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Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time A
October 16, 2011
Reading I: Isaiah 45:1, 4-6
Responsorial Psalm: Ps 96:1, 3, 4-5, 7-8, 9-10
Reading II: 1 Thessalonians 1:1-5b
Gospel: Matthew 22:15-21
Another deceptively simple passage of the gospel. At first, the feeling: "Weve heard it all before. What more can be said." But the puzzle draws you in. As with any particular gospel anecdote, by the time it became part of the common collection of stories about Jesus it had to have some worth-while content. Moreso if it was considered worthy of a place in the written collection.
So Jesus is not just giving a sharp answer to the Pharisees in a striking, concise formula. He did not come to teach the obvious. There must be an important message here. To Caesar what belongs to Caesar; to God what belongs to God...
I wonder does it bear on that contentious topic, the separation of Church and State. Is Jesus setting down a principle that should guide the conduct of his followers, pointing to a problem area that very few would ever see? Something like: Keep them separate. Do not entangle religion with the affairs of the State. And as leaders in the kingdom of God do not impose your authority on the civic leaders of the community.
In ancient times Egypt, Bablylon and Rome all mingled religion with their civic administration.It was probably one of the most effective means of controlling the populace. In Israel the Lord was king, so the Pharisees could sincerely ask whether it was lawful to pay tribute to the occupying Caesar.
Four centuries later, when the emperor Constantine declared Christianity to be the religion of the empire and after he moved the centre of his administration to Constantinople, the popes found themselves frequently having to intervene to maintain law and order in the western half . This involvement of the Church in the affairs of States continued for 1500 years or more ande has produced some deeply embedded attitudes and assumptions that persist to the present time, to the extent that the separation of Church and State is a contentious issue in many countries.
It is easy to get a lot of information about the separation of Church and State, but after a quick survey I realised that I knew very little about the issue, After 30 years as a priest that comes as a bit of a shock. However, I suspect I am not alone in this. Embedded in the psyche of the cleric there lies the assumption that the Church is No. 1. Among its many roles is the function of overseeing the civic order, looking down from a great height on the government with a critical eye.
What if this assumption is contrary to the intention and to the teaching of Jesus. What if he meant that his followers should keep their efforts in proclaiming the good news and building the "kingdom" of God clearly separate from the activities of the civil adminstration.
What is "the State"? In the nature of things individual persons and families are not sufficient to themselves, so that of necessity they join together in communities which in time grow large enough to be self-sufficient and able to cater for the needs of all. Society and its institutions of government is as natural as the family. It is in fact the No. 1 expression of human community on the large scale. Within it are countless partial communities formed of citizens freely associating for particular purposes, education, health, shared interests, spirituality and even religion, but only the State is reponsible for supporting all its members in all their needs - from personal safety, education, health, fairness in trade and business, through to justice and national defence.
The State, then, is the result of people coming together, surrendering some of their freedoms, to be co-ordinated and governed for their common good. However, there is a core of personal responsibility that no-one joining a community ever surrenders, and that we call conscience. The State, in its legislature and in its courts, does not presume to influence conscience, nor does it judge the intentions or inner motivations of its members. It only passes judgement on what is done, what is seen to be done.
This stands in marked contrast to the Church which sees its domain as precisely that field of conscience where a person meets God. The Church teaches, governs and judges at the level of conscience, requiring obedience to its teaching and to its laws under pain of sin, that is, making those teachings and laws binding in conscience.
For centuries, and perhaps from ancient times (certainly from Old Testament times), this role of the institution of religion has been taken as a given. From that era when priests who wielded power with the threat of divine vengeance for any disobedience, we have progressed slowly and painfully to realise that negative force can never produce virtue or promote the true development of the human person. Nevertheless we still assume that the priests and the institution of religion that they represent (whether they are catholic "priests" or "ministers" as in other christian churches) have a divine mandate to directly influence our conscience, "to bind and to loose".
I wonder is this assumption valid. What if Jesus was saying to his followers, not only: Do not get involved in civic affairs, and do not go the way of civil adminstrations, but also: Do not become an institution that governs by making laws. Do not impose obligations on people that would bind their consciences. Leave to God what belongs to God - the sacred inner sanctuary of the human heart, the conscience, which only the individual person knows and which is his secret place where none may enter.
Is it perhaps a fact that Jesus taught only on the level of conscience, and not at all on the level of instructions or laws or institutional agendas?
The Reformation of the 16th century was a protest against the excessive and intrusive power of the Roman church. Oddly, the leaders of those reform movements set up their own institutions and exercised very strict control over their members, entering very deeply into the realm of conscience. Such was the tenor of the times.
In our day many are suggesting that conscience and its inalienable right to freedom has yet to be discovered. It is fair to ask can it ever be discovered while an institution exists that claims the divinely appointed role of governing consciences.
It seems to me at the moment that Jesus was educating his followers to develop their own selves, their personal responses, their individual commitment to learning how to live in a godly way. While he gave signs to illustrate and support his teaching, he made no laws, he set up no institution, he gave no governing authority to anyone. He taught his followers to lead by being as servants.
