October 16, 2014
The following is a homily based on the Scriptures for Sunday, Oct. 19.
The same question, in different circumstances, can mean very different things.
“How are you?” I could say this to someone I just met … or to a co-worker on Monday morning … or to a good friend I haven’t seen for a while … or to someone just finishing chemotherapy … or to someone who is dying. Same question. Very different meanings.
I can say, “I am a Yankee fan,” in the Bronx and get one reaction; I could say it in Boston and get an entirely different reaction. Circumstances matter.
“Should we pay the tax to Caesar?” Jesus is asked by people who are out to get him. We need to remember the circumstances of this question: Jesus has entered Jerusalem, the city he knows where he will die. He’s already had several arguments with his enemies, the religious leaders of his day. And he’s in a city occupied by foreigners, the Romans. How he answers could mean whether he lives or dies.
“Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar,” he replies. First he had them show him a coin. This was a coin that they used as a matter of course. If they are going to accuse Jesus of having dirty hands, their hands are already dirty. They had already developed many arrangements for working with the Romans. They didn’t care about the tax; they cared about their power.
Politics can always be complicated. Look how it works in the United States, how parties struggle with parties, each demanding loyalty and promising what they cannot deliver. Politics can only do so much in life. It can help in some ways, but it cannot change life itself. We have the image of Cyrus in the first reading, a political figure. Why is Isaiah praising him? Not because he is a king, but because he has become an instrument in God’s plan to free the Jewish people from captivity.
“Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, but to God what belongs to God.” Here Jesus is challenging his listeners. What are you giving to God? What are you willing to give to God? Jesus, after all, is willing to give his very life for the will and plan of his Father. Jesus knows his enemies have all surrounded him, but he will accept his destiny because to give God less than everything is unworthy of God.
Jesus escapes his trap, but his question still remains. Perhaps we are afraid to give God everything. Maybe God will ask what I don’t want him to ask. Maybe God will ask me to give up patterns of sin. Maybe God will ask me to serve others more than myself. We are afraid of Jesus’ question. But is it not the truth that once we have given God everything, then we receive everything too – everything in love, in peace, in hope, in life? God asks but God gives without limit.
This week can be a time for us to sort out our values, to ask ourselves where God ranks, to inquire whether we put our stock in money, in entertainment or in political power – but whether we don’t yet put our stock in God. Paul says his Gospel comes in action, with conviction, not just in words. That’s the risk of religion: we can stop with words, but not follow up with the actions of our lives.
Married people know that the vows they make change as their love deepens and as they face life’s circumstances. The vows mean more. The same is true with our relationship with God. It has to change, to deepen, to continue to transform us as we live, otherwise we haven’t really given our lives to God as Jesus invites us to.