Mine!
Original sermon given on the Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost, October 18, 2026 written and delivered by Pastor Jason Kohm at First Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church.
Watch the sermon live.
“Receiving the Son”
Matthew 21.33-45
Mine!
One of my favorite movies growing up was Finding Nemo. It’s a great story about the relationship between two clownfish — an overprotective father named Marlin and his only son Nemo, eager for freedom and adventure. As the name of the movie suggests, Nemo becomes separated from his father, and Marlin, with the help of his companion Dory, has to track him across the entire ocean to P. Sherman 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney. And towards the end of the film, there’s this great scene in which Marlin and Dory finally arrive in Sydney and encounter a pelican named Nigel, who had actually found Nemo first and wanted to bring them to him. But Marlin and Dory understandably think that Nigel the pelican is trying to eat them.
So, the two fish are skipping across a dock to get away, and Nigel chases them shouting, “Hey wait! I got something to tell ya!” But suddenly, all three of them stop and slowly look up… and they realize that they are completely surrounded by dozens and dozens of seagulls. They’re perched everywhere — on the posts, on the ropes, on the boats — and one seagull leans forward, looks at the fish, and says: “Mine.” Nigel calmly instructs the fish to hop into his mouth so he can take them to Nemo (and as he’s doing this, another seagull lands near them and asks, “Mine?”). When Marlin learns that Nigel is telling the truth, he springs high into the air with joy, which causes all the seagulls to rush towards the fish while screeching, “MINE, MINE, MINE, MINE!” Nigel does succeed in rescuing Marlin and Dory from the hungry seagulls, but during the whole chase sequence, the only thing you can hear is the seagulls shouting the same word, over and over: “MINE, MINE, MINE, MINE!”
I was reminded of that particular scene from Finding Nemo after looking at our Gospel reading — yeah, the passage about paying taxes to Caesar. Confused? Hear me out.
First, remember when this conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees took place: Holy Week, between the Triumphal Entry and Maundy Thursday. At this point, the Pharisees are hell-bent on capturing and killing Jesus, so they’re doing everything they can to have an excuse to arrest Him. So, they devise this nasty trap, this question that Jesus cannot answer without being guilty of something: “Teacher, tell us what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?”
There it is, the perfect question with no right answer. If Jesus says, “Yes, it is lawful,” that means that He fully supports Rome’s rule over Israel. And what is the Messiah destined to do? To free Israel from worldly oppression, to conquer the powers that rule over God’s people! So, if Jesus answers, “Yes,” guess what? He’s comfortable living under Rome’s shadow and therefore can’t be the Messiah! He’d be a fraud, and He could be arrested for that by Jewish law.
But that’s only half of this question’s brilliance, because if Jesus says, “No, it is not lawful,” then He’s a rebel, a traitor openly opposed to Rome, and Rome does not tolerate traitors. So, if Jesus answers, “No,” that can be reported, and He could be arrested for that by Roman law! The Pharisees have finally done it. They’ve got Him. They’ve trapped Jesus either way. It’s the perfect plan!
But then, there’s a glitch. Jesus refuses to even play the game. He tells them, “Show me the coin for the tax.” And when they bring Jesus a denarius, He holds it before them and asks His own question: “Whose likeness and inscription is this?”
It was obvious. Caesar’s. Then Jesus says, “So, give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and give to God the things that are God’s.”
Silence. The Pharisees have nothing. No rebuttal, no follow-up questions… they just take their ball and go home.
Kind of an abrupt ending… what really happened here? The Pharisees wanted Jesus to reveal His attitude towards secular powers — temporal things — in a way that would condemn Him. But Jesus took the coin for the tax and made an entirely different move with it. In saying, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give to God what is God’s,” the question behind it that Jesus made the Pharisees consider was: “Whose coin is this? Who does this coin belong to, really?”
And the answer is not that some things belong to secular powers and some things belong to God. The move Jesus made here is ALL things belong to God. All things! This coin? This is God’s coin. Rome, the nation that ruled over Israel? That’s God’s too! This world, and everything in it, belongs to the one who created it. God alone. And no one has anything apart from Him, who gives us His belongings, His stuff.
Remember that, in John’s Gospel, when Jesus was about to be sentenced to crucifixion and Pontius Pilate was trying to figure out what on earth was going on, he approached Jesus (who wasn’t saying anything to defend Himself) and said, “Why won’t you speak with me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” In other words, “You’ve got to work with me here, Jesus! I can set you free; I hold all the cards!”
Jesus’ response? “No, you don’t. You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given to you from above.” All that power and dominion Pilate claimed to have? It wasn’t his. It was God’s. Pilate was just a pawn, a piece on the board that God had complete ownership and control over to ultimately save this world, and you and me along with it, to redeem everything that has been corrupted by sin, to get it all back through His Son’s death and resurrection… and to make all things new again.
So, it turns out that Jesus’ words from our Gospel reading give us no clear direction on what to do. He does not offer us concrete advice on handling our finances, or really anything else. Instead, this is a bold declaration of the way things really are, even today. All things are God’s! Your life is not lived in two different worlds — you do not come to church to be in a safe spiritual bubble in which God is in charge and works on you for an hour or so, then He pushes you outside these doors to survive on your own for another week in the temporal world, where things are out of control and subject to cold, indiscriminate chance.
No; there is only one reality in which all things are redeemed and ruled over by Christ the King. Jesus looks around at all He sees from His heavenly throne and says, “That’s mine. This coin is mine. YOU are mine! The city of Chicago is mine. First Saint Paul’s is mine. America is mine. And so is everything and everyone else.”
This is immensely comforting. Our God reigns! And He is invested in every square inch of your life, working all things together for good, somehow. And His will, as hard as it is to understand, is simply being done everywhere, not just within these walls. Everything is His, and He knows what He’s doing with it.
And that, brothers and sisters in Christ, is how I thought of that scene from Finding Nemo, with the seagull that says, “Mine.” The wonderful truth that I want you to take home with you is that there is nothing in this world that Christ looks at and does not say, “Mine. That’s mine.” But unlike those seagulls eyeing fish that didn’t actually belong to them, everything in this world truly does belong to Jesus… because He made it all, loves it all, bled and died for it all, rules over it all, and one day, will return to restore it all to what it’s all supposed to be. So, take heart, everyone — whatever you look at around you, whether it’s in the church or not, whether it’s a person you love or cannot stand, whether it’s spiritual or secular, whether it’s indoors or outdoors, whether it’s perfect or an absolute mess or somewhere in between, you can be certain that Jesus looks at it and says, “Mine.”
Image Source: Finding Nemo. Directed by Andrew Stanton, Pixar Animation Studios, 2003. Image accessed from Know Your Meme, Oct. 19, 2026
