29th
Ordinary Sunday (Year A)
First
Reading: Isaiah 45:1, 4-6 Second
Reading: 1 Thessalonians 1:1-5b
Gospel Reading:
Matthew 22:15-21
“THEN REPAY
TO CAESAR WHAT BELONGS TO CAESAR AND TO GOD WHAT BELONGS TO GOD.”
Once
upon a time there was a very generous man who had helped everyone in
the parish in one way or another. He found jobs for some, he arranged
loans for others, he suggested counselors for those who had family
problems, he coached sixth grade football, he presided over the
Vincent de Paul society, he contributed to every ones' fund raising
drives, he went to every benefit golf tournament, he helped get
teenagers out of trouble, he wrote letters of recommendation for
colleges. He did all these things because he was a kind, generous
man. He expected nothing back. Then someone suggested to him that he
run for the presidency of the library board. He had studied library
science in college and was well qualified for the job. But at a
meeting of all the people he thought were his friends to rally
support, they demanded to know his stand on free trade with
China. He pleaded that he didn’t know that such a stand was
necessary to be president of the library board. They said he was a
weakling because he wouldn’t take a stand. He said he needed time
to study the issue. They said he should seek the office unless he had
studied the issue. They deserted the rally. No good deed goes
unpunished, he sighed. All of his old friends voted for the other
candidate. Yet their former friend won anyway.
In
today's Gospel passage, the Pharisees, in an effort to entrap Jesus
and arouse the people against him ask him a tricky question, which
demands one to take a stand - “Is
it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?” What
is our stand – in favor of God or against Him?
Today
is the 29th
Sunday in Ordinary time. This is also the 3rd
Sunday of October, and so, customarily we celebrate it as 'World
Mission Sunday.'
World Mission Sunday is a day set aside for the Catholic Church
throughout the world to publicly renew its commitment to the
missionary command of Jesus. It is celebrated on the
third Sunday of October every year. It was created by Pope Pius XI in
1926 as the day of prayer and propaganda of missions.
There is a loose
connection in today’s Scripture Readings between the absolute power
of the Lord and earthly, temporal
power, and affirm the evident supremacy of the Lord beyond all
temporal power and the necessary response of praise due to Him. The
First Reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, depicts the figure
of a great Persian ruler, Cyrus the Great, who defeated the
Babylonians and released the Jews from captivity, allowed them to
return to their homeland, and subsidized the rebuilding of the Holy
Temple and the city of Jerusalem. Indeed, his benevolent humane ways
and enlightened practices as an earthly ruler made him a docile
instrument of God’s saving plan.
The Gospel
Reading from St. Matthew draws a subtler distinction between temporal
power and God’s purposes and underlines Jesus' teaching - “Repay
to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”
This
is an invitation for us to embrace our total belonging to God. Just
as the image of Caesar stamped on a Roman coin indicates that the
coin belongs to Caesar, the image of God stamped on every
human being asserts that each one belongs to God. In the Second
Reading,
St. Paul, in his joyful 1st
Letter to the Thessalonians, gratefully recognizes that the Gospel
they have received is not due only to the human preaching of Paul,
Silvanus and Timothy, but also ‘in
power and in the Holy Spirit.’
St. Paul is conscious of the effect of God’s power through human
instruments.
KING
CYRUS THE GREAT, 'THE ANOINTED ONE' OF THE GOD OF ISRAEL:
The previous verses to
today's First Reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah prophesy
that there will be a return of the Jews to Jerusalem from exile in
Babylon and that the Temple will be reinstated. This
indeed did happen. Cyrus the Great, a king of Persia who
conquered the Babylonians,
released
the Jews from captivity, allowed them to return to their homeland,
and subsidized the rebuilding of the Holy Temple and the city of
Jerusalem. He even
returned the silver and gold taken from the old Temple.
In the rise
to power of Cyrus, pagan king of Persia, the Prophet Isaiah sees the
hand of God at work. The decision of Cyrus, after his conquest of
Babylon, to repatriate all of the subject peoples within its
boundaries was judged a miraculous proof that the God of Israel held
power over the entire earth. In today's passage, it is God who calls
Cyrus his “anointed
. . . whose right hand I grasp.”
It is remarkable and unusual to hear a pagan king referred to as
God’s 'anointed,'
a term used only of kings, prophets and priests in Israel. The
passage is a forceful statement of God's sovereignty over even the
most powerful of earthly rulers and, by implication, over their gods.
It
is important to see the context in which Isaiah sees Cyrus. Cyrus may
be the lordly providence over the humans in a vast empire, but
himself falls under the providence of God. God is working through
him, though he does not know the one who calls him. The inner dynamic
of God's presence through his Spirit is working silently away, and it
calls for recognition.
GRATITUDE
OF ST. PAUL:
In
the Second Reading of today from his 1st Letter to the
Thessalonians, which is the oldest book of the New Testament, we
could feel the holy pride of St. Paul bubbling with gratitude for the
wonderful response of the Thessalonians to the Gospel. He speaks of
the many gifts they have received from God viz. Faith, love and hope
and that he is so grateful to God for them. St.
