The Word of God helps us to know the deepest meaning of our existence and so find our true identity. What is the purpose of our life? Today’s Responsorial Psalm gives us an answer: we are to “give the Lord glory and honor.” We are created to give glory to God and to participate in his glory for all eternity. We give the Lord glory and honor because, as the psalms tell us, “to the LORD belong the earth and all that it contains, the world and all who live there” (Ps 24:1).
The fact that the world and all who live in it belong to the Lord gives us a starting point for pondering this Sunday’s readings. In fact, Jesus uses the question that was intended to entrap him as an occasion to explain this very fact. The Pharisees ask him, “Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?” Instead of replying with a simple “yes” or “no,” he says to them, “repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”
This answer is profound! On one hand, Jesus acknowledges the legitimate authority of the civil government (represented by “Caesar”) and shows that Christians are to fulfill their duties as citizens. Obedience to civil authorities and laws for the common good is part of giving glory and honor to God, as today’s Psalm urges us to do. St. Paul gives an instruction on this point in his Letter to the Romans: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgement” (Rm 13:1-2).
Jesus teaches that in addition to the legitimate authority of Caesar, and indeed above it, is the authority of God. We are to repay to God what belongs to God – and all of us, including Caesar and all civil authorities, belong to God. We are all to use whatever authority or power we have in the service of God. Just as coins are minted with an image and inscription determined by the government, so each human person is “minted” as a precious image of God, bearing a spiritual inscription: “I belong to God.” It is proper to give money to the government in payment of taxes, to “repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar” for the good of the society, and it is proper for every person to give his or her service to God. Civil authorities in particular have a special responsibility to “repay to God” – that is, to carry out their duties for the glory of God. Government officials, who receive their authority from God, are at the service of God. Their governance is accountable to him.
This does not mean that all government rulers know the Lord or know that they are serving him. Today’s first reading points us to the example of the Persian King Cyrus, who treated the Jews with clemency. Though he did not know God, God was the one who raised him up and used him as an instrument for his own divine purposes. God says to King Cyrus through the prophet Isaiah: “for the sake of Jacob, my servant, of Israel, my chosen one, I have called you by your name, giving you a title, though you knew me not…. It is I who arm you, though you know me not, so that toward the rising and the setting of the sun people may know that there is none besides me.” By God’s design, the pagan king serves to give him glory and honor.
We know what Cyrus and many other governors do not know, that “to the Lord belong the earth and all that it contains.” Thus, we know that all the rulers of the earth belong to the Lord and are to give him glory and honor by their upright and just exercise of earthly power. When earthly rulers demand what is unjust, we must resist them, as part of our witness to the authority of God. The Catechism explains: “Man should not submit his personal freedom in an absolute manner to any earthly power, but only to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Caesar is not ‘the Lord’” (CCC 450). Whether we live under good or bad governments, our call is always to “shine like lights in the world as we hold on to the word of life” (Gospel Acclamation).
Just as our obedience is to God rather than to man, so also the power to live this obedience comes from God not from man. St. Paul reminds us in today’s second reading that our “work of faith and labor of love and endurance in hope” come from the Lord who has chosen us. We have received the ability to live our faith “in power and in the Holy Spirit and with much conviction,” so that as we journey through time as citizens of this world, we keep our hearts fixed on our true homeland where we will share eternal glory with the Lord.
What is the purpose of my life? How do I put into practice the statement of Jesus, “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God”? What must I surrender to keep my heart anchored in my true, eternal homeland?
Excerpt from The Anawim Way, Volume 22, no. 8. More information about The Anawim Way may be found here.