Give to God what belongs to God

Twenty Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

When you are a Catholic priest, most people often think that you are a walking encyclopaedia, which is a myth. It is just that we have learnt how to “wing it.” Once in a while, I’m presented with a gotcha question, a sort of Catch 22 situation, that is intended to be a trap. The price of pretending to be Mr Know-It-All. Here’s the dilemma - you will get into trouble if you give the right but unpopular answer, but you would also most likely be caught for being insincere if you give the polite answer, albeit the wrong one. It always seems to be an arbitrary choice between speaking the truth and lose friends or tell a lie, to escape trouble, although you may risk being found out eventually.

In today’s gospel, an alliance of Pharisees and Herodians, who were traditional enemies, ganged up to set a trap for the Lord. Notice how they attempt to butter up the Lord with flattery and insincere praise before springing the trap: “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. Tell us your opinion, then.” Despite their insincerity, their description of the Lord is accurate and valid. Our Lord Jesus is not only “an honest man” or a teacher who teaches “the way of God in an honest way,” He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. For us mortals, honesty is a virtue. For Christ, Truth is His very nature.

After stating that our Lord is an honest man of God who does not pander to the crowds, they introduce their Catch 22 scenario, “Master … Is it permissible to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” What is this tax due to Caesar? To a 21st century reader who often complains about being subjected to a myriad of taxes, from income tax to service taxes, the people who lived during our Lord’s time would have also laboured under various taxes. There was the temple tax which amounted to half a shekel levied upon every Jew, 20 years and above. 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 them of their subjugated status. The tax referred here as being due to Caesar would most likely belong to the last category of taxes - the poll tax.

A rejection by Jesus of the poll tax would have been reported as treason to Rome. On the other hand, if Jesus had agreed to pay it, the Pharisees would have accused Him of betraying His own people, since it would be acquiescing their continued subjugation under Roman rule. Furthermore, anyone dealing with the coin could also be accused of blasphemy and idolatry because the coin displayed an image of Caesar who is a self-proclaimed god. Discerning a plot of entrapment, our Lord cuts through the hypocrisy and political differences to the very heart of the matter, “Give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.”

This saying does three crucial things. First, it acknowledges that Caesar, denoting any public authority, does have rights; that a difference does exist between the concerns of God and the concerns of Caesar. But second, our Lord desacralises – in effect, He demotes – Caesar by suggesting that Caesar has no rights over those things that belong to God. Caesar is not god. Our politicians and government are not gods. Only God is God. And thirdly, the Lord remains silent about what exactly belongs to either God or Caesar. Figuring all that out belongs to us. Now, this can be hard work because no detailed map exists because while human nature doesn’t change, human circumstances change all the time.

This saying provides us with a framework for how we should think about religion and the state even today. The Lord reminds us that Caesar does have rights. Scripture tells us that we owe secular leaders our respect and prayers; respect for the law; obedience to proper authority; and service to the common good. But it’s a rather modest list of duties. And we need to remember that “respect” for Caesar does not mean subservience, or silence, or inaction, or excuse-making or acquiescence to grave evil. Sometimes, Christians suffer from a phony unwillingness to offend civil authority that poses as prudence and good manners, but in truth, this is only a guise for cowardice. It is true that human beings owe each other respect and appropriate courtesy, but we also owe each other the truth!

In fact, the more we reflect on today’s passage, the more we realise that everything important about human life belongs not to Caesar but to God: our intellect, our talents, our free will, the people we love, Truth, the beauty and goodness in the world, our soul, our moral integrity and of course, our hope for Eternal Life. These are the things worth struggling to ennoble and defend, and none of them came from Caesar or anyone or any government who succeeded him. We owe civil authority our respect and appropriate obedience. However, that obedience is limited by what belongs to God. In reality, all belongs to God and nothing — at least nothing permanent and important — belongs to Caesar. Why? Because just as the coin bears the stamp of Caesar’s image, we bear the stamp of God’s image in baptism. We belong to God, and only to God.

All of us, Christians and non-Christians are called to be honest and persons of integrity, to speak truth even to those in power. But more than anything else, we Christians must proclaim the truth about Christ. Pope Benedict once gave this powerful exhortation to a group of pilgrims to Rome: "We cannot stoop to compromises with the love of Christ, his Word, the Truth. The Truth is the Truth and there is no compromise. Christian life requires, so to speak, the daily "martyrdom" of fidelity to the Gospel - that is the courage to let Christ grow in us and direct our thinking and our actions.” So, give to God what belongs to God … which is everything.