The human heart is stamped with the image of God.

 

TWENTY NINTH SUNDAY IN OT A 2020

In today’s Gospel, the Pharisees went off and plotted how they might entrap Jesus in speech.  Their strategy was to get Jesus to talk about taxes.  That usually is a no-win situation. Taxes are a timeless human issue.  So, they said to Jesus: “Tell us, then, what is your opinion: Is it lawful to pay tax to Caesar or not?”

In replying to those who were trying to trap him, Jesus said: “Show me the coin that pays the census tax.”   Looking at the coin, Jesus then asks: “whose image is this and whose inscription?’  They replied, “Caesar’s.”  It is lawful to give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar.  By answering, “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar.” Jesus narrows his response to the need to pay the census tax.  The payment of taxes helps fulfills the government’s responsibility to provide for the common good.  We need to be the servants not only of our personal interests but also of the societal needs.

The point of the story is to see how Jesus responds to this attempt to entrap him.  Jesus turned the question about taxes into a much more important question:  How are we to relate to God?

The second half of Jesus response: “Give to God what belongs to God.”  This is comprehensive statement and includes all areas of life.  There is one crucial question for us to reflect upon that is not asked in the Gospel conversation.  If Caesar’s image is on the coin, where do we find God’s image?  For we are to give to God that which bears the image of God.

As of last Wednesday, I just completed my annual eight day silent, directed retreat at a Jesuit retreat house in Gloucester, MA. I prayed using the words and the prayer of St. Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits:  “Take, Lord, and receive my liberty, my memory, my understanding, my entire will – all that I have and all that I call my own.”

The prayer of St. Ignatius is the prayer that Jesus is asking of us in today’s Gospel.  Give to God what belongs to God.  Jesus is asking of us – where do we belong?

On the one hand, belonging can sound like we are being controlled, or our money belongs to us and we can do what we like with it.  But for Jesus, it’s the belonging of love, not of power and control.

The truth of our lives is much is not in our control. We are born and die in God’s time. This reminds us that we are not the masters of our lives, we come from God and go to God. This belonging is the center of our human family and community. God doesn’t want to control us but to love us.

But there’s an addition: belonging to God means belonging to each other. This means we have rights and duties of love: To give to oth­ers what belongs to others; give to the poor what belongs to the poor. To give to God what belongs to God is to share the goods of the earth!

Following the wisdom of St. Ignatius, the grace that I sought in my retreat is to have the spiritual sightedness to find God in all things.  We will find God’s image imprinted on all of creation, on each human being and each human work.  We are made in the image and likeness of God.

It is people, ourselves, who are in the image and likeness of God.  We belong to God.  When God is truly the center of our lives, there is no problem with giving others their due. 

When we forget that we are made in God’s image, we can easily attach ourselves to the Caesars of our lives – the stock market, your career, or your favorite political party. We may want to grasp Caesar’s false coins as our security and our destiny.  But we need to ask ourselves, can anything but God be our security and our destiny?  The old adage holds true that nobody laments on their deathbeds that they didn’t make more money or spend more time at work.  Submitting only to Caesar and the pursuit of wealth will not satisfy us. 

Ultimately, we belong to God and the service and love of God’s people is the source of meaning and happiness in our lives.   Moreover, all of God’s creation bears the image of God.   Our care for our environment, our stewardship of the earth is giving back to God what belongs to God.

Even though none of us enjoy paying taxes, in the big picture, giving to Caesar what is Caesar’s is not the demanding component of today’s Gospel.   Where we are challenged is:  Giving to God what is God’s.

God does not want taxes. He does not need your vote and He does not need you to take up arms in His defense.  But God does deserve your heart and conscience. These should never be given to a human institution or even to a human relationship. Your greatest love, your greatest loyalty belongs to God.

The Roman coin was stamped with the image of Caesar.  The human heart is stamped with the image of God. We are made in His image and likeness.  Perhaps, the question is, “Shall we, can we, and do we give to God what is God’s?”

An old Indian was sharing his wisdom with this grandson.  He told the grandson that we have two wolves inside us who struggle with each other. One is the wolf of peace, love and kindness. The other is the wolf of fear, greed and hatred. “Which wolf will win, grandfather?”, asked the grandson. The wise old Indian said, “Whichever one you feed and whichever one you encourage.”

Yes, we all have within us the demons, the wolves of greed, control, and self-centeredness.   We all get stuck on ourselves and what we want at times. We can act as if everything belongs to ourselves.  Yes, we can feed that side of our selves with our greed and our need to be the center of the universe.

It is when we realize that we and all creation belong to God, that we are made in his image and likeness, that we are made to love and serve others, that we are to give thanks to the Lord our God, then we feed and encourage the wolf of love, the better angels within us.

This weekend, we are asking your support of the Catholic Ministries Appeal.  In supporting the CMA, we are feeding and encouraging a spirit of generosity within us.

The CMA supports the ministries of our diocese – some of them directly benefit our parish, and some of these ministries directly benefit people in the diocese who have considerably less resources than ourselves.  In both cases and in all cases, we are called to a Gospel spirit of stewardship in which we share what we have with others.  All who are served by the CMA are made in the image and likeness of God.

When we give generously from our giftedness to help and serve, we indeed are giving to God what belongs to God.  We are the stewards of the abundance of God’s love what we share generously what we have been given. 

Lord may your will that we share well the goods of the world be done.

Have a Blessed Day.