Homily for the Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

“Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things

that are God’s.”

Those words of Our Lord are a bit like the apparently misquoted words of St

Thomas More: “I am the king’s good servant, and God’s first”. Our service to

God and our service to the state, to our country, and our fellow human beings

all have their place. If I can introduce yet another expression, “Good fences

make for good neighbours”. When everyone respects each other and doesn’t

tread on others’ toes, things go well. But where do the boundaries actually lie?

That’s a bit of what is behind today’s question.

Of course, the question was chosen because it was thought it would be a

difficult one to answer: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” Now

today, people don’t like paying taxes because it means they have less money for

other things. There are legitimate means of avoiding paying tax, such as

putting your savings in an ISA, and then there are illegitimate means, called tax

evasion, such as hiding some of your income from the tax man. But the

resentment at the time was because Israel was an invaded country. Caesar was

not of King David’s descent and line, nor king of Jerusalem. Israel was

supposed to be free, God’s own country (Yorkshire probably hadn’t been

invented back then). America hadn’t been invented either, but Israel was

supposed to be one nation under God. But instead it was ruled by a pagan

emperor who had various puppet kings in charge of the local area.

For Our Lord to answer the question was therefore a hot-button topic. The

Pharisees, and most of the population in general, would have wanted Christ to

say that taxes were illegitimate and against the will of God. But the Herodians

were loyal to Herod and would have reported Him if there was any trace of

rebellion in His words. And Christ realises there is something more important

than just money. Yes, the government can legitimately ask for taxes in order to

run public services, but what about our duty to God? “Therefore render to

Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

Caesar can have our tax money, but God demands our love and commitment,

and on His terms, not as it suits us. The Ten Commandments set out our duties

to God and to our neighbour, and keep us safe from narrow selfish self-interest.

If the Ten Commandments apply to us, they also apply to the state. The state

has to avoid interfering in what is not its business, whether that concerns family

life or religious life. The family existed long before the state came into being,

and the state can’t take over the running of the family, nor of the Church.

Meanwhile the Church can’t turn itself into a political party and decide the

state’s doing such a bad job of things that it’s time the Church ran the country

for once. A priest was once told that he was a good person, upright, impartial

and so on: why don’t you put yourself for public office? He replied that his

domain is the spiritual. It’s for others to put themselves forward to run the

council.

In this country, we don’t have a strict separation of Church and state, as say in

France or America. In France, if you want to get married, you have to get

married separately before the state, and then if you are a Catholic, before the

Church. In this country, we can have a wedding in church and I act on behalf

of both the Church and the state. The wedding is valid according to the

Catholic Church and the state, and then, at the end of the wedding, we can all

sign the legal paperwork. Similarly, all of us here belong both to the Church

and the state, in different ways. As long as we are a citizen, we can all take part

in the political process – being a Catholic doesn’t exclude you from

participating in a democracy, and Pope Leo, in his recent visit to France, was

saying to Catholics that when they leave the church door, they take their faith

with them into the world – we don’t leave our faith behind and pretend to be an

atheist. But we might need to think through some of our ideas and what the

best ways are to explain them to others. Our faith and morals are rational –

they make logical sense, although at times it might take a bit of effort and

education to find out how to counter other people’s claims. The recent Assisted

Dying Bill has been a case in point – Dame Esther Rantzen, God rest her soul,

was implying that all opposition was purely down to religious dogma, but we

together with other people of different and no religion showed there are good

rational reasons not to go ahead with the law that was proposed.

“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are

God’s.” Both Church and state have legitimate claims on us. We are the king’s

good servant, and God’s first, and we recognise that good fences make for good

neighbours.

Curious about exploring things further?  If you would like to ask further questions about the topics raised in these homilies (or maybe think it wasn’t explained too well!), please feel free to e-mail Fr Michael at stjoseph.thame@rcaob.org.uk