Sunday Sermon: Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s

The liturgy of the twenty-ninth Sunday is based on the following readings: Isaiah 45:1, 4-6; Psalm 96; 1 Thessalonians 1:1-5b; Matthew 22:15-21. The main theme of our liturgy points the fact that the divine power is above and beyond all temporal power. The ‘Second’ Isaiah clarifies this fact by showing how Yahweh used the Persian king Cyrus is to carry out Yahweh’s plan in releasing the chosen Israelites from the grip of the Babylonian empire. In this episode, the prophet shows us Yahweh’s unrivalled power working through an earthly king’s achievements. The lesson learnt here is that the temporal power serving for the common interest of the people is an instrument at the service of God’s purpose. The Psalmist teaches us a lesson in psalm 96, on how the Israelite community recognized the signs which showed them God’s presence in their midst, and this strengthened their faith in the divine supremacy in comparison to “all the gods of the nations are things of naught”. (Is. 96:5) In the Gospel, Jesus seeing through the political trap of the Pharisees and the Herodians, the opposition group determined to plot against him, he deliberately draws an ambiguous distinction between the civic duty to Caesar and the religious duty to God. “ Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” His objective was to let the two discover that their malice had been detected and to make them draw their own conclusion on what is of mere temporal concern and what pertains to the absolute duty to God. In the second reading, St. Paul, in his letter to the Thessalonians, recognizes that the Gospel they have received is not due only to the human preaching of different apostles, but these were doing all they did ‘in power and in the Holy Spirit.’ (1 Thes. 1:5) Here St. Paul again stresses the effect of God’s power through human instruments. The doctrinal message in our liturgy shows us how the power of God, his supremacy cannot be compared to the temporal power. But since it is God who grants the latter, there is a kind of complementarily which the temporal power must recognize as it gives the due respect and praise to God. A community like ours which has had its share on the negative part of its history, has a lesson to learn from one of the remarkable dispositions of the Israelites of the Old Testament, as far as their consciousness of the real and effective power of God in daily life and in the dramatic, political history of their nation. In spite of all this, they remained aware, as they suffered the consequences of the rise and fall of the neighbouring empires that beyond this temporal scene, the power and purpose of God is stronger than such shifting events in their life. They also had the courage to relate their own national misfortunes to their own failure to respond to God’s love. This advances the wide spectrum of views on the association of temporal power to God’s purposes. In our modern time such views have enabled us to hold a presumption in favour of respect for all legitimately constituted authority that they come from God, especially when they serve the true good of all people. We know too well also that social life requires human authority to function. Human logic has it that when that exercise of authority serves the integral development of each person, then it fulfils God’s purposes. Consequently any serious injustice or abuse on the part of such authority deprives it of its legitimacy. And Christians have a moral duty to oppose it as an intrusion by Caesar on God’s created truth! From a pastoral point of view, Christians all over the world do understand that Jesus was against such issues with an embedded individualism, the exaggerated obsession with image and appeal, the bargaining of fundamental truths, the power of money, and all those elements which renders the temporal power self-serving and corrupt. On the other hand, those who suffer the dangers mentioned above, may develop a dangerous belief of a God who has disappeared from their part of the world, leaving the region on an automatic switch to carry on by itself. The danger of such a belief is that it introduces a people in a kind of passivity toward what is of common interest and necessity, hence reducing them to nothing more that lamentations and self pity. In order to avoid such a miserable human situation Jesus continues to tell the world: “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” Ends