God and Ceasar

On the surface today’s Gospel is a rather a straightforward story of a trap. A trap set by the Pharisees to trick Jesus into a false move. Set him at odds with both civil and religious authorities. We hear how Jesus turns the trap around and uses it, as he often did, to describe the Kingdom of God and our relationship to it. The Kingdom of God is a transcendent reality that is not up there or out there. It is not somewhere else, but it lies hidden within the world. It is concealed, but active. It’s power uplifts the broken hearted and enlivens the wearied spirt, heals those sicken by a sickened world and sets the innocent free. The world (as it is) is ever before us, but the kingdom is only made known in glimpses and glances, in wonder and miracle, in metaphor and parable. Of course, God’s Kingdom is definitely revealed in Jesus’ words and actions. Jesus shows us how to live in the world. And he reminds us that it is not the world that will transform the kingdom, but that it is the Kingdom that will transform the world into the new heaven and earth. Responding to the Pharisees’ question concerning the paying the Roman tax. Jesus holds up the Roman coin they gave him and relies “Repay to Cesar what belongs to Cesar and to God what belongs to God” indicating that there is a proper relationship between civil and sacred. The Church is not above the world, for the Holy Spirit is not above the world. The Church exists because the world exists. The pilgrim Church on earth is a Church filled with people engaged in the world and each of the world’s vocations and occupations. The Church is not above the world, but guided by the a Spirit, it mediates the space between the demands of the world and the demands of the beatitudes. The Church is the sign of loving God and neighbor, where even Caesar is our neighbor. We are obliged to be good citizens and to participate in a society that abides by its foundational belief We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Preamble to the Declaration of Independence And as Christians we must broaden and deepen this participation in the command good with what Jesus describes as the only way to be truly human. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, Blessed are the meek, Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, the pure of heart, and the peacemakers, Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." There is a proper order to all this. We are citizens of the world (with all its responsibilities and obligations) but we are first and foremost God’s creatures (bound to with duties and service). This should compliment each other making all things blessed but, often they oppose and even fight one another. We are children of men and women born into a time and place but, we have been reborn, in Christ Jesus, as children of God. Inheritors (not of privilege, wealth and power) but of the Way, the Truth and the Life. Inheritors, not of death, but eternal salvation. The world and its systems are passing away. To quickly or not quick enough, it depends, I suppose. Princes and principalities come and go. Power and wealth are transitory, but God, always was and always will be God. And it is to God and his will for this world that we must look. All Civil society (let’s simply call it the world) is called to protect and serve individual freedom and to facilitate the fulfillment of the varied responsibilities for all citizens. Those that rule (let’s call them all Cesar) are obligated to respect and support fundamental rights of the human person and as the Church says “they must dispense justice humanely by respecting the rights of every one, especially the poor and disadvantaged.” We are obligated, as human persons bound by civil society, to help in this duty; discerning the common good and striving to achieve the well being of our neighbors in the spirit of truth, justice, solidarity and freedom. The Church says “ The love and service of ones society follows from the duty of gratitude and belongs to the order of charity.” The world gives preeminence to human being over things, the individual over the community, but the kingdom reminds us that we (as creatures ) have our origin and our destiny in God alone. With the world alone to guide us we are in danger of allowing systems of entitlement and exclusion to hold sway over our actions. We are in danger of settling for the way things are as opposed to crying out for the way things should be. We are in danger of having our political, economic and social lives exclusively reflect self centeredness, while we would be better served by having our decisions flow from faith and our ever deepening encounter with Jesus. We must strive to love as he did. For it is the only the power of love that can make things equal. And this is why we should use the beatitudes as the measure of good citizenship. Our good must be the the common good. We must discern the better good in every circumstance and to choose the better means of achieving it. Only then are we free. In freedom we must render up to Caesar what is his in support of economic progress, but in love knowing that people are not assets to be used. In rendering to God what is his (what isn’t his we might ask) we proclaim that every human life is sacred and that the dignity and flourishing of the human person is the foundation of a good and just society. Being guided by the world alone leads to an ever deepening divisions between rich (of every sort) and the poor (in every measure). And it denies that God alone determines every person’s right to life and to those things required for human flourishing. It is true we must render up to Cesar because we belong to a state and nation comprised of, racial, ethnic, economic, and ideological differences. But, by rendering up to God what is his we embrace and honor this complex reality by understanding that we are our brothers and sisters keepers and loving others is not restrictive and exclusive, but expansive, growing into global dimensions in our shrinking and endangered world. We render up to Cesar what is his to support ordered growth, fair economic structures and sustainable progress. But, rendering up to God what is his, we are active stewards of creation. Care for the earth and the diversity of all that dwells within is a requirement of our faith. We are (because God desires it) social beings designed to live in community. We are God’s creatures made in love to love him in return. To love him is to love others, as Jesus did. To love is to live fully alive and engaged the world that is here and now while our hearts and minds are focused on God and his Kingdom. This is our Christian reality, our challenge that has fundamental moral and ethical dimensions that cannot be ignored. But, do not be afraid, as long as we do not confuse Caesar with God we will be fine.