For God or Caesar?

Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Just as our Lord was subjected to numerous interrogations by His detractors, many of us had witnessed a similar interrogation of Amy Coney Barret, the newest candidate for the position of Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. She was primarily drilled on the role and influence of her Catholic faith in her jurisprudence. One of her interrogators had earlier made this assertion, “the dogma lives loudly within you, and that’s of concern.” What was being called into question was her ultimate allegiance – would she choose God over Caesar? Would her allegiance to the state be compromised by her faith in God?

Let’s look at our Lord’s answer in today’s gospel. The enemies of our Lord, before asking Him His opinion, begin their questioning with a piece of false flattery, “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, because a man’s rank means nothing to you.” Instead of acknowledging His moral and doctrinal authority, the Pharisees were actually challenging it. The Pharisees believed that they, alone, were the authoritative interpreters of Jewish law. By appealing to Jesus' authority to interpret God's law, the questioners hoped to force Jesus into a corner by answering the question. If He taught that it was not lawful under Jewish Law to pay taxes to Caesar, He would be committing treason. If He agreed that it was lawful to pay such taxes, He would lose credibility with the Jewish people who hated the Romans and their taxes, a humiliating sign of their subjugation. It was a Catch 22 meant to trap our Lord: either answer would have condemned Him.

Our Lord immediately recognises the trap. Instead of jumping into the political discussion, our Lord raises it to a theological one. He curiously requests to see the coin. We need to remember that it is not necessary for our Lord to possess the coin to answer their question. He could certainly respond without seeing the coin. The denarius, minted with the image of the emperor, was truly the emperor’s currency and property. It was also a major instrument of imperial propaganda. The inscription proclaimed that the emperor is the “Worshipful Son of the God, Augustus”. It imposes the cult of emperor worship and his sovereignty upon all who transact with it. Either consciously or inadvertently, they were acknowledging that he is the son of God.

The questioners' quickness to produce the coin at our Lord’s request exposes their hypocrisy. The coin being in their possession implies that they routinely used it, whereas Jesus did not. Moreover, this episode takes place in the Temple, and by producing the coin, the questioners reveal their religious hypocrisy – they bring a profane and idolatrous item, a pagan currency, with a graven image, into the sacred precinct of the Temple.

After seeing the coin, Jesus then poses a two-part counter-question, “Whose head is this? Whose name?" This harkens to two central provisions in the Torah. The first commandment (or the second) prohibits worship of anyone or anything but God, and it also forbids crafting any image of a false god for adoration, God demands the exclusive allegiance of His people. Second, our Lord is alluding to the Shema. The Shema is the most important prayer a pious Jew can say. It commences with the words, “Hear (Shema), O Israel, the Lord is our God — the Lord alone.” This opening line stresses Israel's worship of God to the exclusion of all other gods. The Prophet Isaiah in the first reading reiterates this declaration of faith, “I am the Lord, unrivalled; there is no other God besides me.” The head or image of Caesar on the coin clearly violated all these provisions.

Having understood the scriptural background of this passage, we can see how this is a most richly ironic passage. In this deeply ironic scene, we have the Son of God and the High Priest of Peace, newly-proclaimed by His people to be a King, holding the tiny silver coin of a king who claims to be the son of a god and the high priest of Roman peace. The whole question raised by the Pharisees of whether one should pay taxes to the state dissolves into triviality in the face of the One who stands before them. Caesar, the pretender king and son of God, can never hope to hold up a torch to the true King and Only Begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour.

Finally, our Lord tells His interrogators, “Give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar – and to God what belongs to God.” This cryptic response begs the question: What belongs to God and what belongs to Caesar? In the Hebrew tradition, everything rightfully belonged to God, even mankind, since we were made in the image and likeness of God. Our Lord is reminding His interrogators that we owe God exclusive allegiance and total love and worship. The problem is that the emperor also made similar claims, as does the modern state. But Caesar is not God. It is true that we owe civil authority our respect and obedience but that obedience is limited by what belongs to God. It must never be forgotten that all things belong to God, even Caesar’s.

Several principles can be drawn from this last axiom of our Lord:

First, all political leaders draw their authority from God.  We owe no leader any submission or cooperation in the pursuit of grave evil.  In fact, we have the duty to change bad laws and resist grave evil in our public life, through non-violent actions, such as exercising our right to vote.

Second, in democracies, we elect public servants, not messiahs. We have been having a slew of poor to horrendously corrupt leaders. If the current claims of a certain politician are true, we may be witnessing another historic moment in an already politically historic year – three Prime Ministers in the course of a single year. Although we must demand the highest standards from our elected (and sometimes unelected) leaders, let’s stop treating our politicians as messiahs.

Thirdly, as words and platitudes are useless if not translated into action, it doesn’t matter what we claim to believe in, if we’re unwilling to act on our beliefs. Our faith is not just one confined to the temple as if God is just confined to the Temple. Our faith permeates every aspect of our lives because all things belong to God and we should give back to God what belongs to Him.

As Archbishop Chaput taught, “We serve Caesar best by serving God first. We honour our nation best by living our Catholic faith honestly and vigorously, and bringing it without apology into the public square.  We’re citizens of heaven first.  But just as God so loved the world that he sent his only Son, so the glory and irony of the Christian life is this:  The more faithfully we love God, the more truly we serve the world.” To the question, “Will our faith in God compromise our duties to the state?”, our answer is an unequivocal “No!” By being better citizens of the Kingdom of God, Christians do not become poorer but better citizens of the kingdoms of this world.