'Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.' This famous line from Jesus in this Sunday's Gospel is not meant to be a reminder that April 15th, tax deadline day, is just six months away. Nor is it an appeal to increase your weekly offering, although I am sure the pastor wouldn't mind that! It could be read as a statement of the fact that we do have a civic duty in justice to pay our fair share of the public expense that is involved in providing the community with roads, bridges, public transport, clean water, jobs, police and fire protection....in other words, that dreaded word, 'taxes.'
I think the message here is less about paying taxes to a government and more about paying homage to God. Jesus' preaching had reached a pitch where the Pharisees and Herodians, collaborators with Rome, wanted to be rid of him altogether. They had a brilliant idea. They asked him a question which, no matter how he answered, would put him in a lethal situation.
First, they buttered him up, telling him what an effective teacher he was and how beautifully he dealt with people. Then came out came the gun with a silencer: 'Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?' If Jesus answered in the affirmative he would have angered the vast majority of the people who hated the Romans and their unfair census tax system. If he answered in the negative he would have incurred the wrath of the authorities. Either way somebody would have killed him.
Jesus took a Roman coin and pointed to the image of Caesar on it. Because it had Caesar's image imprinted on it, the coin belonged to Caesar. What he didn't say but implied was that Caesar, imprinted with God's image and likeness, belonged to God. 'Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.' Like any first century Jew, Jesus didn't see a division between the sacred and the secular. The whole Jewish tradition and its religious background taught them that everything in the world, every human activity, even those that might be judged to belong to Caesar, really belongs to God.
At this point I'm aware of red lights telling me to very careful about what I say regarding the 'separation' of church and state in this country. I am no historian at all of matters American. Those whom I have consulted tell me that, according to the First Amendment, Congress is not to favor one religion over another. There must not be any established state religion, such as there had been in Europe prior to the time of Thomas Jefferson, and still is in England where the monarch is head of the Church of England and the Prime Minister has the final say in the appointments of its bishops.
Back to Jesus and his masterful one-liner. He was not setting up a wall between religion and the state, nor was he trying to confine religion to the private sector. He was saying that everything in the world belongs to God: laws, lawyers, courts, emperors, presidents, artists, medical workers... All operate under the aegis of God for the common good, like King Cyrus in the first reading.
One of the greatest brains in our Catholic tradition, Thomas Aquinas, wrote a whole treatise on law. He identified three levels: divine law (the mind of God), natural law (moral laws), and positive law (human laws). He says all these levels of law are interconnected, reflecting in one way or another the divine law of God. Laws, since they express God's law, are meant to be just and moral. When they are not, they must be named for what they are, even resisted.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jnr. resisted in the 'sixties the unjust Jim Crow laws of the south because they were a spiritual affront to God. Should the Church be running the world? No. There is a legitimate division of roles and functions between church, state and other civic organizations. I won't be telling Jed Yorke or Jim Harbaugh how to run the SF 49ers anytime soon! Nor do I see myself telling a hospital administrator how to run the medical center. I render to the doctors the things that belong to the medical profession, to sports managers the things that belong on the sports field, and to Congress the things that belong in Congress.
However, as every human law has a moral component and some laws may be immoral, every thinking and conscientious Christian has an obligation to speak up when immoral laws are proposed or enacted at any level of society. Just because something is legal doesn't make it moral. As individuals, we must follow our conscience - our informed conscience - re. taking a stand on things.
An informed conscience is usually the result of prayer, awareness of what the martyrs and saints of our Catholic tradition stood for, sensitivity to the scriptures, and knowledge of church teachings around a particular issue. I think a good criterion would be the words of Jesus in Matthew 25: 'Whatever you do for the least of my brothers and sisters you do for me.' Are our laws conducive to the well being of everybody, especially the most vulnerable - the poor, the sick, the elderly, and children? Are our nation's decisions conducive to peace in our world and to relieving human misery and poverty wherever they may exist?
We've got to ask ourselves these and similar questions. These are the criteria we have to put before us when we ask, 'Am I really doing all I can to give to God the things that are God's, and to Caesar the things that are Caesar's?'
PASTOR EMERITUS
No comments:
Post a Comment