The Earth is the Lord's, and Its Fullness (Sunday, Week 29, Year A)

The event of our gospel text (cf. Matt. 22:15-21) happened during the last week of Jesus before His passion and death. Jesus was already in Jerusalem for the feast of Passover. In Jerusalem, the Pharisees, the chief priests, the Sadducees, the Scribes, the elders, the Herodians and the likes were present for the feast. These were people of different ideologies, different beliefs, and different political leanings and so on. But one thing united them all: Their hatred for Jesus! Jesus being in Jerusalem was a big opportunity for them to team up and destroy Him. The carcass has arrived and the vultures have assembled. In today’s gospel reading, we have to note that the two groups of people (Pharisees and the Herodians), who came to Jesus to ask a question about payment of taxes, actually came not just to learn but to entangle Jesus in his talk, to put Him in a difficult situation. It is not as if they did not know the truth; they knew the truth. They knew the right thing to be done as regards payment of taxes and other civil responsibilities. 

The Herodians who were members of Herod’s party were in support of the Roman Empire’s right to tax the Jews. Pharisees, on the other hand, opposed the tax but paid it anyway in order to avoid political confrontation with Rome. No matter how Jesus answered the question, he would end up alienating one of the groups. So, foreseeing the difficult that Jesus would face, they teamed up and came up with this question in order to entangle him in his words. If Jesus had directly said, “Oh, it is good to pay taxes to Caesar”, the Pharisees would have felt alienated and would have thought that Jesus obviously belonged to the camp of the Herodians. If Jesus had said, “Oh, it is very bad to pay taxes to Caesar”, the Herodians would have felt alienated and would have regarded Jesus as the enemy of the Roman State.

Those naysayers, critics and haters arose to test Jesus in order to tarnish His image and dent His reputation. But that was another opportunity for Jesus to shine and prove to them that He is impeccable and faultless. We didn’t hear that Jesus began to exchange words with them or call them names. We didn’t hear Jesus say, “Haters, go and die” as many of us do on social media. They came to cause “darkness” but Jesus as light shone more brightly, driving away the darkness of their evil intention.   

In His wisdom, Jesus said to them (the Pharisees and Herodians), “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar; and to God what belongs to God”. This is one of the most misunderstood, most interpreted and most wrongly applied statements of the scriptures. On the surface of that statement, it may appear as if Jesus has created a distinction between God and worldly affairs, as if God has no business with the world. Some have used this statement to make a case for the separation of the Church from the state. But at the deeper level, we have a truth very clear for us to see. Psalm 24:1 says that “the earth and its fullness belong to God”. In other words even Casear himself belongs to God: so whatever that belongs to Caesar, even his authority, belongs to God (cf. Rom. 13:1). At the end of the day, what Jesus is saying in essence is that everything belongs to God and we must not, in our thinking, separate God from the universe which He created. God is actively and totally involved in the unfolding of history. Nothing happens outside His plan. He guides history so that everything will lead to the happiness of His people. This knowledge should create in us some awareness that every one of us has a role to play in the divinely controlled history of the universe.

Many people don’t want to get involved in politics because of the feeling and belief that Christians should have nothing to do with politics. Many don’t want to obey the just laws of the state, thinking that as Christians they have no business with politics. But we want things to be better. How is that going to happen if we do not get involved? How can a pot of soup taste better if salt is not added to it? The Bible has made it abundantly clear that we are the salt of the earth. It didn’t say that we are the salt of heaven. We don’t want the salt (which we are) to do its work of salting, purifying and preserving the earth and its affairs (not excluding politics). Many people say that politics is dirty. That is well understood. But do we want it to remain dirty? We cleanse the dirty linens of politics by getting involved in politics. We have a dual citizenship: we are citizens of heaven and earth. In reality, we live on earth; potentially, we advance to heaven. God wants to purify the world which He created. God needs you and me in order to achieve His target. Please, get involved. If we do not get involved, terrible policies will always be made: policies which will affect us very negatively.

God is actively involved in the business of politics and so we must be part of it. In order to bring about the liberation of His people from exile, He raised up a King called Cyrus (cf. Isa. 45:1, 4-6). Cyrus was a Persian, a pagan, a man outside the circle of the so-called “God’s Chosen Ones”. But God chose him to show us that He is at the vanguard of history. God initiates events, appoints kings and sets up worldly powers so that everything will lead to the happiness of His people. God created government in order to establish order and promote justice and peace (cf. Gen. 9:6; 1 Cor. 14:33; Rom. 12:8). As children of God, we have a role to play in politics and governance: obeying civil leaders; keeping the just laws of the state; paying taxes; using our gifts and talents for the good of the state, and so on. However, if the laws and policies of the state contradict the laws of God, we have a moral duty to disobey and protest for the repeal of such laws and policies. When the apostles were brought before the Jewish council for preaching in the name of Christ, Peter boldly told the council, “We must obey God rather than human authority” (Acts 5:29). Let us become more active in this divine project of establishing a just, peaceful and better world.