29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
Preached at the Church of the Assumption in Bellingham, WA
Previous Years: 2017
Recording
https://moorejesus.podbean.com/e/render-all-to-god/
Written Text
As Americans, we read this Gospel and we immediately think that we get it. “Oh, this is Jesus establishing the separation of Church and state, as later enshrined in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights.” But this interpretation has two flaws. First, do we really think that every Christian from 33 AD until 1789 AD ignored these words of Christ until the American Founding Fathers, who were mostly Enlightenment Deists, finally rediscovered them? Second, and more troubling, when Jesus says “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and render unto God what is God’s,” do we really think that there is some aspect of human life that the Lord does not consider to belong to God? Classically, Christianity says that everything good belongs to God, so logically the only things one would not be rendering unto God would be the evils and corruptions of this world.
This point is further emphasized by the first reading the Church chose to pair with this Gospel. God says to Cyrus, the non-Israelite king of Persia, “I have called you by your name, giving you a title, though you knew me not. […] It is I who arm you, though you know me not, so that toward the rising and the setting of the sun people may know that there is none besides me. I am the LORD, there is no other.” Which is to say, that even the Caesar of the time was told to render to God all credit for his success and power.
Notice, then, how brilliant Jesus’ answer is to the trap laid for him by the Pharisees and Herodians. For the Roman authorities, who would have arrested or killed Jesus for preaching against paying taxes to the empire, his response is satisfactory; but this is only because these Romans do not believe that everything belongs to a singular creator God. But a religious Jew would have known that everything belongs to God, and would have concluded that Caesar deserves no respect if he operates apart from the Lord. Jesus brilliantly gives an answer that means one thing to those whose god is secular power, but which means a very different thing to those whose God is the Creator of all.
Finally, notice who is asking this question: the Pharisees and the Herodians. Based on everything we know historically about these two groups, they have no common beliefs – the Pharisees advocated for a very strict interpretation of the Jewish Law amongst the people of Israel, including the restoration of the Davidic kingship, while the Herodians supported King Herod the Great and his successors, who were not particularly observant Jews and who definitely were not in the line of King David. These groups only have two things in common: First, that they were in power at the time, with the Herodians allied with a reigning king and the Pharisees being the most popular and influential religious leaders of the people; and second, that Jesus was a threat to their power.
Now, how do we apply this Gospel to ourselves, as modern-day Americans? Where might we see two tribalistic groups who are so addicted to their power that one of the rare times they team up is to attack Jesus and the role of religion in public life? Oh right, those would be our two political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans.
My friends, I would argue that we have deeply misunderstood the Lord in this Gospel passage, and we have believed the lie that our religious lives should be kept private while our political lives are allowed to be public. That we can only render to God what happens within the walls of our homes and the walls of our churches, while we can render unto Caesar our votes, our advocacy, our bumper stickers, our internet bubbles, and our chosen communities. But this is a lie – you cannot separate public and private. You cannot separate religious and secular. Everything belongs to God and everything must be rendered to him.
I understand that we live in a secular democracy, and I am not advocating here for a theocracy, though that is only because faith must be freely chosen for it to have merit, not because I think secularism is morally superior. But let me put the question to you this way: to whom does your mind belong? Every political decision is based on a set of values and moral beliefs. Who do you allow to shape your values and beliefs? To whom do you render your time, your learning, and your moral formation? To whom do you render your loyalty?
I would argue that nearly every American, Democrat and Republican, has allowed their political party to shape their hearts and minds far more than their church. We, as a society, have rendered the most important parts of ourselves to Caesar and not to God.
And we can see this in those places where the political parties have greatly changed their opinions over the last 20 or more years. Americans start close together and then diverge along political lines, it is a strong sign that they are being pulled in a specific direction by their political loyalties.
