Word to the Wise
Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - Tuesday in the 9th Week in Ordinary Time
[Tob 2:9-14 and Mark 12:13-17]"Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God." [Mark]
The quoted line has made its way into all kinds of political parlance, including our own notions of the separation of Church and state. Such ideas would have been foreign to Jesus and to the Pharisees and Herodians who were sent to trap him in speech. The Romans were quite clear about who they believed ruled the world: Caesar! Pious Jews like the Pharisees were quite clear as well: God! The Romans were generally tolerant of local religion as long as it didn't question Caesar's status. They even allowed the Jews to say that they would pray FOR Caesar even if they refused to pray TO Caesar, who was considered a divinity. If Jesus answers the "trick" question in such a way as to question Caesar's authority, he could be reported and eliminated. It does remind me of the questions that journalists and pundits love to ask candidates for political office, however!
Jesus asks for the Roman coin that would be used to pay the "head tax." The very fact that someone in the crowd had one made that person unclean in the eyes of the Pharisees, so it had to come from one of the Herodians. Jesus points to the image and simply says the coin belongs to Caesar. The real ruler of the world has already stamped all of humanity with his own image and likeness. Are we aware of this image and likeness? How much are we "ruled" by coinage? AMEN
config
view
logs
4096.0 KB
84 ms
4
