“It is better to be in God’s hands than our own”
“You’ll be in the best hands possible.”
You’ve heard those words before; words seeking to bring reassurance and comfort. Being in the best hands possible means that a person’s needs are being overseen by the most skilled, qualified, and trustworthy person or people available. They have expert knowledge and proven ability, which means there is no reason to doubt their integrity, judgment, and skill. You can trust them completely and have peace of mind
Being in the best hands possible is, I think, what is really at the heart of today’s Gospel reading. Themes drawn from this passage are often the Christian duty of paying tax to the government, or for the church to give generously to God in the offering plate. But I think the ultimate focus of today’s reading is for Jesus’ audience to consider whose hands they have entrusted their lives to.
The context of today’s reading is Jesus’ teaching in the Temple. Although we are in the Sundays after Pentecost, Matthew 21 and 22 take us back to the events of the first Holy Week. It is a few days after the crowds had lined the streets to welcome their king with jubilant shouts, as Jesus rode past, seated on a donkey. The whole city was stirred and asked: “Who is this?” The leaflets from the Palm fronds that lay on the streets give silent witness to his triumphal entry.
When Jesus went to the Temple he found the courts full of money changers. He said: “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be a house of prayer,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves.” (Luke 19:46). He overturned their tables and drove out all who were buying and selling to make it a holy place for receiving his teaching. Bewildered, the Chief Priests and Elders came up to Jesus and said: “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” Or, in other words: “Who do you think you are!? What do you think you’re doing?!”
So Jesus tells a sequence of parables, which have been our Gospel Readings over the past three weeks—to teach how the Kingdom of God works. The Kingdom of God doesn’t operate like human kingdoms—work hard, measure up, achieve, perform well, pay big to win approval, gain entry and receive favour. That’s what the Pharisees taught and believed. But the Kingdom of God does not look like us climbing up the ladder to heaven. It looks like heaven climbing down the ladder; righteousness, holiness, approval and favour coming down in the flesh of Christ to those like us who can’t perform and earn our way to God.
The Kingdom of God graciously receives those who are unworthy but repentant—like a son who changed his mind and did the will of his father—all the prostitutes and tax collectors who came to John the Baptist to be ready to receive Jesus. Those who said ‘yes dad’ but didn’t go are like the religious leaders who neglected the place where true righteousness and grace is found. They were like the wicked tenants in the vineyard, who killed the King’s servants and then his son, in a futile attempt to unlawfully seize the son’s inheritance. They are like the invited guests who refuse the King’s invitation to the wedding feast and kill his servants—a symbol of the prophets that repeatedly invited God’s people to return to the Lord. Instead it is the “good and bad” alike—the Gentiles who trust in Christ as the way to God—who are ushered in to the feast. The guest who wasn’t clothed in the wedding garment of the King and was thrown outside into the darkness are those who attempt to cover themselves with their own righteousness…only to find they aren’t wearing the correct dress code for heaven.
Finally the Religious leaders got it: Jesus was talking about them! They were the disobedient son in Jesus’ first parable who had lied about doing their Father’s will, for to obey the Father is to believe in his Son who he has sent (John 6:29). They were the wicked tenants in the second parable by stoning the prophets who called for repentance by returning to the Lord—and would even throw the Son out of the city and kill him. They were the guests who rejected the King’s invitation to the wedding feast and who tried to get into the Banquet his own way—but were thrown out into the darkness.
When the religious leaders realised that Jesus, who dared to eat with sinners and tax collectors, was pronouncing judgment on them—they were furious! They must find a way to do away with what they saw as a meddling, heretical rabbi. So going on their way the Pharisees plotted as to how they might trap Jesus in his words. They turn over in their minds all the possible scenarios and rehearse what they’ll say! They’ll begin by using fake, sickening flattery, to lure Jesus into a false sense of security so that he’s caught off guard: “Teacher, we know that you are one of integrity and that you teach the way of God in truth, and are not swayed by others because you don’t pay attention to who they are.” They’ll go around and gather enough of the right people so that when they set Jesus up they can witness what says. They’ll get some followers from their religious sect, and the Herodians, supporters of Herod the Great, the King of Judea appointed by Roman rule. All the pieces are there…but what to say? Aha! They’ve got it! “Tell us Jesus, what do you think: Is it lawful to pay tax to Caesar or not?”
It’s an ingenious plan, impossible to fail. Every Jew was required to pay the tax to the Roman emperor. But the cult of emperor worship became established from the time of Julius Caesar, who allowed himself to be worshiped as a god. His successor Augustus was known in some inscriptions as ‘CAESAR DIVI FILIUS’; ‘Son of eternal Caesar’ (‘Son of God’). His image was publicly revered as ‘Divine Augustus’.
The Pharisees asserted that they should not be subject to a pagan emperor and regarded any tax paid to Rome as ungodly—and if Jesus supported the payment of taxes that would only affirm their assertion that he was honouring Caesar above God, and therefore guilty of blasphemy. The Herodians, on the other hand, were the supporters of Herod the Great, the regional King of Judea appointed by Roman rule. Because Herod ruled through the favour of the Romans, the Herodians supported the payment of taxes to the Romans. If Jesus said that taxes shouldn’t be paid, he would likely be cited for rebellion against the ruling authorities.
