Stepping beyond the binaries - A reflection at Open Table #lgbtqia+ #comeasyouare
Reflection by Revd Laura Ferguson, Team Vicar, on Matthew 22.15-22
Ultimatums are tricky aren’t they. Just two choices lying before you; the high road or the low road? The wide path or the narrow. Fight or flight? It seems like whether in Jesus’ time or today, there will always be people who try to enforce binaries.
The two choices that Jesus appears to be faced with in the reading come from Pharisees and Herodians. And in those times what better way to trap Jesus than to ask him about the divisive matter of Roman Imperial taxes.
Only months before a Jewish zealot had rallied support from the masses – his followers all refused to pay their annual tax and many including their leader were captured by the Romans and were sentenced to death by crucifixion.
So the question over whether to pay tax or not was no laughing matter. If Jesus were instead to recommend paying Caesars taxes he would run the risk of losing the huge support he’d gathered. Those crowds who had just welcomed him into Jerusalem, lining the streets with the palms, would quickly disappear if they discovered that rather than being the man who would restore Israel to it’s former glory by overthrowing the oppressive Romans, he was actually in support of them!
So which option did Jesus choose? Well, faced with this impossible ultimatum Jesus, naturally, didn’t choose either. His answer exposes the Pharisees political and religious hypocrisies. And it pointed people towards a greater truth.
Jesus did all this by firstly asking the Pharisees and Herodian’s for a Roman coin. A harmless question on the face of it… But a good Pharisee, an upholder of the commandments would have wanted to distance themselves from contact with such a currency. Why? Well because it violated the commandments:
You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.’
The coin depicted the head of Caesar – a graven image AND it contained an inscription ‘Divus’ divine or ‘god.’ To the Romans the Emperor was a god - the coin therefore was idolatrous.
The last place one of these coins should be is within the walls of the temple, the most holy of Jewish places. Whatsmore, Jesus only in the chapter before drove out the money changers in a bid to cleanse the temple. Well, clearly his efforts had been in vain because the Pharisees and the Herodians managed to produce one of these coins immediately. They suddenly realise that in doing so they’ve exposed their own allegiance. Whether wittingly or unwittingly, they are supporting and upholding the Roman imperial system.
But Jesus doesn’t stop there – because after that blow he says to them ‘give to Caesar what is Caesar and give God what is Gods.’
Here Jesus really gets to the heart of the matter. While they’re getting hung up on taxes, Jesus wants to point them towards something far more important. The issue of belonging.
Psalm 24 writes ‘the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.’ So if the Pharisees are left pondering ‘what do we give God?’ Then the answer is everything!
There is an implication that if God’s people were true to followers they would recognise that they should be giving all of themselves to God.
Jesus is saying that imposed taxes whether good or bad, don’t have to define your political or religious identity and that your identity is first and foremost in being a citizen of God’s Kingdom.
And looking at the coin still, Jesus goes further, asking in whose image are YOU made? The pharisee’s would have been familiar with Genesis 1:27 which says that we are made in the image of God.
It’s not surprising they stand amazed at His response. He didn’t come down on one side of the argument or the other. He transcended the ultimatum completely and challenged the listener to ask themselves, to whom do I belong?
Years ago when I first committed to following Jesus, an image came to my mind that has remained with me. It was that of a house which often in psychology symbolises the self. The house had many rooms and each contained aspects of my personally or selves. One room was the Laura who worked at the office. One was the Laura that my partner knew, one was the Laura who helped at the church youth group and another was going out on the town Laura. There was angry Laura that my sister knew well. There was insecure Laura that my mum got to see. And then there were the rooms not see by anyone, the anxious Laura, mixed up, dark thoughts Laura and various others. At that time, my life was so compartmentalised the thought of any of these selves colliding filled me with panic. Some were locked up and such a mess that I couldn’t bare the thought of anyone seeing those/that true selves.
So becoming a Christian felt like a high risk move because I knew that it meant accepting that my allegiance had changed, not me at the centre anymore but God. This meant that I’d probably have to open doors I’d been keeping firmly shut. I wasn’t sure I wanted to give God permission to come into those rooms. But… ever so slowly I sensed a knocking on one door or another at various times in the last decade and what always surprises me is how gentle God is. Not exposing or humiliating me but ever so gently opening the doors and allowing a tiny shaft of light in to illuminate a small section. Small enough to deal with. Small enough for God to slowly pick up the mess or sort out the furniture, to shake out, dust off, clean up and put into it’s best place.
For those who are into Marie Kondo - you could say God is continually Marie Kondo-ing my life!
But it was this image that came to mind as I was thinking about this evening. When we live with God at the ‘still centre’ (as our parish tagline states) the light that shines into our shadowy rooms doesn’t just illuminate but colourises our lives. As long as parts of ourselves remain in the shadows they will only ever be monochrome.
But perhaps right now that is all too much, too exposing? Well… perhaps that process of coming out can look more like the turning of a door handle, one that lets the shaft of light in… Maybe that looks like an unspoken acknowledgement of one’s sexuality or gender just to God alone. And of course it might not be about sexuality or gender but something else entirely. As Warren said to me, ‘coming out for all of us (not just LGBTQIA+ folk) for me is about stepping beyond the binaries and embracing God beyond our limited and limiting categories.’
Isn’t that precisely what Jesus is saying in this passage. We do not belong to restrictive earthly systems but to a Godly one, one in which we bare the resemblance of our Creator.