Word to the Wise
Tuesday, June 6, 2017 - 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]
This quotation is one of the most familiar ones in the New Testament. It is often cited in support of our Western notion of the separation of Church and State. Such an idea would have been utterly foreign to the society of Jesus' time. The question of paying taxes to the Romans was simply another form of persecution by the occupying authorities. If Jesus opposes the tax, he risks arrest and possible execution. If he favors it, he loses popularity with his fellow Jews. The root of the question is really a matter of fidelity to his mission which is not a political mission. He has not come to start a rebellion against Rome.
The scene has its comical and theological aspects. The Pharisees have made common cause in this incident with a sleazy group of supporters of one of the Roman puppet kings. This put them in strange company, especially when Jesus asks for a "denarius" - a silver Roman coin used to pay the head tax. The Pharisees considered the coin to be "unclean" because of Caesar's image on it. Where did the coin come from? One can imagine the discomfort of the Pharisees in even looking at the coin. A second, more theological, point is that the word used for "image" in the text is the same as the one in Genesis when God makes man and woman in his own "image." Even Caesar is not exempt from that! A coin is a coin. God is the "king" of all creation. Jesus refuses to become a subject of a political litmus test.
This latter point is important in our own time when "litmus-thinking" seems to be the weapon of choice in so much public discourse. Sometimes the word "orthodoxy" gets thrown around as if one particular group somehow has "cornered" a particular expression of truth and claims that only that expression is permitted. Jesus calls our attention to the One to whom we all owe allegiance. It is not to Herod or Caesar or Pharisees or Herodians. Our fidelity and loyalty are to the One whose image we bear. AMEN
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