Smiling on the inside, the religious leaders think they have Jesus right where they want him. Whether Jesus answers ‘yes’ or ‘no’ he will condemn himself and they would have a legal case against him in the presence of these witnesses. If Jesus answered that the payment of taxes to a Roman emperor who was worshipped was not against God’s will, the Pharisees would charge Jesus with blasphemy, which Leviticus 24 says is punishable by stoning to death. If Jesus answered that paying taxes to a Roman emperor was against God’s will, Jesus would be seen as rebelling against the Roman government, and liable to execution.
But Jesus who knows all things in the human heart replied: “Why do you put me to the test, you hypocrites?” He answers their question by having them show him a coin used for paying the tax. The coin in question was a denarius, a small silver coin worth a day’s wage. On it, the image of the emperor was struck. Jesus has just exposed their hypocrisy, because they themselves have a coin with Caesar on it in their own purses. They have already accepted and use Caesar’s currency as their money, therefore they have just judged themselves with the charge of idolatry they seek to accuse Jesus of.
Jesus asks them: “Whose image is this and whose inscription?” They answered: “Caesar’s.” Jesus said to them: “So give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.” Jesus connects the obligation of giving to the image. Romans 13 teaches that governments have their authority from God. Provided that governments don’t overstep the limits of their authority or rule contrary to God’s will, they have the right to call for obedience, support, and taxes.
Genesis tells us: “God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:26-27). Jesus says that they who have been created in God’s image are to give to God what belongs to him—themselves.
We are not here by chance but an intentional, careful, deliberate plan of God who created us as the highest point of his creation to reflect him to the world around us. This gives all people incredible dignity and worth, from the most vulnerable of embryos to those who are frail in their senior years. It is God who claims us, who made us in his own image. We do not belong to anything or to anyone else. We don’t even belong to ourselves. We belong to God in all our being, with all we are and in all we have.
Giving to God what is God’s is a high price. It is a much greater matter than calculating what our Sunday offering should be. For it is about our life: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength (Deuteronomy 6:5). Returning to God what belongs to God means giving him our dreams, hopes, goals, strategies, pursuits, time, energy, intellect and decision making—“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding (Proverbs 3:5). God wants us to give him our fears, anxieties, worry, stress, uncertainty and confusion: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled…” (John 14:27). He wants us to give him everything we keep secret, hidden from view—what makes us feel vulnerable, what troubles our conscience, our guilt and wrongdoing, secret sins and shame—“a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalm 51:17).
Notice how the word ‘heart’ is common to all those verses? Why are we to give God our heart? Because it is the centre of our being which leads and drives us. Jesus says: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21).
When we give our whole selves to God we recognize that we are not our own and we depend on God for everything we need. God wants us to put our lives in his hands, rather than to hold on so tightly with our own. For we are already in the best hands possible: the most skilled, qualified, and trustworthy. God is the One who has expert knowledge and proven ability, which means we have no reason to doubt his integrity, judgment, or dedication, and can have complete peace of mind.
For his hands were pierced on the Cross to hold the world in a redeeming embrace and reconciled to God by his precious blood. Eventually the Pharisees’ plans for Jesus did come about…but even then, these were really God’s plans: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42).
It was while we were sinners; it was when we did not give ourselves to God, that God’s will was done, and he gave his only Son for us. On Friday of Holy Week, just a few days after Jesus said “give to God what is God’s”, Jesus, the image of the invisible God, was obedient and humbled himself to the point of death, lifted high on the Cross to ransom you from sin death and the powers of hell by his precious blood.
On that Cross it was not just an image of God, but the fullness of God himself in human flesh…God giving up his life; God reaching out in a dying embrace to seek and save the lost; God breathing his last to breathe new life into the world, God who emptied himself to give you fullness of life with him through faith. Faith that in the action of commending ourselves to God we confess that it is not we who are in control of our lives, but he is. Faith that says we are not the builders and shapers of his church, but he is. Faith that so completely trusts God that in all things—even the darkest and most painful—he will work for good for those who love him. Amen.
Pastor Tim Ebbs
St Paul’s Lutheran Church, Glenelg
Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost, 2026
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:
“God wants us to put our lives in his hands, rather than to hold on so tightly with our own. For we are already in the best hands possible: the most skilled, qualified, and trustworthy.”
- What does the image of Caesar on the coin tell us about ownership?
- If the coin belongs to Caesar because it bears his image, what does it mean for us, who bear God’s image?
- Why do you think Jesus called his questioners hypocrites?
- What responsibilities do Christians have towards earthly governments?
- What responsibilities do Christians have towards God?
- Are there areas of your life where you give more allegiance to earthly things than to God?
- What practical ways can you “give to God what is God’s” each day?
- How does recognising that you are made in God’s image affect your identity and purpose?
- What resources (time, talents, possessions, relationships) has God entrusted to you, and how can you honour him with them?
