Homily Notes 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time
29th Sunday of Ordinary Time. “In Whom Do We Trust?”
Jesus’ debate with the Jewish leaders has with the Jewish leaders in the Gospel today seems like it is an argument that relates to a certain time and place. After all we do not live in the Roman Empire so what does this have to do with us? We also don’t pay their taxes. But issues of how Christians relate to government system is a debate that has taken place continuously in Christian History.
If we pick up any American coin, we will see that there is a saying minted on to the face of it. The words that we find there are, “In God we trust.” We may think that the words have always been there, but that is not the case.
The motto first appeared on our currency, at the time of the Civil War. Somehow it seemed like the government was saying in a very subtle way that God was on the side of the Union. Certainly, this was a difficult time. People wanted to draw close to the Lord as thousands of soldiers died in battle. The nation was in danger of collapse.
A hundred years later, at the time of the cold war, the words, “In God we trust” came up again. The Soviet Union professed atheism. The people of the United states were appalled at that, so the congress made “In God we Trust” the national motto. We also proclaim in our Pledge of Allegiance that we are one nation under God.
The debate about whether it is wise to have these sentiments so clearly stated on our money and in our civil ceremonies gets heated at times. Of course, this revolves the belief in our country that there should be separation of church and state. The founders of our nation did not want to have an official religion for our nation. The point of bringing all this up is to show that the relationship between religion and the state has always been a controversial topic.
If we have a sense of the difficulty of this subject, we have a sense of what Jesus was dealing with. The Jewish religion felt all pictures that depicted religious sentiment were wrong. But they were forced to use Roman coins in their commerce. On one side of the coins was a picture of Tiberius Caesar. On the other side of the coins was a picture of the Goddess Roma. But it went further than that. Tiberius was not only pictured but he was called the “Son of God” for his father Augustus Caesar was considered divine.
The Jews felt that they were carrying around graven images in their pockets. The question they asked was whether it was all right to cooperate with a pagan government or not. The Jewish authorities come to Jesus looking for an answer. Jesus answers a controversial question with a statement that can be interpreted in any number of ways. “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. Render unto God what is God’s.
What is Jesus saying? He seems to be saying that there is no clear-cut answer to the question asked. We cannot walk in lock step with the governments because sometimes governments are wrong. We also must cooperate with governments when they are fulfilling a legitimate function. We must constantly be informing our conscience about what is going on in government. We must do that in order that we do not support immoral policies.
When we think of our own history who can forget that slavery was legal in our country the first hundred years of its existence. Abolitionists fought against slavery because of their religious convictions. The people who stood up to the grave injustice of slavery were often ridiculed, jailed, even called traitors, but they would not cooperate with what they perceived as evil. As we all know, a war was fought over the slavery issue. The lesson in all this is that sometimes Christians must be the moral voice that brings about needed change in civil society.
But that is not to say that all civil law is unjust. We have the obligation to pay just taxes for instance. If we use the roads we should pay our share of taxes to have the fixed. We should support schools so that are young people can be educated. We need fire protection. We need police protection. We might not only be asked to pay for it we might also be asked to volunteer when need to keep order and fight fires.
Jesus is saying by his words, that many times there are no crystal-clear answers when we asked to cooperate with governments. We do not say my country right or wrong nor do we refuse to help our government when it has a just need. What is of Caesar? What is of God? What is right? What is wrong? We are never to cooperate with evil. We are always to support the common good. Most of all we are always trying to follow the highest law, to love God and our neighbor.