Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time A
Two
well-worn bills arrived at the Federal Reserve to be retired:
a
twenty and a one dollar bill.
As
they traveled together down the conveyor belt,
they
struck up a conversation.
The
twenty reminisced about
what
an interesting and exciting life he’d had,
traveling
all over the country.
“I’ve
been to the finest restaurants, Broadway shows,
Hollywood
and Las Vegas,” he said.
“I
even went on a lovely Caribbean cruise.
Where
have you been?”
“Oh,”
said the dollar bill, “I’ve been to the Catholic church,
the
Methodist church, the Baptist church, the Episcopal church…”
Repay to Caesar what belongs
to Caesar,
and to God what belongs to
God.
Jesus
asks those trying to trap him
if
he might see a Roman coin—
cleverly
proving that he doesn’t carry any,
but
that the holier-than-thou Pharisees sure do.
(They
may not want to pay taxes to a pagan government,
but
its money isn’t so tainted
that
they won’t carry some of it around in their pockets.)
The
coinage bore the emperor’s likeness
much
like our American currency is marked
with
portraits of presidents and patriots
and
the signature of
the Secretary of the Treasury.
But
there’s an important difference
between
a U.S. dollar and a Roman denarius:
the
emperor, right there on the coin,
claimed to be divine.
What
we have here is not a conflict
between Church and state,
but
between the true God and a false one.
“Whose
image is this?” Jesus asks.
You
won’t find him asking for a Jewish coin
to
hold up alongside the Roman one—
a depiction
of the heavenly Lord of Hosts
to
contrast with the picture
of an earthly emperor.
No—on
their money as on anything else,
Jewish
law strictly forbade making any image of God.
Why?
Because
a sharper image of God could be found elsewhere:
not
carved into statues or painted on canvases
or minted
as spare change,
but
in human beings themselves.
As
God says on the sixth day in Genesis:
“Let us make man in our
image, after our likeness.”
God then looked at what he
had made,
and he found it very good (1:26, 31).
This
deeply embedded faith of the Jewish people
was
quite the opposite of the idolatry that surrounded them:
instead
of creating gods that resembled human beings,
they
believed in a Creator who made human beings
so
that they would resemble God.
That’s
a faith, of course, which would be perfectly fulfilled
when
the Word became flesh, when God became man.
From
the very beginning,
God
had been modeling the human race on Christ. (cf. J. Lienhard)
Jesus’
teaching here is thus not so much
about
taxation or the interplay of politics and religion;
it’s
about belonging.
These coins bear the image
of the emperor;
give him all the coins he wants;
they belong to the emperor.
they belong to the emperor.
But you have been created in
the likeness of God;
give him your heart and mind, your body and soul,
your energy and resources—your entire self;
you belong to God.
As
it is with money,
to
whom we belong determines what we’re worth.
A
woman who had suffered long and intensely
once
approached her pastor and said through her tears,
“I
have come to realize that I’m like an old twenty-dollar bill:
crumpled,
torn, and dirty, scarred and abused.
But
I’m still a twenty-dollar bill.
I
am worth something.
Even
though I may not look like much,
and
even though I’ve been battered and used,
I
am still worth the full twenty bucks.”
I’m
thoroughly convinced
that
all the hurtful things done in the world today
are
done because people don’t recognize
this
innate, God-given dignity:
their
own, or anybody else’s.
And
that’s why, on this World Mission Sunday,
we
must recognize the urgent need to spread this Good News.
We
are living in mission territory!
We desperately
need to help people—starting here and now—
to
see their true dignity:
that
they’re worth something;
that
they’re worth everything—genuinely priceless, in fact.
And
that this immense value of theirs doesn’t come
from
what they own, or who they know,
or
the things they might be able to accomplish.
They
are worth something
because
God has grasped them by the hand, called them by name,
given
them a title—even if they know it not.
They
have a Father who has chosen them because he loves them.
They
have been marked as God’s own
simply
by being formed in the likeness of his Son.
And
if they receive Baptism,
and
if they endure in faith, in hope, and in charity,
then
that image can be restored to its original glory.
But
if we’re ever going to help anybody else
to
believe this astoundingly good news,
we
must first believe it ourselves.
Do
I belong to God?
Have
I given my whole life to him, or only certain portions of it?
Do
I recognize God’s image in me?
When
I look in the mirror, do I see the likeness of Christ?
Do
I believe that God made me, made me out of love,
made
me for a specific purpose in his plan,
and
made me good—very good?
Can
I see my true dignity?
That
real value comes not
from
power or popularity or possessions?
That
every person I meet is a priceless treasure?
You
are worth so much more
than
any pile of coins or stack of bills.
Give to the Lord the glory
due his name!
Repay to God what belongs to
God.
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