Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time
I find today’s first reading about Cyrus the Persian king and gospel story about ‘giving to God what belongs to God,’ very intriguing. In a strange way, these stories - separated by more than six hundred years - are integrally connected. Cyrus defeated the Babylonians and after ascending the throne he ended the Babylonian exile of the people of Israel. He set them free to go back to Judah. However, it is the way that Isaiah reflects upon this event that should draw our attention. Isaiah calls Cyrus (even though Cyrus is not a Hebrew), God’s “anointed one.” He is the only one outside the Hebrew people that is considered anointed by God. Moreover, God says to Cyrus, “I have called you by your name, giving you a title, though you knew me not” (Is 45). The impression we get is of a God who directs history. Yes, there are human beings invested with power and authority but is God who ultimately directs the events of the world. It is here that we find our connection with the gospel reading. Caesar may be the Roman Emperor and what is due to him is his petty little coin. So give to Caesar what belong to him. But the human person, human life, human history, human destiny, belongs to God. So give to God what belong to God, which includes the world and all in it, including Caesar. In the strangest way, in the death of Jesus even the mighty Roman Empire would be accomplishing God’s plan of salvation.
Let me offer three practical implications of the readings for today.
1.Giving to God what Belongs to God in My Life. For a moment I would like us to consider the totality of our human existence. Each of us is an individual person. But then there are also extensions of us – family, friends, work, and everything else that helps us to live meaningful lives. Are all these things pure chance? And then there is the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, our activities and our leisure; every breath we take and every move we make. Who do we attribute these to? If as today’s scripture says, God is indeed the one who directs human life and history then the totality of our existence is God’s gift to us. Even those things that we may have accomplished through sheer hard work are gifts from God. Here is an exercise for you and me this week. Become aware of something that is very personal to you – family, finances, sexuality, relationships, career. Now, what would it mean for you to put each of these realities completely into God’s hands? Would we conduct our lives differently? Would we spend money differently, approach sexuality differently, treat people differently, care for the earth differently, treat ourselves differently, if we consider them all gifts from God? If our answer is, “Yes,” then we have some work ahead of us.
2. Giving to God what Belongs to God in Others. For a moment I want to talk about the coin and the image of Caesar upon it. As Caesar did, human beings can also create things and put their image upon them. But the human person – the human person is made in the image and likeness of God. It is God’s image that is imprinted upon each one of us. Sometimes we can put our imprint even on the human person. We do this when we assign dignity to the human person based on their wealth, power and status. Does not society treat people differently by what they own rather than who they are? So for example, when the two nurses who cared for Thomas Duncan got infected with the Ebola virus, the ‘power-that-be’ excused themselves and put the blame on the first-line caregivers. Does, wealth, power and status give people the right to victimize others? Do you know that today economic inequality in the United States is the widest in the last hundred years? Should it not be the other way around? Why are we still battling racial prejudices? Why can we take innocent lives and still call it a human right? Why do we still tolerate lower wages for women for preforming the same task? Last month, I was talking to a high school kid in turmoil because she finds herself attracted to her own gender. She said to me, “I prayed to God for two years that my feelings would go away but it did not.” She also said that God her rejected her. I promised her that as a Catholic priest, I will not deny her, her God-given dignity. I tried to tell her that God loves her, but I do not think she believed me. She has stopped going to church. What does it mean for us as a church to give her, her God-given human dignity? Or will we imprint our image on her?
3. The Eucharist: giving to God what belongs to God. In my third point, I want to integrally connect today’s readings to the Eucharist. When the bread and wine is brought up at the offertory, the celebrant prays: “Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the bread [wine] we offer you: fruit of the earth [vine] and work of human hands, it will become for us the bread of life [our spiritual drink].” In reality, the bread and wine symbolize the totality of all that God has given us. We would not have bread and wine if God did not give us the earth, the sun, the rain, and the air. In some way, the entire universe is represented in the bread and wine. But the bread and wine are also the work of ‘human hands’. The farmer, the sower, the machines, the people who run the machines, and the people who work in the winery - this is all human work. In the Eucharist we offer them to God, who gave it to us in the first place. God accepts this bread and wine and gives it back to us as God’s most holy and real presence. Today I am inviting you to put your life in its entirety into the paten and the chalice - your breath, your life, your being, your family, your finances, your relationships, your talents, your prayers. If we can put it all in God’s hands, God will only bless, make it holy, and give it back to us. Let us give to God what belongs to God.
All that we have and all that we are, let us offer to God; because God directs our lives and our destiny. Amen.
- Fr. Satish Joseph