A Reading from the Holy Gospel According to Matthew
Then the Pharisees went and took counsel how to entangle him in his talk. And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodi-ans, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are true, and teach the way of God truthfully, and care for no man; for you do not regard the position of men.
Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the money for the tax.” And they brought him a coin. And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
(Matthew 22:15-21)
Fr. Pine’s Sunday Homily for Exodus Men
As is often the case when our Lord is confronted by those who would oppose him socially, politically, or religiously, he does a little bit of jujitsu, working their objections against them. He doesn’t do it in a cheeky fashion, but in ways meant to reveal deeper spiritual truths. Here, he takes their query as an occasion for reckoning. He provides a judgment in service of their conversion and the conversion of persons of all times and places.
We see two main things going on: Our Lord is confronting their hypocrisy and recollecting them in their dignity. Hypocrisy is a form of simulation. It’s when one pretends to be whom he is not. For example, when a sinful man pretends to be a nonsinful man, or, let’s say, when somebody impersonates a cardinal so as to get into the conclave. But the hypocrisy with which we are concerned here is the hypocrisy of one who pretends to be an honest inquirer, but ends up being one of a brood of vipers. The way we pose questions often shapes the answers we get. We can say, “It’s either A or B, which one is it?” If we put somebody in a false dichotomy, then we’re going to get back a false answer. In our questioning of God, we shouldn’t put him in a circumstance where it’s either A or B, and A and B are both false. An example would be saying to God, “Either you do this and show that you’re God, or you don’t do this and I don’t believe in you.” Well, what if he doesn’t do it and he’s still God? That is often the case. We shouldn’t approach God with a foregone conclusion or an accusation. We need to be willing to acknowledge that we don’t know. We don’t really know what’s going on in our lives. We don’t know the rules of the game because they’re God’s rules, and we’re still learning them. So we can’t foreclose on a providential possibility just because, at present, we can’t imagine it.
In effect, what I’m trying to say is, we need to be open to what God has to say. We need to be open to what God is doing in our lives. And if we say, “You’re only at work in my life if you do this or if you do that,” then we might put ourselves in a situation in which we have no access to the truth. This is because we stand in judgment over him, or we accuse him, or we operate on the basis of a conclusion which really can’t be made. What we find Our Lord doing is resisting the dichotomy or resisting it on the terms that his interlocutors pose it. And he takes it as an occasion to recollect them in their dignity. When we receive his revelation as he sets it forth or gives it, we profit from it.
We then have this line, “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” A lot of people focus on the former half: “to Caesar what is Caesar’s.” We acknowledge the fact that, as human beings, we are political animals, that we have a political life, and that we’re responsible for operating within the setting of our polity as good people. People will also make observations as to what pertains to the spiritual authority, what pertains to the temporal authority. We have some cool meditations on this in the Church’s history. But we want to focus on the “Render to God what is God’s.” Man is not just a political animal, but a spiritual animal with a spiritual life for which he is responsible, and he needs to comport himself in a way that is just and good in that setting. It’s as if the Lord is saying, “Listen, the king’s image is on this coin, so you have to give it back to him because it’s made in his image. But there’s an image of a king, a greater king still, which is at work not so much in coins, but in the very depths of your soul. An image that has been impressed in your living flesh. The more perfect image.”
The Son is the most perfect image of the Father. But we are, as it were, perfect images of God insofar as we’re patterned on his very life. We have minds with which to know and hearts with which to love. We have a spiritual nature, which is patterned on God’s own spiritual nature. And so, that makes us capable of thinking God’s thoughts and loving with God’s affections. I’ve talked about this as the goal of speech, which is communion. We’re made to come together; we’re made to share. That’s our very nature. That’s the very purpose for which we have been placed here on the surface of the earth. Yes, it’s good to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, but better still to render to God what is God’s. This reflects the fact that we are spiritual animals called to a spiritual life, not mere images on coins, but images in living flesh who are made to commune with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—which is awesome.
On the Lord’s Day, you can recall this as you make space for rest, leisure, and extra time for worship, because worship is simply an acknowledgment of the exemplar. The image is made to the exemplar, the standard, the norm, the pattern. When a portraitist looks at a person, that person is the exemplar of the image that he creates. And Christ is painting a portrait in you, the portrait of his Father. As the image, we’re made to be attuned to, assimilated to, conformed to the exemplar, to God’s own life. And worship is the way in which we do that. You have space and time for that today.
