In today’s Gospel, Jesus is put between a rock and a hard place. He is asked…Do you agree that paying the Census tax to Caesar is lawful? Seems like a yes or no question, right? But he is asked this with malice by two groups with different views. The Pharisees and the Herodians, are enemies and only come together to try and trap Jesus into an answer. If he answers yes, he angers the Pharisees who do not want the tax and if he answers no, then the Herodians and the Roman authorities come after him.
However, Jesus is not fooled by their hatefulness and gives them an ambiguous answer basically saying, give back what is Caesar’s and give to God what belongs to God. This might be difficult to decipher. What is Jesus saying exactly? We need to have civil rights to society but also our loyalty to our God? Two different obligations, that should be kept completely distinct.
So, where is our allegiance? Our heart and soul belong to God. Yet we live a life of competing powers and influences trying to sway us, capture our hearts. We are in a constant struggle with outside influences competing with our loyalty to God. Navigating through all these struggles is not easy and we must seek God’s Wisdom and Grace to put us on the righteous path of following the Gospel in a world full of obstacles and others with different views on the same issue.
In Peace,