XXIX-Ordinary Sunday- Cycle A

XXIX-Sunday.
Isaiah 45: 1, 4-6; 1 Thess. 1: 1-5 ; Matthew 22: 15-21

One day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him. The scientist walked up to God and said, "God, we've decided that we no longer need you. We're to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don't you just go on and get lost?"

God listened very patiently and kindly to the man. After the scientist was done talking, God said, "Very well, how about this? Let's say we have a man-making contest." To which the scientist replied, "Okay, great!" But, God added, "Now, we're going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam."
The scientist said, "Sure, no problem" and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt. God looked at him and said, "No, no, no. You go get your own dirt."

With numerous and tremendous inventions man feels God is not necessary in this system, without ever realizing that it is God who set the foundation for all this when he said to the first human beings “Be fruitful and multiply, conquer the earth”. And therefore, God needs to be acknowledged and honored as the Supreme Being in this world.

Some people say: Let the church take care of its own business and keep their noses out of social and political issues. That would be fine if it worked. There are obligations we have to the governing authorities, such as paying taxes, exercising our right to vote, and obeying civil laws. But as followers of Jesus Christ, our ultimate obligation is to "seek first the kingdom of God," and all other obligations have to have a lower priority. There can only be one top priority.

Every Christian holds dual citizenship, each one of which has its own benefits and duties. Our birth made us citizens of an earthly nation; our baptism made us citizens of a heavenly Kingdom. Sometimes they overlap, but in the end, our earthly citizenship will finish, while our heavenly citizenship will last forever. It's obvious which one is more important. Through the centuries, the many Christian saints and martyrs have taught us that if we are ever forced to choose between the two, if ever Caesar tries to take what belongs to God, we must be faithful to our true, everlasting homeland, even if it means suffering painful consequences here on earth. We know about St Thomas More who gave his life for the sake of defending to give what belonged to God. To give supremacy to God and his Church than to King Henry VIII of England.

In his second Encyclical Letter, Pope Benedict made this same point -both citizenships are important, but our Christian citizenship is more important: "When the Letter to the Hebrews says that Christians here on earth do not have a permanent homeland, but seek one which lies in the future (cf. Hebrews 11:13-16; Philippians 3:20), "this does not mean for one moment that they live only for the future: "present society is recognized by Christians as an exile; "they belong to a new society which is the goal of their common pilgrimage and which is anticipated in the course of that pilgrimage... "Hence, while we must always be committed to the improvement of the world, tomorrow's better world cannot be the proper and sufficient content of our hope." (Spe Salvi, #4, #30)

There is no reason why the state and the Church cannot work together to improve the lives of their citizens. There is usually no conflict -- unless the government forces people to act in a way contrary to God’s law. Then we must act in accordance with God’s law and not man’s because, while the state only exists in this world, God’s law exists in this world and the next. This means that sometimes we have to refuse to obey our government. In South Africa's apartheid system, many Christians were forced to violate the immoral laws of their government. In the United States, both the black and the white people violated the segregation laws of many states. Wherever there is immoral or unjust behavior, there has to be conflict which paves the ground for society’s progress.

What exactly belongs to God? Do we owe any taxes to the heavenly IRS? All of us know the answer immediately; it is written in the very first pages of the Bible. All that we are, all that we possess, and all that we can hope for has come to us from God. Just as the Roman coin bore the image of the Emperor who made it, so the human soul bears the "image and likeness" of God our Creator and our Father. He called each one of us into existence; he wants each of us to exist, so that we can enter into and develop a personal relationship with him. This is the whole purpose of our lives: to live in communion with God, starting now and leading into everlasting life. As the Catechism puts it (#44): "Coming from God, going toward God, man lives a fully human life only if he freely lives by his bond with God." Freely living by our bond with God means living as he created us to live. And he has shown us how to do that by sending us his Son, the model of every Christian life, the Friend of every human soul. And so, giving to God what belongs to God mean obeying his commandments, following the example of Christ, our Savior and older Brother, and heeding the teachings of his Church. Ignoring God and his commandments, as if he were far away, uninterested, or foolish - that would be a kind of spiritual thievery, like stealing the Emperor's coins.

It is precisely our Catholic faith, full of God's revelation, that enables us to distinguish between foundational and secondary issues. Treating unborn children like a disease, as abortion does, is a foundational injustice - what good are any of the other human rights if those innocent people never even make it out of the womb? Treating homosexual unions like true marriages is a foundational injustice - true marriage between one man and one woman is the DNA of human society; would you like someone to mess around with your DNA? When we vote for political candidates and issues, we cannot pretend that those kinds of foundational issues are on the same level as other important but secondary issues like taxes, diplomacy, and alternative energy sources. These secondary issues are like the walls of a house: you can knock out a wall or rearrange a room without the house falling down, but if you mess with the foundation, you lose the whole structure. If foundational issues are at stake in an election, we must give them first priority. Foundational issues are things that belong to God, not to Caesar, and when Caesar tries to take them over, we who are God's children must defend them. When the state oversteps the mark and puts itself in the place of God, Christians are, in the last resort, absolved from obedience. We must give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and not the things that are God's. We must “obey God rather than human beings.”

We have the right and the responsibility to apply a moral litmus test to the dictates of our nation. The people of Germany did not do this in their own country during the last century and closed an eye to Nazi anti-Semitism. They now suffer the guilt imposed by their lack of action.

Jesus reminds His questioners that if they are so concerned and careful about paying taxes to the state, they should be much more concerned and careful about their service to God and their obligations to Him as their Creator and Lord. Do I pay to God what He is worthy of..my time, treasure, talent ? Do I love God with all my heart, all my soul and with all my mind ? OR do I steal from God what he owns ?