God alone deserves our worship and adoration

Readings:
• Isa 45:1, 4-6
• Psa 96:1, 3, 4-5, 7-8, 9-10
• 1 Thess 1:1-5b
• Mt 22:15-21

“Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”

That response to the disingenuous Pharisees and Herodians is one of the more famous utterances of Jesus. And it has sometimes been employed as a sort of political statement, even a foundation for various political theories and movements.

And, to some degree, such attempts make sense, for Jesus was answering a question—however devious and ill-intended—about a political matter: “Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?”

That query was what might be called a “loaded question,” along the lines of the oft-used example: “Have you stopped beating your wife?” If Jesus answered, “No,” he would have indicated that Caesar’s tax was unlawful and opposed to the Torah and Jewish beliefs, and he would have been charged with insurrection against Roman rule.

If he answered, “Yes,” he would have angered and alienated many of his followers and essentially destroyed his ministry and influence.

In other words, if Jesus had answered either “Yes” or “No,” he would have been taking a political stand and would have effectively done away with his divine mission.

That, undoubtedly, was what his interlocutors hoped for. Keep in mind that their question came after a series of confrontations between Jesus and the religious leaders, including Jesus cleansing the Temple of the moneychangers (Mt 21:12-17), and a series of parables squarely aimed at the corruption and hypocrisy of the Pharisees, scribes, and chief priests (Mt 21:28-22:14). His enemies were tired of his parables, in part because they did not want to hear the devastating message they contained, but also because they couldn’t easily use the parables as legal evidence against Jesus.

Their question, then, as Pope Benedict XVI pointed out in a Christmas address in 2012, “was calculated to expose him either as a threat to the regime, or a fraud.” They sought to put Jesus in conflict with earthly authority and therefore make him either an enemy of the State or of the Law.

But, as Erasmo Leiva-Marikakis observes in his commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, “Jesus’ sole concern is the glorification of his Father and the salvation of man by his sharing the life of God.” And that dual mission will meet resistance from a wide range of political, social, and cultural positions for the simple reason that it challenges all of us to ask ourselves: Who am I? Why am I? For what purpose was I created? To what end am I called?

As Benedict noted, “Jesus’ answer deftly moves the argument to a higher plane, gently cautioning against both the politicization of religion and the deification of temporal power, along with the relentless pursuit of wealth. His audience needed to be reminded that the Messiah was not Caesar, and Caesar was not God. The kingdom that Jesus came to establish was of an altogether higher order. As he told Pontius Pilate, ‘My kingship is not of this world.’”

The ultimate mission of Jesus was not to liberate people from political oppression, and he certainly did not teach that violence and political agitation were the answers to such tyranny. After all, first-century Palestine had witnessed plenty of political revolts by Jews against Roman rule, and they almost all ended in violent, bloody fashion.

Jesus, having asked for a Roman coin to be used in paying census taxes, inquired, “Whose image is this and whose inscription?” Translated more literally, he asked, “Whose icon (“eikon”) and whose epigraph (“epigraphē”) is this?” Where did the coin come from? And to whom did it belong?

Caesar had the legitimate power to tax and carry out the work of government for the common good. But while some rights and powers belong to the State, all things belong to God, Creator of all and the Ruler of all.

Caesar can make certain, limited claims, but God alone can rightly expect our worship and adoration, for we are made in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26-27; CCC 225).

(Editor’s note: This “Opening the Word” column was first published by Our Sunday Visitor on October 19, 2014.)

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