It all belongs to God

9^th Week OT (T)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

“Why are you testing me?” Great question. And we know the answer. They aren't so much testing Jesus as they are trying to trap him. Watch five minutes of a Congressional cmte hearing with hostile witnesses and you'll see the trap. Ask what appears to be a genuine question. But the question is loaded with assumptions, false dilemmas, and ill-defined terms. Any direct answer to the question-asked implicates the witness and the answer ends up on the evening news as as out-of-context, deceptively edited clip. Jesus is no dummy. He knows the trick. And he's a master at answering the question that wasn't asked. He tells the Herodians and Pharisees to give to Caesar what's Caesar's and to God what's God's. An inoffensive response that leaves his prosecutors in amazed silence. Maybe they hear the underlying assumption of Jesus' response. Maybe they don't. What belongs to Caesar? What belongs to God? Well, everything belongs to God, including Caesar! Caesar may not acknowledge God's ownership, but that failure doesn't change the fact that God the Father is the Creator of the Universe, the first cause of all that is and will be. Caesar lives and moves and has his being in God, so there is nothing Caesar has that doesn't first belong to God. Jesus' response to the trick question essentially says, “Give it all to God.” Sure, we have to pay taxes. But we're doing it with God's coin. We are paying God's taxes with God's coins. And Caesar gets to play the middle man while he lives. Think about all this is terms of grace: God created us to be perfect as He is perfect. We do this by choosing to participate in His divine life. But the ability to choose to participate is itself a gift from God. When we fail to participate fully, He gives us the gifts we need to get back on track. Even the ability to receive and use these gifts is a gift. It all belongs to God. Opting out of this economy of divine love is a possibility. Love after all entails freedom. But there are consequences to opting out like there are consequences to not paying taxes. Namely, we free ourselves from the every source of our creation and our re-creation in Christ. We set ourselves outside the divine economy, refusing to reap its benefits – now and forever. But even then, it all belongs to God. All we've done is fail to love God. He still loves us. And he will honor our choice not to love Him. We belong to Him. He doesn't belong to us.

Follow HancAquam or Subscribe ----->

Blessed are those who reveal the Word

St. Charles Lwanga

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Celebrating a martyr's death challenges us to put Christ first. By “first” I mean over all, under all, around all, and through all. The martyrs held on to Christ in the face of persecution and death not b/c they hoped to be rewarded in heaven, but b/c they themselves were Christ to the limits of their capacity to be Christ. They could no more deny Christ than they could deny themselves. To do so would've been a lie. When Jesus preaches his Sermon on the Mount, he is laying out for us what being Christ in the world looks like. Seen up close, it looks like poverty, suffering, loss, and immeasurable joy. Seen from a distance, it looks like detachment from passing things and attachment to all that endures. Detaching from the temporary and attaching to the permanent inevitably brings the kind of loss and suffering that only wayfarers encounter. We are on our way along the Way and leaving behind anything and anyone who will not follow causes us grief. That grief is cured in knowing that we are walking toward Christ and that those we've left behind are as free as we are to follow along. If we've done our job faithfully, they will see what we see and hear what we hear and know that nothing in this world can bring them enduring happiness. Blessed are those who bear witness to the mercy of God and blessed are those who reveal the Word of God to those who think themselves unworthy of His love.   

Follow HancAquam or Subscribe ----->