Becoming a Citizen in His Spirit Is 45:1, 4-6; 1 Thes 1:1-5; Mt 22:15-21 (29 / A)

 

Becoming a Citizen in His Spirit 

 

Is 45:1, 4-6; 1 Thes 1:1-5; Mt 22:15-21 (29 / A)

 

 "He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap".

 

 

They asked Jesus whether it was lawful to pay taxes to Caesar. If Jesus said “Yes”, he would ruin his standing with the Jewish people, who despised foreign taxation and viewed it as submission to a pagan power. If Jesus said “No”, he would be reported to the Romans immediately for sedition and treason. A Christian is a citizen of the earthly country in which one lives. From the state, we receive physical safety, order, infrastructure, and public services. Supporting those systems through civic responsibility is a legitimate duty. Jesus shows that earthly and heavenly loyalty need not inherently conflict, provided civil authority stays within its proper bounds.

 

Today’s Gospel reading has, at times, been understood to mean that the Church should not “interfere” in political life but should focus only on its salvific mission and matters of faith. However, this interpretation is totally false. Dealing with God’s matters does not mean to mind only the worship of the Church, but to be also concerned about all people –God’s children– and about man’s justice. Pretending the Church does not move from the sacristy, while being deaf, blind, and mute before the moral and human problems and abuses of our time, amounts to stealing from God what belongs to God. Benedict XVI said, “The tolerance that admits God as it were as a private opinion but refuses him the public domain... is not tolerance but hypocrisy”.

 

St. Hilary of Poitiers says, “The coin of Caesar is made of gold, on which his image is engraved; the coin of God is man, in whom the image of God is depicted. Therefore, give your riches to Caesar and keep the conscience of your innocence for God.” Catechism of the Catholic Church instructs us, “The citizen is obliged in conscience not to follow the directives of civil authorities when they are contrary to the demands of the moral order, to the fundamental rights of persons or the teachings of the Gospel” (2242).

 

But there remains the warning of Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, that “no one can serve two masters; one cannot be the slave of both God and wealth” (Mt 6:24). Wealth in early OT times was seen as created by God, and bestowed on patriarchs, kings and leaders who had roles of special responsibility. Later on, wealth ceased to be regarded as a gift from God. “Woe to those who join house to house and field to field, until everywhere belongs to them,” Isaiah warned (Is 5:8), and Jesus himself said, “Alas for you who are rich; you are having your life of ease now” (Lk 6:24). The world and all its resources were created by God for the benefit of all human beings without exception, and this must usually obtain alongside the right to private property, whether inherited or acquired by personal enterprise. And it is the task of government to seek balance between policies that will help the common good of all the citizens. And taxation is still one of the most common means of achieving this.

 

“He has scattered the proud in the conceit of their hearts…”