29th Sunday 2020
Isaiah 45:1,4-6; I Thess 1:1-5; Matthew 22:15-21
If, like last Sunday, today’s readings are a jigsaw, they are a jigsaw whose pieces are well and truly scattered. It will be quite a task to fit them together.
Let’s begin with the prophet whom we call Deutero-Isaiah or Second Isaiah, who was active during and after the return of the Jewish people from exile in Babylon.
Many many moons ago, when I was a bright and shiny new priest, I had the task of teaching Ancient History to gangs of hulking Sixth Formers. The Greek History component of the course was entitled “Herodotus and the conflict of Greece and Persia”, and there was often a question on the A Level paper along the lines of “What evidence is there, apart from Herodotus, for the events of this period?”
One important piece of evidence, as I used to remind the lads, was this passage from Deutero-Isaiah. Cyrus was a king of Persia (so a baddie in the eyes of the Greeks) who conquered Babylon in 538 BC, and allowed the Jewish exiles to return to their homeland. So this earthy ruler, a villain to the Greeks, was a hero to the Jews, who saw him as an instrument in God’s hands, carrying out God’s purposes even though he wasn’t aware of it. Indeed, the prophet goes so far as to call him the Lord’s anointed—in other words, His Messiah or Christ.
This is a remarkable title to apply to a pagan king, but it underlines God’s control over the whole universe. Even a powerful ruler, who has no knowledge of the one true God, may be fulfilling God’s purposes.
Here we have a link, albeit somewhat tenuous, a piece of the jigsaw which has to be forced into place, with the Gospel. There the Pharisees, and the adherents of Herod Agrippa (son of Herod the Great) are attempting to catch Our Lord out.
They do this via a question about paying taxes to the occupying Romans. It was an attempted Catch 22. If Jesus agreed that the tax was lawful, He could be denounced as a traitor to His own people, not least because the coinage in which the tax was paid, carried a reference to the Roman Emperor as a god. If, on the other hand, He rejected the lawfulness of the tax, He could be reported to the Romans as a rebel.
Our Lord’s solution to this dilemma is, I think, sometimes misinterpreted. He throws the question back at His interlocutors by asking them, effectively, to whom the coin belongs. As it bears the Emperor’s inscription, it presumably belongs to the Emperor, and may, and should, be returned to him. The response which Jesus gives—“Render to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s”—have sometimes been taken to mean that there are some things which are reserved to earthly powers, and are no business of the Church, but this is to ignore His conclusion “and to God what belongs to God”.
In fact, everything belongs to God, as our reading from Deutero-Isaiah indicated. Cyrus was doing God’s will, even though he was unaware of it, because God is the Lord of all., Similarly, the Roman Emperor belongs to God and is ultimately answerable to God, as are today’s rulers, whether they recognise God or deny Him or, like some, attempt to use Him for their own ends.
Consequently, the behaviour of rulers and governments is a legitimate concern of the Church, which must always advocate justice, as successive Popes have done, through Catholic social teaching, and as the present Holy Father is doing through prophetic documents such as Laudato Si and Fratelli Tutti.
It must beware however of being sucked into partisan politics, about which I will say no more.
Finally, there are two sets of three phrases each from St. Paul which we would do well to take away and ponder: “shown your faith in action, worked for love, and persevered in hope” and “the Good News came to you....as power, and as the Holy Spirit, and as utter conviction”.