Amongst the Democrats, this is nowhere more obvious than with abortion. Gallup asked the question “Under what circumstances should abortion be legal?” In 1975, Republicans and Democrats had nearly identical views on abortion with, for example, 18% of Republicans and 19% of Democrats saying that abortion should be legal under any circumstance, up until the moment of birth. Today that number is 8% for Republicans and 60% for Democrats.1 Can we deny that the political parties have influence here? Can we deny that the Democratic party has made abortion more and more central to its identity as a party, and that this has had a strong influence on its people? Fine, let the parties stake out their positions. But can we deny that many Catholic Democrats have followed their party on this issue, rather than their Church, rendering their minds and their loyalties to Caesar, rather than to God?
Amongst the Republicans, this loyalty to Caesar can be seen in a constellation of three different issues: immigration, the environment, and the death penalty. With the death penalty, 82% of Republicans consider it moral, compared to 40% of Democrats.2 With the environment, asked whether the protection of the environment should be given priority, even if it curbed economic growth, both parties held similar views in 1984, with 58% of Republicans and 62% of Democrats favoring the environment. But today that number is 78% for Democrats (a 16-point increase) but only 20% for Republicans (a 38-point decrease).3 With immigration, the parties were relatively similar in 2001, with 37% of Democrats and 42% of Republicans desiring less immigration to the United States. Today, however, those numbers are 17% of Democrats (a 20-point decrease) and 69% of Republicans (a 27-point increase) wanting fewer immigrants to this country.4,5
Now, the Republicans will argue, and they are right, that these are all prudential issues, rather than dogmatic issues, and that Catholics are allowed to hold divergent views on political solutions to them. Yes, true. However, it is the pattern that is the problem. The last three popes have all held that the death penalty is no longer necessary for defense of life in developed countries. Pope Francis has published two full encyclicals on the environment. And it seems that every other homily this current pope gives is about the need to look after migrants and refugees with compassion. The Republican Party’s long-term loyalty to the death penalty, more recent trend towards denying climate change, and absolute insistence on painting immigrants as criminals rather than poor people in need has caused many Catholic Republicans to diverge from their Church on these issues. Breaking with the Church on one debatable issue, maybe. But breaking with the Church on all of them? That is a pattern. Again, where do our loyalties lie? Are we rendering our minds and our hearts unto Caesar or unto God?
My brothers and sisters in Christ, it is important to engage with our faith. I am not pushing blind loyalty for loyalty’s sake. But we all need to take a very critical look at who we are allowing to influence us. Do we spend as much time listening to the Catechism in a Year as we do watching CNN or Fox News? Are we following the homilies and letters of Pope Francis and Archbishop Etienne as closely as we follow the Tweets of Joe Biden and Donald Trump?
Be honest, how much of yourself have you repaid to Caesar this year, and how much have you repaid to God?
[End note: I had originally included same-sex marriage as a critique of the Democrats. While it is true that they have had MORE of an influence on their people, the overall movement of American society seems to be more at fault there than one political party. I’ve included the numbers here to show why I changed the homily between Saturday and Sunday.]
The trends for same-sex marriage are similar, though not as strong. Asked about the legality of same-sex marriage, in 1996 only 27% of Americans said it should be legal. Today that number is 71%. While support has increased amongst all Americans, Republican support has increased by 33 percentage points in 27 years, while Democratic support has increased by 51 percentage points.6,7,8,9
- https://news.gallup.com/poll/246278/abortion-trends-party.aspx ↩︎
- https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx ↩︎
- https://news.gallup.com/poll/474218/record-party-gap-environment-economic-growth-tradeoff.aspx ↩︎
- https://news.gallup.com/poll/395882/immigration-views-remain-mixed-highly-partisan.aspx ↩︎
- https://news.gallup.com/poll/470426/americans-showing-increased-concern-immigration.aspx ↩︎
- https://news.gallup.com/poll/506636/sex-marriage-support-holds-high.aspx ↩︎
- https://news.gallup.com/poll/234866/two-three-americans-support-sex-marriage.aspx ↩︎
- Also of interest: https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx ↩︎
- For Catholics specifically: https://news.gallup.com/poll/322805/catholics-backed-sex-marriage-2011.aspx ↩︎
Fr. Moore 