It All Belongs to God

Can you think of one thing in the universe, one thing on earth, one thing in your home, among your possessions, one thing in your life that truly belongs exclusively to you – and not to God? Is there anything you and I have that,  should God ask us for it, we might legitimately say,  “Sorry, Lord, but that’s mine. You’ll have to get your own.”

What God Owns

A Christian cannot really say, “It is my time and my money to use how I wish.” A Christian must say, “It is God’s time and God’s money, entrusted to me to be used for myself and for others. The word we use to describe this truth is “stewardship.” Everything we have has been entrusted to us as stewards to be used for God’s purposes. Now I know that many of us here in this parish understand the truth of stewardship. It would be impossible for St. Noel to function as a believing community without the time, the talent and the money that is given by so many. On a weekly basis I see how many people donate their time and talent so that prisoners in the jail can be visited, so that the homebound can receive communion, so that we may grow as a parish in religious formation through the GIFT program, so that we may have a greater awareness of peace and justice. None of this could happen without a deep sense of stewardship.

Render to Caesar and to God what is God’s

We have a responsibility to be good citizens of our country. That means participating in protecting our country from those who would destroy it by joining the military and by supporting those in the military. We do not need another 9/11 to remind us that there are people in the world who are searching for ways to destroy us. What the members of the military do is protect our country even if this means sacrificing their lives for our country. We have a debt to all who serve or have served.

Let’s look at the juxtapositions in today’s Gospel, concentrating most of our attention on our duties to God as compared to our duties to “Caesar.”

1. The Plotting of the Peculiar Partners
2. The Praise that is actually a Perilous Provocation
3. The Protesting of their Pretext and Pretense

How should we Christians view our role in politics today? If the Lord walked among us today, what would He say? Well, the Lord did walk among us when Caesar was the ruler of the Roman Empire. And the very subject that occasioned this discussion then remains the same issue that continues to trouble many of us today – taxation. Caesar presided over a corrupt and unjust system of government that exacted oppressive taxes and resources from colonised nations, including the Jewish people. These taxations made daily life almost unbearable.  There was the income tax: one percent of one’s income was to be given to Rome, and then, the ground tax or property tax: one tenth of all grain and one fifth of all oil and wine were to be paid in kind or in coinage to Rome.  Finally, to further humiliate the colonised, there was the poll tax: a denarius or a day’s wage was to be paid to Rome by all men ages 14-65 and all women ages 12-65, to remind of them of their subjugated status. The method of taxation alone had the extra twist of usurping money through the agency of the Jews’ own people, who were allowed to tack on additional amounts that were over and above that due to Caesar.

Clergy E-Notes

“…if the family is the sanctuary of life, the place where life is conceived and cared for, it is a horrendous contradiction when it becomes a place where life is rejected and destroyed. So great is the value of a human life, and so inalienable the right to life of an innocent child growing in the mother’s womb, that no alleged right to one’s own body can justify a decision to terminate that life, which is an end in itself and which can never be considered the “property” of another human being.”

— Pope Francis

Give to God What Belongs to God

We should not assume an attitude of open rebellion by refusing to vote. To help us sort out what to do, the bishops of the United States issue — or re-issue —for every election cycle a faithful citizenship document to help us make a prudential judgment regarding how best to “Give to God what is God’s” in the difficult and confusing choices before us. This is not just a matter of opposing evil; it also requires that we work actively to do good. The document can be downloaded from the Internet (or a two page summary), but the seven key themes of Catholic social teaching which we must weigh seriously as we consider how to vote.

Return to God

Bottom line: With Jesus we can realize the purpose of our lives: Yes, be a good citizen, but most important, recognize the image of God within and return to God: “repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”

Today we see Pharisees send out their disciples – along with King Herod’s men. Why? To entrap Jesus. They start with some flattery: “Teacher…you are a truthful man…not concerned about anyone’s opinion…or status.”

Then they spring a gotcha question: “Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?” If Jesus says “yes” he discredits himself as a Roman sympathizer. On the other hand, if he says “no” Herod’s men will report him to the authorities.

Giving to Caesar and to God

The drama of the Gospel is being played out all around us today. We give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God. Some would like to drown out the voice of Jesus; there will always be those who oppose giving to God what belongs to God. But we have God’s image on us; we belong to God, and the only way to true happiness is to put God first. The closer we come to God, the more we become friends of God, and the more we want to give to God who gave everything to us in the first place. If we give only to Caesar and not to God, Caesar will not be there to welcome us to eternity. We give to God because we are giving back to God who first loved us and gave us everything we have, and because we look forward to all eternity with God.

To Caesar What is God’s

What are we asked today to give to the empire? Is it our faith and moral practice? Our hopes and dreams? Our consciences? Our labor? Our children? And if we offer such sacrifices upon the altar of Caesar, have we betrayed the goods that are most intimately ours and God’s?

The empire and those who vie for its throne offer us, in differing forms, an ideology of self-interest. One version promises us lower taxes and more prosperity, national security and power, enlightened egotism, and the narcissistic myth that since we have “earned” our possessions, the poor of our country and of the world can make no claim on us. 

Whose Image is on our Coins?

Jesus is asking us, whose image is on our coins? The irony of the Gospel is every human that has ever been conceived on this earth is made in the image and likeness of God, that’s Genesis chapter 1:26-27. When we look at any coin or any person we encounter, we see a glimpse of our Creator however imperfectly. Once we understand that everything belongs to God, we understand the deeper discipleship Jesus is calling us to.

And so, following this analogy, we are God’s currency. Think about that for a moment! We are God’s currency. We bear his image and likeness. In the marketplace of life, we are God’s investment in this creation. God has given us free will for we are made in his image and likeness. As God’s currency, in the time we have, we can invest ourselves properly into God’s creation as disciples of Jesus or we can invest ourselves poorly by the choices we make. Can we articulate the ways that our lives are a good investment in God’s creation right now? Can we be honest with ourselves and articulate the ways our lives are not producing treasure in heaven at the moment? My friends, we do not have all the time in the world on how we spend our lives, and so the Gospel’s sincerest recommendation this weekend: Invest well.