29^th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A); October 22, 2023

Is 45:1,4-6.  Ps 96.  1 Thes 1:1-5b.  Mt 22:15-21

Deacon Jim McFadden

       We’ve just heard one of the famous passages of the entire Gospel: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s , and to God the things that are God’s”

 (Mt 22:21).  It’s teasingly straightforward, so straightforward that it can’t be made simpler, and yet its meaning is not so obvious.

            Take the expression that applies to most of us: American Catholics.  What is the adjective and what is the noun?  It’s important that we get it right because one interpretation reflects our right relationship with God.  A false interpretation lands us in idolatry.  So, the hinge turns on what is our ultimate reality.  In Catholicism, as in our Judaic roots, God is the ultimate reality, the absolute foundation of everything that is, and the end toward which all things point.  That means that there is only one God and America, as much as love our country, is not; therefore, America is not due our absolute allegiance, but only our relative commitment.  ‘Relative’ to what?  Relative to God’s purposes.

            Saint Pope John Paul II, in his 1995 apostolic journey to the United States, offered the following advice regarding our American allegiance.  He said, “Democracy serves what is true and right when it safeguards the dignity of every human person, when it respects inviolable and inalienable rights, when it makes the common good the end and criterion regulating all public and social life. … America: may you trust always in God and in none other.” 

            With this backdrop, let us now look at the Gospel passage about the legitimacy of the tribute paid to Caesar which contains Jesus’ famous one-liner.  Jesus was being goaded by the Pharisees, who wanted to give him a religious exam of sorts in order to trip him up, to trap him.  What is the trap?  Would Jesus align himself with the foreign occupiers by accepting payment of taxes to Rome, and so offend the Jewish religious sensibilities or would he reject payment of taxes to Rome, which would be deemed seditious and potentially treasonous to the Roman occupiers.

            In the past Jesus was very comfortable in avoiding questions designed to trap him, but in this case, regarding the source of authority he felt compelled to address the relationship between God and emperor, or Church and state.  This was a relevant and urgent questions as it is today.

            So, Jesus asked the questioners, therefore, “to show me the coin used for the tax” and they showed him a denarius (v. 19).  Observing the coin, Jesus asks: “Whose image is this and whose inscription?” (v. 20).  The image was most likely of Tiberius, who styled his coins to as “Tiberius Caesar son of the divine Augustus,” thereby attributing divinity both to his father and himself.  When the Pharisees identify the coin as Caesar’s, Jesus says, “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God” (v. 21b).  On one hand, suggesting that they return to the emperor what belongs to him, Jesus declares that paying tax is not an act of idolatry because taxes are needed to run the country.  But, on the other hand—and it is here that Jesus gets to the heart of his response—Jesus recalls the primacy of God; so, he asks them to render to Him that which is His due as the Lord of life and history of mankind. 

            The reference to Caesars’s image engraved on the coin says that it is right that they feel fully—with rights and duties—citizens of the State.  Today, we should feel proud of being citizens of the United States of America and readily embrace our civic responsibilities.  But, symbolically, Jesus makes them think about the other image that is imprinted on every man and woman: the image of God.  He is the Lord of all, not Caesar, and we, who were created in his image belong to him first and foremost. That is why God is due our absolute allegiance and not the State.

            An anonymous writer of the Early Church put this beautifully: “The image of God is not impressed on gold, but on the human race.  Caesar’s coin is gold, God’s coin is humanity…Therefore give your riches to Caesar but keep for God the unique innocence of our conscience, where God is contemplated…Caesar, in fact, asked that his image be on every coin, but God chose man, whom he created to reflect his glory” (Anonymous, Incomplete Work on Matthew, Homily 42).

            Jesus is drawing a more radical and vital question for each one of us: to whom do we belong?  Yes, we do have duties and responsibilities to our friends, our family, our work, and our country.  But, first and foremost, we belong to God!  It is He who has given you all that you are and have.  And, therefore, day by day, we can and must live our life in recognition of this fundamental belonging and heartfelt gratitude towards our heavenly Father, who  lovingly creates each one of us individually, uniquely, unrepeatable, but always in accordance to the image of his beloved Son, Jesus. 

            So, People of God, who’s image is on your face?  Caesar or God’s?  If it’s God, then give God his due: namely give him everything you are and everything you have.  In so doing, embrace the mission of the Church, which is exactly the same as Christ’s: to speak of God to all nations, to remember that he alone is due our allegiance because he, not Caesar, is our absolute sovereign and to remind us all of the right of God what belongs to him:     OUR VERY LIFE!  May the Blessed Virgin Mary help us to always live in conformity with the image of God that we bear within us, inside, also offering our contribution to the building of our earthly city, which for us, is the United States of America.  Amen.