Today’s gospel ends with perhaps one of the more frequently quoted lines in the Bible: ” … give to Caesar what is Caesar’s but give to God what is God’s.” Some of you may prefer the way the King James Version says it: “… render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and render unto God what is God’s.” Others, who use the Jerusalem Bible, are more familiar with the statement: ” … give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar – and to God what belongs to God.”
No matter which translation you use, the usual interpretation of the line involves a separation of church and state. I expect that this weekend, with the national elections only two and one-half weeks away, there are a lot of homilies being preached which focus on the theme of the separation of church and state. For many people, it’s a natural follow-up. But for me, there is a more personal meaning in what Jesus said to those who raised a question about the lawfulness of paying a tax to the Romans. Rather than talking about the relationship of church and state, these reflections on today’s readings will be about a coin and about us.
To begin this reflection, I have a question for you. I don’t want you to answer out loud. In fact, you may not want to tell anyone the answer. My first question is for the men. Right now, do you have anything in your wallet you would be ashamed to show your wife or, if you’re not married, to your best friend? And for the women: Is there anything in your purse you wouldn’t want your husband, or your best friend, to know about? And you younger folks don’t get off either. My question for you is: Is there anything hidden away in your locker at school or in the back of a drawer you would be ashamed about if your parents or your best friend found out about it? Think for a moment, and after this Mass, it’s not fair to ask your husband, your wife, your kids or your friends what they immediately thought about when I asked the question.
How do these questions fit into today’s Gospel Reading? Well, they’re very direct. You see, this is what happened to the Pharisees and the Herodians. Let’s take a look behind the scene of today’s Gospel. It all started when the question was raised by the chief priests and elders about who gave Jesus the authority to preach what he was preaching. He did not answer them. In a good Jewish style, he asked them a return question about John’s authority to baptize. Did that authority come from heaven or from man? In response, they argued among themselves and concluded they had best not answer his question.
If the chief priests and elders had said John’s authority came from heaven, they knew Jesus would respond the same way and they, themselves, would be caught in their own trap. And if they said John’s authority came from man, all those who thought John was a prophet sent by God would attack them. So, they refused to answer. Jesus replied, if they could not say where John received his authority, he would not say where his own came from.
With that background in mind, we can look at today’s Gospel which begins: “The Pharisees went off and began to plot how they might trap Jesus in speech. They sent their disciples to him, accompanied by Herodian sympathizers. [After a very oily introduction, they said to him] ‘give us your opinion, then, in this case. Is it lawful to pay tax to the Emperor or not?’”
They were sure they had laid a neat trap. You see, the Pharisees, themselves, were against paying any tax to the Roman authority which now governed Israel. On the other hand, the Herodians were Jews who were in favor of accommodation with Rome and thought it was acceptable to pay the tax. If Jesus said it was acceptable to pay the tax, the Jewish people would have been angered. If he said they should not pay the tax, the Roman authorities would have a reason to arrest him as a rebel. Jesus, however, understood their thinking and asked to see the coin used for the tax.
Can you see them now? There is the Pharisee reaching into his purse tied to the string at his waist. He pulls out the coin, smiling. And then his face turns bright red. The crowd around him gives a slight gasp. The Pharisee knows he, himself, has been trapped. All he can do is wait until Jesus speaks. Then he and his fellows can sneak away. How was he trapped? Not by what Jesus said, but rather by their own actions.
The Pharisee had in his possession a Roman coin with the head of the Emperor on it. And the legend around the rim of the coin proclaimed the Emperor Tiberius was divine. According to Jewish law, as a Pharisee, he was forbidden to carry such a coin! There, in his hand, was the proof he was a hypocrite, one who says one thing and practices another. By showing the coin, he had demonstrated to all around him that he had already acknowledged the taxing authority of Rome. There was no need to have asked the question. Even the Jewish Herodians, who said it was acceptable to pay the tax, were caught. They too, as supposedly “good” Jews, were not allowed to carry the image of the divine Caesar in their purse.
A few minutes ago, I began by asking whether you had anything in your possession you would be ashamed to show to someone else. And if you did, you might have had a feeling like that of the Pharisees and the Herodians. However, I now have another question for you. It’s really the same one that Jesus asked.
First of all, I would like you to think about a coin in your own pocket. Not a real coin, but an imaginary one. Each of us carries with us a coin we should not have. And that is the point of Jesus’ question: “Whose head is on the coin, whose inscription is on this coin?” You see, it was immediately after their answer that Jesus said: “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s but give unto God what is God’s.” By saying this, he reminds us that everything we possess comes from God and must be rendered back to him. At the same time, they have shown that they have bought into a power that could lead them away from the kingdom. What they must now do is give up, render, or give back anything which takes them away from the kingdom. He asked them to identify the image on the coin they carried and to give back this image to the one who made it.
The head on your own imaginary coin might be “excessive pride” – a pride which keeps me from recognizing the power of God in my life. Or the coin might be my “job” which pulls me away from family or from my spiritual life. Or the coin might be “a relationship” – a relationship which I know is wrong for my life, yet I clutch onto it as if it were the most valuable coin in the world. Or the coin may have my own image on it, not a handsome one, but one that is scarred and disfigured – scarred and disfigured in my own mind, for the image I need to give up is my own poor self-image.
Each of us carries in our pocket a coin we need to give up. It’s a coin not of God’s making but of the world’s making, of Caesar’s making. I need to identify whose head is on my coin so I can give it back to the manufacturer. Everything else I need to render unto God. And so, I conclude with the question our Lord raised: “Whose head is on the coin you carry? ” And with his instruction: “Give it up to the one who made it – and give everything else to God.”
Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary; October 21, 1984
Is 45:1, 4-6; 1 Thess 1:1-5b; Mt 22:15-21