It is the season of forms and folders. Around this time of year the words taxes and tax return start trending, and I understand why. Few things make a person feel their finances quite so keenly as gathering up the year's records and squaring accounts with the government. Some approach it with dread, some with a shoebox of receipts, some with the quiet hope of a refund on the way. Whatever camp you are in, it is a yearly reminder that we do not live entirely to ourselves. We are woven into a larger web of obligations.
There is a moment in the Gospels when tax became a trap. A group of men came to Jesus with a question sharpened like a blade. "Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?" (Matthew 22:17). It was a setup. Say yes, and He offends the crowd who resented Roman rule. Say no, and He is a rebel against the empire. Either way, they thought they had Him.
The Coin and the Question
Jesus did something wonderful. He asked for a coin. "Shew me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? They say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:19-21).
The coin bore Caesar's image, so let Caesar have his coin. That much is simple, and it settles the surface question. Pay what you owe. Be honest on your forms. Do not use faith as a cloak for cheating your neighbor or your government. Scripture is plain that God's people are to be people of integrity in ordinary matters like this.
But listen to the second half of what Jesus said, because that is where the whole weight of it lands. Render unto God the things that are God's. If the coin belongs to Caesar because it bears his image, then what bears God's image? You do. "So God created man in his own image" (Genesis 1:27). The coin has Caesar's face stamped on it. Your soul has the fingerprints of your Maker all over it.
What Really Belongs to God
Here is the quiet turn I want you to catch. Tax season asks, What do you owe? Jesus asks a deeper question: To whom do you belong? We can be scrupulous about a return down to the last dollar and still hand God almost nothing of the one thing He asks for — ourselves. Our time. Our attention. Our worship. Our surrendered will.
I have sat with folks over the years who kept immaculate books, never late on a bill, and yet carried a strange emptiness. They had rendered to Caesar faithfully and never once rendered to God. And I have known others with far less to their name who had given God everything, and they were among the richest people I have met.
Paul put it this way: "Ye are not your own. For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's" (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). We are not merely taxpayers passing through. We are redeemed people who bear a holy image, purchased at a cost far greater than any refund.
A Gentler Accounting
So let the paperwork do its work. Pay honestly, file faithfully, and do not lose sleep over the arithmetic. But when the folder is closed, let your heart ask the better question. What have I given the One whose image I carry? Not out of dread, and not to balance a ledger with heaven, for that account was already settled at the cross. Give yourself freely, the way you give to Someone who loved you first.
Here in Ravenna we are an ordinary bunch, most of us wrestling the same forms you are. But we have found that when a life is rendered to God, everything else — including the money — finds its proper place. Caesar can have the coin. Christ can have you. That is a return that never runs out.
Join us this Sunday at 10:30am — Outpouring Worship Center, Ravenna.