An answer requiring a decision 

Throughout most of the Old Testament’s history, the prophets interpreted the assault and colonization of Israel by foreign rulers as divine punishment for the people’s infidelity. In this Sunday’s first reading from Isaiah, however, we hear how a foreign ruler has become God’s instrument of salvation and restoration of the people in exile. The prophet designates Cyrus of Persia as an anointed one who, for Israel’s sake, has been chosen by God to deliver the people from their Babylonian exile and return them to their homeland.  

By contrast, in this Sunday’s Gospel reading, we hear of another ruler, the Roman Emperor Caesar, adopted son of Augustus, whom Romans considered to be divine. While Caesar Augustus was tolerant of the Jews, he did require them to pay Roman taxes. Among Jews, especially the Pharisees, paying Roman taxes provoked intense debates. The Roman coins which one might have used to satisfy this obligation depicted Emperor Tiberius Caesar and identified him as son of the divine Augustus Caesar. Many in Israel were concerned that the use of such coins constituted a sin against Israel’s God, who demanded never to have an image and whose worship excluded all other gods. 

Over the past few Sundays, we have continued to hear how some religious officials, threatened by Jesus and the authority with which he teaches, have tried, without success, to undermine his credibility. Once again in today’s Gospel, Matthew relates how “The Pharisees went off and planned how they might entrap Jesus in speech” (Mt 22:15). Having hatched a plot, they sent some from their own group and some Herodians to question Jesus. Pharisees were concerned with strict observance of their tradition and law, which made paying Roman taxes religiously objectionable. By contrast, Herodians were Jews who had adopted elements of Greek culture and were amenable to Roman society. They were interested in observing the status quo, including paying Roman taxes.

Though intending malice, these authorities began by heaping flattery upon Jesus, highlighting his truthfulness and his lack of concern for the opinion or status of others when it came to being faithful to the ways of God. Their insincere praise becomes the setup for the question intended to disqualify Jesus’ credibility. They ask him, “Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?” (Mt 22:17). Aware of their deception, Jesus reveals that he knows what they are up to. He does not walk away, however, or decide they do not deserve an answer. Jesus had not come to only the righteous but especially to the unrighteous, to sinners. Thus, he does not dismiss them but, instead, offers a response despite their evil intent. Having examined the Roman coin they had handed him, Jesus asks them whose image it bears. They reply, “Caesar’s.” Jesus then answers their question, “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God” (Mt 22:21). 

In this interchange, Jesus gives them an answer but not necessarily one they had hoped for and, perhaps, not what we had expected. Instead, Jesus’s answer puts the decision back upon them and upon us. Jesus’s response respects our freedom even as it puts the onus upon us to choose. What exactly belongs to the “Caesars” in our lives, and what exactly belongs to God?  What we decide has huge implications for how we live. 

On one level, this is not a hard question to answer. Everything belongs to God and, thus, we are obliged to no one else but our God. In the divine economy, dollars, stocks and bitcoin are not the currencies that count. Yet, we often persuade ourselves that there are two realms in which we have to live and make decisions: the sacred and the secular, or what some refer to as the sacred and the profane. The secular/profane is the realm of Caesar, which covers all our daily efforts, human relationships, day-in-day out commitments, and mundane concerns. By contrast, matters like Sunday worship, spiritual practices, and individual prayer are often relegated to the domain of the sacred. 

Yet, if everything really belongs to God, such a separation is merely our own construction, one that obscures for us all the Christ-like possibilities of living lives that are governed by and belong exclusively to God. Teilhard de Chardin, the great Jesuit scientist/theologian, once wrote “by virtue of Creation and still more, of Incarnation, nothing here below is profane (secular) for those who know how to see.” Cultivating that vision, where we start to see the close link between all the decisions and actions of our lives as participation in the work of God’s creation, changes our perspective. Everything we do can be prayer, and all the ways we interact with each other can be forms of union and communion, in which the incarnate Christ is made present again. 

Perhaps this is the synergy that Paul refers to as “your work of faith and labor of love… “(1 Thes 1:3). Whether laboring on construction project, or doing research in a lab, serving as an engineer on public transportation or teaching in a classroom, all that we do can be a contribution to the on-going buildup of the Kingdom, our participation in what belongs to God. Thus, if on some occasions in our lives, we start to be worried that the concerns of Caesar seem to collide with the concerns of God, we need only recall who is Lord of all and remind ourselves that from the beginning of time, all belongs to God.