Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
The peace of Christ be with you!
Church and State. God and Caesar. “Is it lawful to pay tax to the emperor or not?” Jesus is the focus of a hatred so great in today’s Gospel, that the Pharisees, nationalists, and Herodians, sympathizers with Rome, have put aside their mutual antipathy and joined in an effort to entrap him and arouse the people against him. They think they’ve found the perfect ruse. Get Jesus to oppose taxes and earn the anger of the Romans and their minions. Get him to support taxes and arouse the ire of the nationalists. The object: eliminate this troublemaker from their midst.
As he does so often in the Scriptures, our Lord leaves his opponents and attackers stunned by his responses. He masterfully recognizes their “bad faith”, while teaching, as only God can, the truth that they, as desperately as all mankind, need to hear. At first glance, one might think that Christ displays his wisdom only in throwing a plum to both sides in the national dispute. The Romans want their taxes, while the Jews want their religion and recognition of the kingship of God. Above and beyond this, our Lord speaks to them, and to men of every age, who become ensnared in competing loyalties and forget that kingship belongs to God omnipotent. Men rule at God’s good pleasure. “You would have no power…unless it had been given you from above.” (Jn 19:11) Jesus Christ is universal king; men are blessed to share in his authority.
We have in our own day an abundance of conflicts between Church and state. Is a matter political or religious? If it’s deemed political, many believe, the Church should have nothing to say. Attempts to muzzle God go back to the beginning of salvation history. The prophets were put to death for speaking God’s truth long before the Pharisees and Herodians tried to entrap and silence Christ.
The abortion issue, many say, is a political issue, and therefore a matter for Caesar alone. Men of God, it is said, should be silent. Human life , in fact, is a moral issue, and when the laws of men are immoral, attacking the laws of God and the sacredness of human life, than Godly men should shout from every rooftop, priests should preach from every pulpit, every believing man and woman should speak out and protest. “Render…to God the things that are God’s.” All human life is sacred, from the hands of the creator. “For thou didst form my inward parts, thou didst knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise thee, for thou art fearful and wonderful, wonderful are thy works!” (Psalm 139) When Caesar’s laws are an abomination before God, then it is Caesar who must change.
Whether opposing the culture of death or any tyranny of the political order, the Christian gives first allegiance to the laws of God. “The citizen is obliged in conscience not to follow the directives of civil authorities when they are contrary to the demands of the moral order, to the fundamental rights of persons or the teachings of the Gospel. Refusing obedience to civil authorities, when their demands are contrary to those of an upright conscience, finds its justification in the distinction between serving God and serving the political community. ‘Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ (Mt 22:21) ‘We must obey God rather than men.’ (Acts 5:29)
‘When citizens are under the oppression of a public authority which oversteps its competence, they should still not refuse to give or to do what is objectively demanded of them by the common good; but it is legitimate for them to defend their own rights and those of their fellow citizens against the abuse of this authority within the limits of the natural law and the Law of the Gospel.’ (Gaudium et spes, 74) (CCC 2242)
If a child was trapped under a car, an upright man would plow through any opposition to save the life of that child. Any infant lying helpless under the bloody scalpel of a doctor-turned-murderer deserves no less. Pray for those engaged in peaceful, prayerful and non-violent protest against abortion. Pray also for those who heroically risk imprisonment, beatings and torture to meet and counsel mothers and fathers on sidewalks everywhere to turn their hearts away from the temptation to murder their children.
THE POOR ARE GOD’S
Behind Jesus’ back, the Pharisees reach an agreement to prepare a decisive trap for him. They themselves won’t come to meet with him. They send some of their disciples, along with some party members of Herod Antipas. Perhaps some powerful Roman tax-collectors will be among them.
The trap is well thought out: “Is it permissible to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” If he answers negatively, they will be able to accuse him of rebellion against Rome. If he justifies the payment of tribute, he will end up discredited by those poor farmers who are oppressed by those taxes, and by those he loves and defends with his whole might.
Jesus’ answer has been summarized in a concise manner throughout the centuries in these terms: “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s”. Few of Jesus’ words have been cited as much as these. And none, perhaps, more distorted and manipulated by interests very far from those of the Prophet, the defender of the poor.
Jesus isn’t thinking of God and of Rome’s Caesar as two powers that can demand, one from another in their respective spheres, their rights to their subjects. Like any faithful Jew, Jesus knows that to God “belongs the earth and all that is contains, the world and all its inhabitants” (Ps. 24). What could be of Caesar that isn’t of God? Aren’t the subjects of the emperor, sons and daughters of God”
Jesus doesn’t bother about the different positions that the Herodians, the Sadducees or the Pharisees confronted in that society concerning the tributes to Rome and their significance: if they are carrying “the money of the tax” in their pockets, then they should fulfill those obligations. But he doesn’t live in service to the Roman Empire, but opens paths to God’s Reign and God’s justice.
That’s why he reminds them about something that no one has questioned him about: “Give to God what belongs to God”. That’s to say, give to no Caesar what is only of God: the life of God’s sons and daughters. As he has repeated over and over to his followers: the poor are God’s, the little ones are special to God, God’s Reign belongs to them. No one should abuse them.
We must not sacrifice people’s life, dignity or happiness to any power. And surely today no power sacrifices more lives and causes more suffering, hunger and destruction than that “tyranny of an economy without face and without truly human objective” that, according to Pope Francis, the powerful of the earth have succeeded in imposing. We can’t remain passive and indifferent, stifling the voice of our consciences in the practice of religion.
THEY BELONG TO GOD
“To Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.”
Few of Jesus’ words have been quoted as often as these. And none, perhaps, have been more misunderstood. Jesus’ life was totally dedicated to those poor and forgotten people that the Roman Emperor had left unprotected.
Today’s Gospel episode is critical. The Pharisees have stepped aside to plan an attack against Jesus. That is why they have decided to send some of their disciples; they chose to stay away and avoid facing Jesus in person. After all, Pharisees were supposed to be the state law keepers and would not like to be faced by Jesus who was openly questioning the unfair treatment that many people received in their society.
The Pharisees sent also some of Herod’s Antipas followers, along with a few landowners and tax collectors, who used to demand grain all over Galilee, to send their contributions to Caesar.
They started their meeting with Jesus with an unusual and insincere recognition of praise: “Master, we know that you are an honest man and teach the way of God in an honest way, and that you are not afraid of anyone.” Obviously, they are planning to trap him; but they have actually told the truth. Jesus, indeed, is totally dedicated to show “the Way of God” to build up a just society.
Jesus is not serving the Emperor of Rome; He is come to establish God’s kingdom. He has not come to spread the Roman Empire, but to bring about
God’s justice among God’s sons and daughters. So when they asked him, “Tell us your opinion, is it permissible to pay taxes to Caesar or not,” his reply was loud and clear, “Give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar – and to God what belongs to God.”
Jesus was not thinking of God and Caesar as two powers that can demand their rights from their subjects. As a faithful Jew, Jesus knew that to God “belongs the earth and everything that is in it, the universe and all its inhabitants”
( Psalm 24 ). What could the Emperor have that does not belong to God? Only his
unjustly obtained wealth!
If anyone is involved in Caesar’s plans, let him pay his due; but those who belong to God’s kingdom, and that includes all the poor, they are God’s children. No one can claim their allegiance. This is what Jesus has come to teach about the Way of God.
Jesus’ followers must resist that anyone, known or unknown to us, be
subjected to any political, economic, religious or ecclesiastical power. Every person who is thus persecuted, discriminated or humiliated belongs to God – and to no one else!