“Whose is this image and superscription?”
Autumn leaves lie scattered on the wind. The glory of the Fall fades into the somber grey of November. At the risk of indulging too much in the pathetic fallacy, not to mention privileging the seasons of the northern hemisphere, there is, it seems to me, a contemplative feel to nature at this time of year. Certainly, the Scripture readings in the Offices and at the Eucharist reflect an emphasis upon wisdom. They recall us to contemplation and reflection.
I love the contrast between the fading of nature’s glory and the opening out to us of the glory of God in the Communion of Saints, the vision of our redeemed humanity. We meet within the Octave of the Feast of All Saints’ and this morning’s Epistle reading reminds us of the spiritual reality of that communion. “Our citizenship is in heaven,” Paul tells the Philippians, and bids them and us “look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change this lowly body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body”, words which are echoed in the Service of Committal in the Burial Office. Death and glory.
The Feast of All Saints’ embraces The Solemnity of All Souls’. All Souls’ reminds us of the somber reality of our common mortality but it does so within the vision of the hope of heaven, the vision of our humanity transformed. These celebrations challenge us about how we think about our humanity, about what it means to be human and about our lives in the human community, politically, economically, socially, and religiously. They challenge us about the necessity of making certain distinctions and about understanding the forms of interaction within the varied areas and aspects of our lives. “Our citizenship is in heaven” but we have certain obligations in the political and social communities of which we are inescapably a part as well. The Gospel speaks directly to the questions about their interaction.
“The love of money” is proverbially and scripturally said to be “the root of all evil.” Not just money but the love of money. Why? Because money is power. The misuse of money is the abuse of power. Money is twisted from being a medium of exchange to a form of domination and control. There is the use of money to dominate and manipulate others. But there is, as well, the fact that money comes to dominate us.
It causes us to forget who we are. In our contemporary culture we are under a constant barrage of images that seek to persuade us that we are merely economic beings, that our worth and the meaning of our lives is to be measured materially and financially. This is not only destructive of human personality and the human community but it is destructive of the forms of honest and meaningful exchange so necessary to the welfare of souls and communities. Their end, our end, “is destruction, whose god is their belly”.
Money comes to possess us because we allow it to define the space in which we live out our lives. Means become ends which they cannot be. Economic ends must always fail us for the simple reason that our lives and the worth of our lives cannot be reduced to an economic quantity. We saw this last week in the Gospel story about forgiveness. When we are defined economically, then we are but “bellies”, as it were, consumers, though no doubt, “bellyachers” as well. We are seduced into thinking that everything, including religion, must be a consumer product, a marketable commodity. The evil of money lies precisely in making us forget who we are.
In the face of this kind of forgetting, Jesus would recall us to ourselves. No one says as much about money in the New Testament as Jesus. “Show me the tribute-money,” he demands of the Pharisees, who sought to entangle him in his talk over an issue about money and taxes and about political and religious loyalties and identities.
He asks them “whose is this image and superscription?” The coin bears the image of Caesar, they tell him, the Roman Emperor, the highest power on earth, humanly speaking, at that time. For money is, inescapably it would seem, the concrete symbol of worldly power. Jesus replies with the wonderful and profound distinction “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.”
“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” is a true and profound statement which reflects the political order to which economic matters are subordinate. Yet, money is utterly unable to be the image of who we are in the essential truth of our being. It cannot be the image of us. Money cannot capture who we essentially are. If we think that it can, then we both forget and delude ourselves. We give money a power over ourselves and overlook the command to render “unto God the things that are God’s.” The question “whose is this image and superscription” recalls us to ourselves and to God and to that greater city to which we belong in and through our lives here and now.
The coin may bear the image of Caesar and thus symbolise his worldly and political power, but as Jesus will say to Caesar’s man in Jerusalem, “thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above”. Even the power of Caesar ultimately derives from and belongs to God.
The image we bear is something greater. It cannot be captured on a coin. We are not made in the image of Caesar but in the image of God. We have been stamped with the sign of the cross at our baptism. “Our citizenship is in heaven” and our economic life must be subordinate not only to political life but to the spiritual reality of our God-created and God-redeemed humanity. The real worth of our being is to be found in that higher and eternal relation of exchange – the exchange of love – transacted by Jesus Christ on the cross “for us and for our salvation”. It is to be realised in lives of sacrifice in such things as the widow’s mite, the giving without counting the cost, for “with God all things are possible,” even the salvation of the rich.
This lies at the heart of the Christian faith, at the heart of our Christian identity. God becomes man that he might give himself for us and that his life might live in us. It is without price. It is priceless because it is beyond human calculation. It is the infinite value of the heart-blood of Jesus.
Against the idols of economic determinism and technocratic dominance, we are reminded of our identity with God in Christ. We are made in the image of God and stamped with the cross of Christ. The love of God must be what shall compel us and define us; anything less makes us less than ourselves. Our liturgy counters all the forces in our day that would make us less than ourselves. Here we are reminded of our spiritual citizenship which shapes all our doings in our daily lives. We are reminded of the hope of glory even in the somber grey of November.
“Whose is this image and superscription?”
Fr. David Curry
Trinity XXIII in the Octave of All Saints’