Today’s gospel reading centers around a coin, a single denarius, which had the image of “the Caesar” on it. Some of these coins still exist in the world, and much like our coins today, the profile picture of the person also had an inscription which read “Caesar Augustus Tiberius, son of the Divine Augustus.”
We just heard the parable of the Royal Wedding Feast, and I hope you can see here that as with Jesus's other parables, this is one of those stories that is rooted in common experiences that even today people will be familiar with - like being invited to a wedding and to the reception.
These readings remind me of a conversation I was having with a woman recently about something that she was doing. She asked me if something she was doing was wrong in the eyes of God and I confirmed that it was, and her response was, “well, if it is so wrong, why hasn’t God just killed me for it?”