Homily for the Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Pharisees, fed-up with the Lord’s Parables which they’ve been hearing that convict them of their hypocrisy, try to set up Jesus with a trick question that would place Him in a no-win situation and therefore destroy His credibility.

They join forces with the more political Herodians, politics making for strange bedfellows, beginning with a smarmy approach, saying:

“Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man…”
— followed by —
“… you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth…"
__ followed by __
“you are not concerned with human opinion or social status…"

… all done in an attempt to pump up His ego with false pride, before they lay the verbal trap before Him. They then ask Him a “gotcha” sort of question, any answer for which would be controversial. But, the Lord doesn’t fall for it. Instead, after chastising them for their malice and hypocrisy, He gives them a non-political sort of response whose wisdom is incontrovertible.

In true rabbinical form, He answers their question with a question, turning the responsibility for an answer back on them. In asking,“whose image and inscription is this?” He makes the religious Pharisees and the political Herodians who, in their distaste for the truth, attempt to trap Jesus into driving a wedge between religion and politics, or Church and State, as we might name it… scramble for an answer to their own question.

His final response demonstrates that religion and politics are not incompatible, and while separation of Church and State is a good, it is not an absolute good, because every society and every culture in the history of mankind has been comprised of people who are essentially religious in one way or another.

The history of the 20th Century has proven that any political system which has tried to destroy or subjugate the religious nature of Man (think here: nazis, communists) will, instead, destroy itself along with human beings in the tens of millions.

This reality should strike terror in the hearts of contemporary Americans and Europeans who are witnessing the marginalization of religion and religious people, as well as the attempt to remove the practice of faith from the public square.

One hears speech of a “values-neutral” society, but this is an impossibility, because to suggest this is to enshrine the dismissal of values as the ultimate value. We can see the chaos which this engenders today in the hyper-individualism that has crept into cultural thought.

How, then, in our nation, shall we establish a balance between
+ the social and the moral
+ the religious and the political…
…as we seek integrity of personhood and society in our rendering unto God and unto Caesar? We can look at some passages from
+ The Catechism of the Catholic Church  - and -
+ the Documents of Vatican II
for our direction.

A first look into what the Catechism says about “rendering unto Caesar”: brings the following: “It is morally obligatory to
+ pay taxes
+ exercise the right to vote  - and -
+ to defend one’s country.”
This is the most basic option, yet the least we can give to Caesar.

And in the documents of Vatican II, regarding our debt to God: “One of the gravest errors of our time is the dichotomy between the faith which many profess and the practice of their daily lives.” This is more than just an elegant way of saying “Practice what you preach…” It’s a statement suggesting being more than simply nominally Catholic, and to allow one’s Catholic identity to permeate the whole of one’s being, at home, in church, and wherever we go.

But what do the Lord’s words about giving unto Caesar and giving unto God require in their fullness? 

Turning back to the Catechism, we read of  the fullness of our social requirements for Caesar: “It is the duty of citizens to contribute, along with the civil authorities, to the good of society and freedom in order to fulfill their roles in the life of the political community.” This would suggest a need for social action: to participate in communal life as well as one can.
The fullness of what we owe Caesar, then, is to live and speak the truth with prudence and charity in all areas of our lives, including the political arena, and to demand that the truth be spoken by those whom we elect. This is for both our temporal good and our eternal good, and for the good of others who may oppose us religiously or politically… or both.

And considering the fullness of what we owe God, we read again in Vatican II: “The sole purpose of the Church on earth is that the Kingdom of God may come and the salvation of the human race may be accomplished.” A tall order, yet, even when we attempt to bring about the Kingdom with utmost prudence and humility in union with the Church and according to the example of Christ, our efforts will not be welcomed.

We have seen in recent decades that many will oppose religious virtue as an imposition of one value system over others, seeking freedom of expression in a “values-neutral” society which, of course, quickly devolves into a “values-absent” society.

But freedom without virtue is merely license, and how can a society maintain 300 million licentious members, each seeking freedom of expression as a superior value to virtuous self-sacrifice for the common good?

Calling society to a higher good is not merely an attempt to legislate morality, knowing, of course, that all of law is legislated morality in one form or another, nor is it simply a form of disinterested altruism, a good, but not the higher good.

It is “Caritas,” Charity: the love that seeks the other person’s good, to the point of self-sacrifice, even in opposition. In the face of opposition, and even martyrdom, while submitting to legitimate legislative authority, as far as one’s conscience will allow, we can recall the words of Saint Peter, who said, “We must obey God rather than men,” and the words of the martyr Saint Thomas More, who said, “I am the king’s good servant… but God’s first.”

In closing, it would be good to consider this: If to Caesar is to be given the coin that bears his image, then to God must be given that which bears His divine image, that is to say: We who are created in the image and likeness of God must give ourselves to Him.