Thursday 2nd April Message
Dear Reader
To begin and as an illustration, take a coin in your hand, and if you are able to look at the letters on the reverse (tails) side, you should see the letters, DG REG FD along with the date and monarch. In doing this it might help to enter into the scene of our passage today. It’s a bit of fun too and If you do this simple thing you will never forget this story.
I won’t tell you just now what the letters mean. Perhaps though, you might want to tell me. Happy to hear from you!
You probably know the answer already but why not give it a go?
A man came to his Rabbi one day and said, ‘Rabbi why do you always answer a question with a question?’. The Rabbi replied ‘So what’s wrong with a question then?’.
I saw on TV yesterday, a government official being questioned about the lack of protection and testing equipment for front line NHS workers and he was very uncomfortable indeed.
I think we ‘enjoy’ the spectacle of watching people squirm when they are confronted and challenged by skilled interviewers, especially politicians we don’t like. Really!!?
Court room scenes too engage us for their complexity and entertainment value. Think of all the TV programmes and ‘who dunnits’ we watch and read about with the unfolding drama and questioning.
Each week in parliament there is ‘Prime Minister’s Questions’ and on TV the popular programme ‘Question Time’. Everyone has questions of one one kind or another
In our passage today, the scene is set for a showdown. ‘This time we’ve got him’, the Jewish leaders (Pharisees and Herodians) must have thought to themselves. If he says ‘Yes’ he’s a traitor and if he says ‘No’ we’ll report him to the Roman authorities. Jesus would be on the horns of a dilemma for sure.
It was now time, however, for the ‘mob’ to squirm in the answer he gave. Jesus taking a coin asked who’s portrait and inscription were on the coin? They said ‘Caesar’s’. ‘Then give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and give to God what is God’s’.
Do you ever feel and experience the tensions of divided loyalty?
Today I ask you to think/meditate on Jesus teaching.
God bless you!
Jim
JBoag@churchofscotland.org.uk
MATTHEW 22: 16-22
They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are. Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?”But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”
“Caesar’s,” they replied.
Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.
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