Tuesday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 354

So Jesus said to them,
"Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God."
They were utterly amazed at him.

Having declared its independence from England, the newly sovereign, former colonies in North America first had to create a military of soldiers and marines, and then pay them. But to do that, they also had to persuade farmers who would feed the rebels to accept the new American currency. With an ocean between here and Europe, they could not rely on the English pound.

As I read this history several years ago, I realized that I had never understood what money is for. Why does a government want to float its own currency?

For taxes, of course! That's why government workers -- military and civilian -- are paid with dollars rather than pounds, pesos, or euros, and why all Americans must pay federal, state, and local taxes. We might be willing to barter among ourselves but the government insists we use money so they can tax us. 

But, as Abraham Lincoln pointed out, a democratic government is by, for, and of the people. We tax ourselves to pay ourselves for the services we render to one another. 

So render to ourselves -- that is, the government -- what belong to us, and to God what belongs to God. What's so hard about that? 

Once, when I submitted a short essay to a local newspapers about the necessity of taxes to pave roads and pay police, someone said to me, "I never thought of that!" 

Don't they teach that in school?

Jesus's reply to the Pharisees and Herodians is just as confounding today as it was at the time. Many people still think of money as mine, and resent the fact that they must part with some of it to pay for basic government services. As Bill Cosby once said in a TV ad, "...because it's my money!" 

Actually, Bill, it's our money, and it's use and worth are determined by what we decide. 

My uncle told me that soldiers aboard a troopship to Korea in 1950 might leave their wallets lying carelessly on their cots until they neared port, when their money suddenly became valuable again. With no PX and all their food and toiletries supplied at sea, they had little use for money. 

Jesus reminded his opponents of what Jews have taught us for four thousand years, "God is of no importance unless he is of supreme importance." As Maimonides said,

  

It is well known and quite evident that the love of God cannot strike deep in the heart of man unless it occupies his mind constantly so that nothing in the world matters to him but this love of God." (quotes from Heschel's God in Search of Man, pg 153-4)

Jesus has shown us what this love of God must mean to every human being. Confronted by death, our only hope is God. In the face of death, no government makes provision and our money is worthless.