be amused at the picayune bickering of the Pharisees and Herodians; but they were intelligent enough to realize that Jesus had given them cause to reflect. Rather than be entertained by Jesus’ one-upsmanship it might be better to join the Pharisees and Herodians in considering his challenge, “give to God what is God’s.”

Image credit: The Tribute Money, Peter Paul Rubens (1610–1615), Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, Public Domain PD-US