What Belongs to God
(Isa.45:1,4-6; 1Thess.1:1-5b; Mt.22:15-21)
In 258AD, a terrifying wave of Christian persecution was unleashed across Rome. Pope Sixtus II was executed, and Lawrence, his young archdeacon, was left to run the Church.
The Roman Prefect had heard of vast Christian treasure and demanded that Lawrence hand it over. Lawrence agreed, but needed three days to arrange it. In that time, he quietly gave whatever the Church had to the poor, and when the prefect returned, Lawrence presented all the poor and broken people he had gathered from around the city. ‘These are the true treasures of the Church,’ he said. The prefect was livid, and had him executed on a fiery gridiron.
St Lawrence’s courage all those years ago helps us understand what Jesus is saying in Matthew’s Gospel today.
Some Jewish leaders try to trap Jesus by asking him a loaded question about the Roman census tax: ‘Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?’ they ask. They think that whatever answer Jesus gives will be wrong. If he supports the tax, it will anger the Jews, and if he opposes the tax, it will anger the Romans. But Jesus knows what’s going on.
He asks them to show him the coin used to pay the tax. They hand him a denarius. One side bears an image of the emperor, with the inscription ‘Tiberius Caesar Augustus, son of the divine Augustus’. The other side says ‘Pontifex Maximus’, or supreme priest. In other words, this coin claims that Caesar is a god.
The Jewish leaders have embarrassed themselves because they have broken the first commandment. Here they are in the Temple, the holiest of all Jewish places, holding a coin that bears a graven image. ‘Whose image is this and whose inscription?’ Jesus asks.
They sheepishly reply, ‘Caesar’s.’ Then Jesus says, ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give to God what is God’s.’
Because Caesar’s image is stamped on that coin, Jesus is saying that it ultimately belongs to him. And by saying ‘give to Caesar what is Caesar’s,’ he is telling them to be good, responsible citizens. They must play their part and pay their dues.
But he is also subtly reminding them that God’s image is stamped on their hearts and lives, for we have all been made in God’s image and likeness (Gen.1:27). So, by telling them to ‘give to God what is God’s,’ Jesus is reminding us that we all belong to him.
Caesar, therefore, can claim your taxes and your civil obedience, but he cannot claim your soul because we all belong to God.
St Lawrence understood this. To the Roman Prefect, those poor and broken citizens were worthless. But to Lawrence, they were precious because they bore the indelible watermark of the King of Kings.
Today, the modern ‘Caesars’ of our world are still trying to stamp their image on us. They’d love to own and control us. They measure our value by our economic worth, our political choices, and our social status. That’s why we’re all being pressured to keep accumulating the coins of comfort, security, and prestige.
But right now, Jesus is reminding us that at our Baptism, the sign of the Cross was traced upon our foreheads, sealing us as God’s sons and daughters. So, we belong to him. But how do we give to God what belongs to God?
In her autobiography, St Thérèse of Lisieux says that when she was small, her older sister Léonie decided she was too old to play with dolls. So, she filled a basket with doll clothes, colourful ribbons, and materials and offered them to Thérèse and her sister Céline. ‘Choose whatever you want,’ Léonie said.
Céline took a ball of silk braid, but little Thérèse declared, ‘I choose everything!’ and took the whole basket.
Reflecting on this later, Thérèse realised that this action characterised her whole life. She wrote that God does not want us to pick and choose small pieces of ourselves to give him. That’s why she decided, ‘I don’t want to be a saint by halves. I choose everything God gives me!’
When Jesus tells us to give to God what belongs to God, he’s not asking us to give little bits of our time here, or a few leftover coins there. He’s not asking us to be a saint ‘by halves.’ [i]
Because we are made in God’s image, our entire selves belong to him. Like young St Thérèse, God looks at our hearts, our worries, and our hopes and says, ‘I want the lot.’
This week, let’s live as responsible citizens, playing our part and paying our dues. But let’s also remember that God wants our all.
Let’s offer the whole basket of our lives to Jesus.
[i] Therese of Lisieux, The Story of a Soul, Source Books, Trubaco Canyon, CA, 2002, 28.