Tuesday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time
Today’s Gospel reading is a familiar one. The Pharisees and Herodians are trying to trap Jesus by asking him a difficult question: is it right or wrong to pay taxes? In our minds, paying taxes doesn’t seem like such a controversial thing at its core. But for Jesus’ time, paying taxes actually meant giving money to the Roman state, who understood their leader to be divine. The trap, then, is to get Jesus to either encourage sedition (don’t pay taxes) or get him to sanction idolatry (pay taxes).
Jesus’ answer surprises the crowd. He answers with a famous line, “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” In just one sentence, Jesus both recognizes the authority of God and the insufficiency of Rome’s empire, without directly encouraging rebellion. This story is often used to support the American notion of the separation of church and state, which is one way to read the story, if a bit anachronistic. I think the deeper meaning of Jesus’ words has to do with attachment.
I hear in Jesus’ answer that the way of justice demands a reconfiguring of our priorities. The money—a denarius, in this case—belongs to the Empire, and carries with it the flaws of Rome. To repay to God what belongs to God is an interesting comment in this context, given that from a Jewish perspective, all of creation—including us and all we produce—actually belongs to God. Jesus’ challenge is to detach oneself from worldly possessions, knowing that they have their place. Ultimately, however, our entire lives belong to God. This is the mindset which correctly aligns all of our loves and our desires back toward God.
Katherine Schmidt