There are many assumptions lying below the surface of our thinking that influence the way we understand the ideas that ciruclate among us. Our blindness is in large part from our failure to identify and to question these assumptons, to expose them to the light and to assess their value in honesty and truth.
So Jesus is not just giving a sharp answer to the Pharisees in a striking, concise formula. He did not come to teach the obvious. There must be an important message here. To Caesar what belongs to Caesar; to God what belongs to God...
I wonder does it bear on that contentious topic, the separation of Church and State. Is Jesus setting down a principle that should guide the conduct of his followers, pointing to a problem area that very few would ever see? Something like: Keep them separate. Do not entangle religion with the affairs of the State. And as leaders in the kingdom of God do not impose your authority on the civic leaders of the community.
In ancient times Egypt, Bablylon and Rome all mingled religion with their civic administration.It was probably one of the most effective means of controlling the populace. In Israel the Lord was king, so the Pharisees could sincerely ask whether it was lawful to pay tribute to the occupying Caesar.
Four centuries later, when the emperor Constantine declared Christianity to be the religion of the empire and after he moved the centre of his administration to Constantinople, the popes found themselves frequently having to intervene to maintain law and order in the western half . This involvement of the Church in the affairs of States continued for 1500 years or more ande has produced some deeply embedded attitudes and assumptions that persist to the present time, to the extent that the separation of Church and State is a contentious issue in many countries.
It is easy to get a lot of information about the separation of Church and State, but after a quick survey I realised that I knew very little about the issue, After 30 years as a priest that comes as a bit of a shock. However, I suspect I am not alone in this. Embedded in the psyche of the cleric there lies the assumption that the Church is No. 1. Among its many roles is the function of overseeing the civic order, looking down from a great height on the government with a critical eye.
What if this assumption is contrary to the intention and to the teaching of Jesus. What if he meant that his followers should keep their efforts in proclaiming the good news and building the "kingdom" of God clearly separate from the activities of the civil adminstration.
What is "the State"? In the nature of things individual persons and families are not sufficient to themselves, so that of necessity they join together in communities which in time grow large enough to be self-sufficient and able to cater for the needs of all. Society and its institutions of government is as natural as the family. It is in fact the No. 1 expression of human community on the large scale. Within it are countless partial communities formed of citizens freely associating for particular purposes, education, health, shared interests, spirituality and even religion, but only the State is reponsible for supporting all its members in all their needs - from personal safety, education, health, fairness in trade and business, through to justice and national defence.
The State, then, is the result of people coming together, surrendering some of their freedoms, to be co-ordinated and governed for their common good. However, there is a core of personal responsibility that no-one joining a community ever surrenders, and that we call conscience. The State, in its legislature and in its courts, does not presume to influence conscience, nor does it judge the intentions or inner motivations of its members. It only passes judgement on what is done, what is seen to be done.
This stands in marked contrast to the Church which sees its domain as precisely that field of conscience where a person meets God. The Church teaches, governs and judges at the level of conscience, requiring obedience to its teaching and to its laws under pain of sin, that is, making those teachings and laws binding in conscience.
For centuries, and perhaps from ancient times (certainly from Old Testament times), this role of the institution of religion has been taken as a given. From that era when priests who wielded power with the threat of divine vengeance for any disobedience, we have progressed slowly and painfully to realise that negative force can never produce virtue or promote the true development of the human person. Nevertheless we still assume that the priests and the institution of religion that they represent (whether they are catholic "priests" or "ministers" as in other christian churches) have a divine mandate to directly influence our conscience, "to bind and to loose".
I wonder is this assumption valid. What if Jesus was saying to his followers, not only: Do not get involved in civic affairs, and do not go the way of civil adminstrations, but also: Do not become an institution that governs by making laws. Do not impose obligations on people that would bind their consciences. Leave to God what belongs to God - the sacred inner sanctuary of the human heart, the conscience, which only the individual person knows and which is his secret place where none may enter.
Is it perhaps a fact that Jesus taught only on the level of conscience, and not at all on the level of instructions or laws or institutional agendas?
The Reformation of the 16th century was a protest against the excessive and intrusive power of the Roman church. Oddly, the leaders of those reform movements set up their own institutions and exercised very strict control over their members, entering very deeply into the realm of conscience. Such was the tenor of the times.
In our day many are suggesting that conscience and its inalienable right to freedom has yet to be discovered. It is fair to ask can it ever be discovered while an institution exists that claims the divinely appointed role of governing consciences.
It seems to me at the moment that Jesus was educating his followers to develop their own selves, their personal responses, their individual commitment to learning how to live in a godly way. While he gave signs to illustrate and support his teaching, he made no laws, he set up no institution, he gave no governing authority to anyone. He taught his followers to lead by being as servants.
There are many assumptions lying below the surface of our thinking that influence the way we understand the ideas that ciruclate among us. Our blindness is in large part from our failure to identify and to question these assumptons, to expose them to the light and to assess their value in honesty and truth.