Memorial of Saint Boniface, Bishop and Martyr
The closing line of the text from Mark today raises very challenging questions for us. Namely, what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God. As to the first question, I am not altogether sure. If we take Caesar to mean the state, then I know we owe the state our taxes so that it can do the things it’s supposed to do like pave our roads, pay firefighters, and provide a safety net. But as Christians do we owe the state more than that? In the US, we might say that as Christians we owe the state loyalty to its founding principles of freedom for all and Today, I want to focus on the second question because I think that is the one that Jesus was probably most interested in.
So, what of ours belongs to God?
For starters, we know that our possessions belong to God because they come from God. All that we have comes from God. This is why we bring gifts to the alter and tithe. We want to make concrete in our regular practice what we know is true. It is right to return a portion of what we have to God because it is God’s to begin with and is to be used for others.
But what else? What else belongs to God? Surely, our loyalty to God. And if by bringing our gifts and by tithing we show God that we know that all that we have comes from God, then what do we do to show that we are loyal to God? That we are God’s?
God asks one thing of us—that we love our neighbor as ourselves.
- Sue Trollinger