gospel of Thomas 100

They showed Jesus a gold coin and said to him, "Caesar's men demand taxes from us."

He said to them, "Give Caesar what belongs to Caesar, give God what belongs to God, and give me what is mine."

Jesus, like any good master, can manage to squeeze a spiritual teaching out of any situation. Here the disciples were whinging about being taxed. It's always been thus, ever since somebody first came up with the idea of tax. People are not happy to pay it. Why should they be? Where does the money go? What good does it do?

It was no different in the times of Jesus. And indeed, Caesar was a foreign emperor. Roman troops were occupying the region where Jesus and his disciples lived. And with the strongest army, they could demand what taxes they liked. It is ever thus.

But Jesus is not concerned with money. He doesn't care about taxes. He merely says, give Caesar what is his – meaning, pay the taxes, who cares? It's only money. Give God what is God's. You see, this is it: everything is God's; everything we are, our heart and soul. But we like to claim it for ourself. We like to think we have sovereignty over it: this is my body, my mind; I'm in control of it; I'll do what I want with it; it belongs to me.

No. We are all children of God. And even the word children is not right. We are part of God. If we can admit this, in some humility, then we have given God what is his. We have accepted that it is God's will that we undertake, not our own. And although this seems like a loss of sovereignty – a loss of control – in reality, it is just realising the truth, the way things are.

The last part of this little saying by Jesus, I don't quite understand. I think it was a joke: give me what is mine. Perhaps one of the disciples was holding on to something which actually belonged to Jesus: his sandals, his robe, who knows?

Or maybe he added it as an afterthought, just to test his disciples. Because Jesus doesn't own anything. Nothing is his. Just as you and I own nothing. Nothing is ours; not even this body; not even these thoughts in the mind. And as for material possessions or money, it is a great misconception to think that we own those. We do not own land, we do not own property. We own nothing. We are merely visitors – guests for the short blink of an eye that is a human lifetime.

But what an amazing blink of an eye it is. Let's enjoy it.