Jesus Was Entrapped Today

Sunday Readings: Isaiah 45:1-7 & Matthew 22:15-22

Grace and peace are yours from the Triune God. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Jesus was entrapped today.

The Pharisees teamed up with their arch-nemesis, the Herodians to lay the trap. You may wonder, who are these groups? The Pharisees were a religious group that stringently followed the laws of the Torah and largely studied and worshipped in Synagogue settings rather than exclusively at the Jerusalem Temple.

The Herodians were a political group. They supported the reign of Herod who was appointed by the Roman Emperor to be the client King of Judea. They were also known for tattling on those who acted seditious toward Herod and the Roman Empire.  

The Pharisees hated the Herodians. In the Roman Empire, an act of sedition against Rome was to refuse worship of the emperor. Being stringent followers of the Torah Law, the first commandment is to have no other god, and the Pharisees were against worshipping the emperor. The Pharisees and the Herodians working together in this passage indicate just how much tension - religiously and politically - was rising around Jesus’s preaching and teaching.

Both groups wanted to entrap Jesus. The Pharisees wanted Jesus to alienate Jesus from the religious crowds following him by trapping him in blasphemy by saying “Yes, the Emperor deserves your worship and money.” And the Herodians wanted to entrap him in sedition, by saying “No! Don’t pay your taxes to that false god.”  

By the end of our passage though, both groups are stunned into silence and they walk away amazed.

What in Jesus’s answer affected them so deeply?

His answer seems so simple. You see that coins are minted by the empire, so they belong to the emperor - give it to him. And give to God what is God’s.

This answer names a hard truth which I think in part stunned the pharisees and Herodians. We are all simultaneously fully caught up in God’s care and love; and we are caught in the systems of the earthly world. We simultaneously owe to God what is God’s and we owe to the government what is due to the government. Two realities that are always together. They always have been and they always will be.

The Pharisees were seen to be exclusively spiritual people and the Herodians exclusively earthly empire people. So, they seem to have been stunned when those binary worlds were exposed to be more complicated.

We have modern-day Pharisees and modern-day Herodians. There are still those who proclaim a separation from the world as the purest form of religious practice. There are those who proclaim the systems of the world as the sole area of existence. Typically, those two groups are placed diametrically opposed to one another still today - leaving the rest of us in the middle. Working out how to be faith-filled people who do still live in the world. Working out how to give to God what is God’s and give to the emperor what is the emperor’s.

Perhaps what Jesus is telling us is that membership in the Spiritual Kingdom – God’s Kingdom - and membership in the earthly kingdom are both gifts from God. It’s a complex part of our human experience to be aware that our presence in God’s creation is just as much a gift as our knowledge that we are also members of God’s Kingdom through Jesus Christ.

So, our presence here on earth is a gift.

The experiences we have on earth, both the highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows are a gift. Those feelings and experiences remind us that we are alive in God’s creation. It’s gut wrenchingly and spectacularly beautiful to be here.

And, as a part of this experience of God’s creation, we need to have some earthly structures including government, what Jesus speaks of as the “emperor’s things,” which are also gifts from God. Government is good because of another gift from God in this earthly creation is free will. We have and we misuse our God-given free will. We mess it up and we don’t honor the responsibilities that come with free will. So, we have the gift of government which, at its best, helps us to live together in caring and nurturing communities in part because we are inspired by God’s own law to build good government.

However, because government is in human hands, it is also subject to the sin to which we all fall victim. Government officials do at times revert to the use of violence, public policy, or economic hardship to coerce people or to exploit people’s emotions for particular purpose. This is why governments - kings, queens, princes, governors, presidents, senators and other representatives - will never be the way God reveals God’s Kingdom. Earthly governments have no authority in matters pertaining to God’s Kingdom. They only have authority so far as they help people live together in caring and nurturing communities.

So, we do give to the earthly kingdoms what is their due as we strive for those kingdoms to build communities of peace based in love and care for the neighbor. And we remain always vigilant and aware of the ways our modern-day emperors ask us to worship them or place all our hope in them.  

As faithful people, we strive not to fall into the same trap that was set for Jesus in our reading today. We remain people who are struggling to honor the gift of our citizenship in both the earthly kingdom and the Kingdom of God.

We join with Christ in saying, “Give to the emperor what is the emperor’s and give to God what is God’s.” During the time we live among the earthly kingdoms, we strive to follow God’s Law and work to build systems of government and economy that reflect God’s Law knowing it won’t be perfect. But we remember it is a gift to live in God’s creation where we read repeatedly in Genesis that what God created, God called good. So, we honor our time here through our love and nurture of creation and the people and things within it. And while we honor God’s good creation, we store up our hope in our citizenship in the coming of God’s Kingdom through Jesus Christ, where no coinage or Law will be relevant anymore for silver and gold tarnish and corrode. But in the Kingdom of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit reign from a cross-shaped throne from which eternal gifts of forgiveness, justice and mercy flow to all.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Rev. Ryan | October 18, 2026 | 21st Sunday after Pentecost