Show the children a coin and demonstrate how you can “flip a coin” and make a decision by guessing “Heads” or “Tails.” Explain how you can trick a person by saying “Heads I win, Tails you loose.” Tell the children about how some religious leaders tried to trick Jesus and get him in trouble with a coin. If the children are very young you might want to simply go with the idea that it was impossible for them to out-smart Jesus.

 

(Note: R.T France, N.T. Wright and J. Nolland all have a slightly different take on this passage. You may want to adjust the ending to fit your own theological take on things. I would be very easy to confuse the kids with a bunch of religious theo-babble.)

 

Complete Children’s sermon: 

Good morning children! (Show them a coin.) Do you know what this is? That’s right. It is a quarter. When I was young, I played soccer. We would flip a coin in the air like this (demonstrate) to decide what team would start with the ball. This side of the coin (show them) would be “heads.” You can see the head of George Washington (or the Queen if you are in Canada). This other side we would call “tails.” One player would chose “heads” or “tails,” and then we would flip the coin to see which side landed face up. The winner of the coin toss would get to start the game and pick which side of the field to start begin. (Ask one of the children to make a choice and then flip the coin.) Your right! When I was young, we would often flip a coin if we needed to make a decision. Sometimes we would play a little trick on each other. Perhaps there were two of us and we had only one candy. We needed to flip a coin to see who was going to get the candy. However, the person would say, (listen carefully) “Heads I win – tails you loose.” Can you see that this would mean that the other person would always loose. It was a way of tricking the person.

 

In our bible reading today some religious leaders tried to trick Jesus with a coin. They asked him if money should go to Caesar the ruler, or to God. Some of the people there felt money should go to Caesar and some felt it should not. They really wanted to trick Jesus and get him in trouble. However, Jesus was too smart for them. He said to them, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and give to God what belongs to God.” Jesus was letting them know that they could not trick him. He was the one in control. I think he was also reminding them that they had not been very faithful in offering their lives to God.