October 11, 2026, The 21st Sunday after Pentecost
The Things That Are God’s
There is a question most of us would rather not be asked: How much of what we have belongs to someone else?
We meet that question when tax forms arrive, bills come due, or the mortgage payment is withdrawn. Much of our income is already spoken for before we decide what to do with it. Taxes may support roads, schools, hospitals, and other public goods, but few of us approach tax season with joyful generosity. We pay because we are required to pay.
That familiar tension between obligation and choice brings us directly into today’s Gospel. When the Pharisees and Herodians ask Jesus, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” they are asking something far more dangerous than a question about household finances. It is a trap. If Jesus says yes, he risks alienating those who resent Roman occupation. If he says no, he can be accused of rebellion. Either answer can be used against him.
Jesus refuses their political game. “Show me the coin used for the tax,” he says. They bring him a denarius, and he asks whose image and inscription it bears. “The emperor’s,” they reply. Then comes the answer that has echoed through the centuries: “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
Their trap has failed, but Jesus’ answer leaves us with a deeper question. At first it sounds straightforward: pay your taxes and give God what belongs to God. Yet Jesus is doing more than dividing life into civic and religious obligations. He is contrasting two relationships: the relationship between an emperor and his subjects, and the relationship between God and God’s people.
The emperor’s coin bears the emperor’s image. It symbolizes his authority, and the tax is imposed on those living under that authority. The emperor does not need their affection or trust; he simply demands what is owed. Taxes may serve the common good, and paying them can be an act of civic responsibility. Yet the transaction remains an obligation.
If the emperor’s claim is grounded in obligation, God’s claim begins somewhere entirely different: in grace. God is not a distant ruler collecting tribute to maintain a throne. God is the one who has already given us life, breath, creation, relationships, forgiveness, and grace. We do not give because God lacks resources, or to purchase God’s favour, or to settle an account. We give because we have first received.
That difference matters. Paying a bill and giving a gift may both involve money, but they do not mean the same thing. One settles an obligation; the other expresses a relationship. One is required; the other rises from love and gratitude.
That contrast between obligation and grace brings us to the heart of Jesus’ words: what, exactly, are “the things that are God’s”? Jesus does not ask whose image is stamped on a human being, but his listeners know the Scriptures: humanity is created in the image of God. The coin bears the emperor’s image. We bear God’s.
If the coin belongs to the emperor because it carries his image, then what belongs to God because it carries God’s image? Not simply the money placed in the collection plate, but our whole selves: our time, gifts, compassion, relationships, and capacity to love and serve. Everything we are and everything we have rests within God’s generosity.
Once we recognize that we bear God’s image, the teaching necessarily moves beyond money. We cannot separate giving to God from caring for those whom God loves. When we feed someone who is hungry, help a family struggling with rent, welcome a newcomer, or sit beside someone who is lonely, we do more than perform a good deed. We recognize God’s image in a person whose dignity may have been overlooked, and we make God’s love tangible.
In that encounter, something happens to us as well. Our priorities are reordered. We loosen our grip on what we thought we had to hold tightly. Generosity does not diminish us as we sometimes fear; it makes us more alive to God and to one another.
That transformation is real, but it should not be confused with recklessness. Many know the anxiety of financial uncertainty and carry real responsibilities for family, home, and future. Generosity does not ask us to ignore those responsibilities or give beyond what we can reasonably afford. It does ask whether generosity is merely what happens when something is left over, or whether it has become an intentional part of our life with God.
When we give regularly and thoughtfully, we begin to understand our possessions differently. We stop asking only, “What do I need to keep?” and also ask, “What have I received that might become a blessing to someone else?” Giving becomes not a loss, but participation in God’s work of healing and restoration. It is not merely something we do for God; it is one of the ways God transforms us.
What is true for each of us personally is also true for us as a parish. Here at All Saints, as we celebrate a century in this building and look toward the future, we are stewards of a remarkable inheritance: a place of worship, a community of faith, music and prayer, and a tradition of service that has touched many lives.
Yet our purpose is not simply to preserve a building or maintain an institution. It is to make God’s love visible here and beyond these walls. Our time, talents, and treasure matter because of what they make possible: worship that draws people into God’s presence, a community where people discover that they belong, and practical compassion that offers hope.
In other words, our stewardship is not payment demanded by another institution. We give because we have encountered a generous God whose love calls us to participate in the transformation of the world.
And that brings us back to Jesus’ coin and to the question beneath his answer. The most important issue is not what is stamped on the coin in our pocket, but whose image is borne in our lives. The emperor may demand taxes. The world may demand our labour, attention, and allegiance. But God invites us into something deeper: a relationship in which we discover that we are loved, called, and able to become instruments of that love.
We cannot buy God’s grace; we can only receive it. Having received it, we can allow it to flow through us into the lives of others.
Because grace is received before it is ever returned, let us give not from fear or guilt, but from gratitude. Let us give because our neighbours bear God’s image. Let us meet the needs of the world not as someone else’s problem, but as an invitation to love. Let our generosity become prayer, our service become worship, and our lives reflect the God who has given us everything.
The things of this world may bear the image of earthly powers, but we bear the image of the living God. When we offer ourselves and what we have to the work of God’s love, we discover a deeper life in God. Amen.