Paul is conscious of the effect of God’s power through human
instruments. Both the way in which the gospel was
proclaimed by St. Paul and the way it was received by the
Thessalonians with joy in spite of persecution witnesses to the
working of the Spirit. St. Paul further encourages them to live
according these virtues as children of God, as we owe ourselves to
Him. It so often happens that people live as if they don't owe
anybody anything. As if they were self-made men and women.
“THEN
REPAY TO CAESAR WHAT BELONGS TO CAESAR AND TO GOD WHAT BELONGS TO
GOD.”
In past few Sundays we
saw Jesus attacking the Pharisees and the elders the people for their
failure to recognize in him the Word of God, the power of God, the
compassionate love of God. All they could see was a man who broke
their laws. Today, in the first of three challenges by different
leaders, they hit back. Their plan is to get Jesus to discredit
himself.
The first challenge, in
today's Gospel Reading from St. Matthew, comes from the Pharisees. We
see that surprisingly the two opposite groups viz. The Pharisees
(rabid nationalists and totally anti-Roman) and the Herodians
(sympathizers and collaborators with the Romans) have put aside their
mutual antipathy and have joined together in an effort to entrap
Jesus and arouse the people against him. It is a strange mixture
because they were bitterly opposed to each other.
Their
opening statement is clever and very flattering. They praise the
utter honesty and integrity of Jesus. All of which was perfectly
true. Jesus, in fact, is being praised as endowed with God's own
sense of truth and justice, totally impartial, with perhaps a bias
for the poor, the weak and powerless. And
it is precisely in this strength of Jesus
– telling it like it is without fear or favor – that they hope to
entrap him.
After this flattering
softening up and linguistic foreplay comes the apparently
straightforward but tricky question,
which demands one to take a stand - “Is
it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?”
Jesus is the focus of a hatred. They are insincere and their
objective is to eliminate this troublemaker from their midst. They
think they've found the perfect ruse. Get Jesus to oppose taxes and
earn the anger of the Romans and their minions. Get him to support
taxes and arouse the ire of the nationalists.
As
he does so often in the Scriptures, our Lord leaves his opponents and
attackers stunned by his responses. He immediately recognizes their
bad intention to entrap him. If he said taxes shouldn't be paid to
Caesar, then he'd be denounced to the Romans. If he said that the
taxes should be paid, then he would be denounced to the strict Jews.
So he asks them to show him the coin and then says, “Whose
image is this and whose inscription?” They
reply,
“Caesar's.”
Then he gives them his masterly answer, “Then
repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to
God.”
This is the stand which Jesus takes. At first glance, one might think
that he displays his wisdom only in throwing a plum to both sides in
the national dispute. The Romans want their taxes, while the Jews
want their religion and recognition of the kingship of God. Surely
Jesus deftly avoided their trap, but at the same time laid down a
rule of thumb that has served ever since.
As
a matter of fact, there is a deeper aspect to today's encounter -
Jesus says, “Then
repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to
God.”
Now, the coin used to pay the poll tax bore Caesar's image and name.
Therefore, in saying that we should give to God what is owed to God,
Jesus reminds us of the one whose image we bear. Now, we all are
created in the image of God - “God
created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created
him, male and female he created them.”
That is to say, it is God's image and it is His name, which is
inscribed in our hearts; and therefore, we all wholly belong to God
and we owe to Him everything. That's the bottom line. Everything we
possess, all that we are, the very gift of life has been given to us
by the God who made us in His own image and so we owe
God our thanks, our praise and our devotion.
CONCLUSION:
“Then
repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to
God.” What
does this imply? 'Caesar
or
God ?'
or 'Caesar
and
God?'
Actually, we all have a dual citizenship - we are citizens of our
country where we are born; we also have spiritual citizenship by
virtue of our new spiritual birth. So we have to play a dual role as
citizens of our earthly state and also as citizens of the heavenly
kingdom. There is no dilemma between state and God. A good Christian
is also to be a good good citizen. But it is always to be kept in our
mind that the Lord, our God should be the priority, who is the
Almighty and is above all earthly rulers, even the gentiles, as it is
said in the First Reading of today, from the Book of Prophet Isaiah -
Cyrus the Great, a Persian king, is called 'God's
anointed one'
though he did not know the God of Israel, and is made His instrument
in freeing the people of Israel from their Babylonian captors and
sending them back to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple and city.
In today's gospel, rather
than engage in a superficial dispute over separation of church and
state, Jesus reasserts the absolute claim of Jewish monotheism,
namely, that all earthly powers are subject to God's sovereignty and
out of a snippet of political crossfire comes the reminder of just
how much we owe and to whom. Caesar was owed that which bore his name
and his image, a coin. God is owed that which bears His name and His
image, our own very selves. Can we give ourselves to God, all that is
ours without holding back anything? And this is the Good News of
today.
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