29th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Bishop of Lake Charles
Homily for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
"Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God." Matthew 22:21
Caesar's name appears only three times in the Gospels. The most notable time is on Good Friday. Pilate asks the crowds, "Shall I crucify your king?" And the chief priests answer, "We have no king but Caesar" (John 19:15). In a scene dripping with irony, the chief priests of the occupied are calling upon their allegiance to the king of the occupier to kill their spiritual king.
The second mention of Caesar comes in our Gospel today. In Jesus' day the Romans occupied Palestine. Some Jews saw the Romans as a power to cultivate. These Jews compromised their independence and accepted the Romans. They were called Herodians. On the other hand, the Pharisees, who were Jewish teachers, hated the Romans and considered the Herodians to be collaborators. The Gospel underlines the deceit of the moment by mentioning that both the Pharisees' disciples and the Herodians approach Jesus to ask, "Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?" (Matthew 22:17).
The tax would have been paid with a Roman coin called the denarius. This coin would have offended the Jews in many ways. It had an image of Tiberius Caesar on it, and its inscription proclaimed him to be a god. Jesus answers that they must look at the coin. As it is today, coins belong to the government that issues them. We use it by permission. In Roman times the portrait of Caesar was stamped on the coin to show that it belonged to him. You were using it by his good favor. So Jesus asks, "Whose image is this and whose inscription?" (Matthew 22:20). The answer is obvious. "Caesar's." So Jesus concludes the obvious. Then, "Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God" (Matthew 22:21).
Jesus is not arguing for the separation of church and state. He is instead shaming a deceitful questioner into embarrassed silence. How does He do it? By revealing Himself as the Lord of History. Caesar is no threat to Jesus because Jesus is the Lord of History.
The third mention of Caesar is at Jesus' birth. Caesar's name is a reminder that Jesus is not a myth or fairy tale. He comes in history. Luke reads, "In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus" (Luke 2:1). Jesus enters the world at the center of history, using Caesar as a context.
For the Christian history is not just a listing of facts and dates. For the Christian, Pope Benedict XVI says, "History, in fact, is not in the hands of the powers of darkness, chance or human decisions alone. When evil energy that we see is unleashed, when Satan vehemently bursts in, when a multitude of scourges and ills surface, the Lord, the supreme arbiter of historical events, arises. He leads history wisely towards the dawn of the new heaven and the new earth" (General Audience, 5/11/05). Many today are without hope because they have embraced the logic of the Pharisees and Herodians. And what is that logic? For the Pharisees the only hope was to overthrow the Romans. They couldn't accept Jesus the way He was. For the Pharisees, the Lord of History must be eliminated. Jesus must be removed from the picture. The Herodians couldn't accept Jesus either. If only Jesus would say what they wanted to hear, "Pay the tax", then this would bring peace at any cost. Jesus will have none of it. His truth transcends. This is why Jesus conquers.
On the eve of a national election, we need to be reminded that the attitude of the Pharisees and the Herodians still lives. There are some who would say that the teachings of Jesus must be silenced, that religion has its place but not in the public arena, that the expression of faith must be private. On the Herodian side of the coin, others would say, if only Christians would compromise, then they would be okay. Why don't they just flow along with the prevailing political wind? Neither approach was acceptable to Jesus, and neither approach should be acceptable to us who claim to be His followers.
Silence for the man or woman of faith is impossible because when one believes, one acts. There is no such thing as a private religion, certainly not in a country whose founding documents insure the free practice of religion. When faith informs the believer, the believer acts on what he or she believes. Compromise is not acceptable either, because truth does not admit it. When truth is not important in the public discourse, then only power is left to fill the vacuum.
We live in a dangerous world where Pharisees and Herodians still try to create a world without God. Power and compromise mean more to them than truth and goodness. Man has become the center of their universe. A very wise man once wrote that Man can create a society without God, but a society without God only becomes inhuman (Henri de Lubac).
I think that in the Gospel today Jesus is showing himself to be the Lord of History. What are the political compromises of the Herodians and the deceit of the Pharisees to the Lord of History? Jesus is the Lord of History, for He speaks the truth. Not the politicized message of the Caesars. Not the conceits of the Pharisees or the compromises of the Herodians. No more opinion mistaken for truth. No more truth with conditions attached. To repay to Caesar and to repay to God are not equivalent. In the words of Pope Benedict XVI on his recent visit to France, "If Roman coins bore Caesar in effigy and must be returned to him, the Creator's fingerprint, that of the one and only Lord of life, is in man's heart." While Caesar may be owed his coin, everything belongs to God.