Twenty Ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time

This coming week, thousands of Halloween costumes will be bought and made across the United States in anticipation of the big night a week from Tuesday.  There will be ghosts and witches and pirates.  An enormous amount of time, talent and treasure will be expended to pretend for a few hours to be something on the outside that we are not in the inside.  In contrast to Halloween, Jesus is trying to show us how important it is to witness on the outside the mystery of the love of Christ that is within us.

In today’s Gospel, the Pharisees went off and plotted how they might entrap Jesus in speech.  Their strategy was to get Jesus to talk about taxes.  That usually is a no-win situation. Taxes are a timeless human issue.  So they said to Jesus:  “Tell us, then, what is your opinion: Is it lawful to pay tax to Caesar or not?”
 
In replying to those who were trying to trap him, Jesus said:  “Show me the coin that pays the census tax.”   Looking at the coin, Jesus then asks:  “whose image is this and whose inscription?’  They replied, “Caesar’s.”  It is lawful to give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar.  By answering, “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar.” Jesus narrows his response to the need to pay the census tax.  The payment of taxes helps fulfills the government’s responsibility to provide for the common good.  We need to be the servants not only of our personal interests but also of the societal needs.
 
The point of the story is to see how Jesus responds to this attempt to entrap him….Jesus turned the question about taxes into a much more important question:  How are we to relate to God?
The second half of Jesus response:  “Give to God what belongs to God.”  This is comprehensive statement and includes all areas of life.  There is one crucial question for us to reflect upon that is not asked in the Gospel conversation.  If Caesar’s image is on the coin, where do we find God’s image?  For we are to give to God that which bears the image of God.
 
We will find God’s image imprinted on all of creation, on each human being and each human work.  We are made in the image and likeness of God.
 
It is people, ourselves, who are in the image and likeness of God.  We belong to God.  When God is truly the center of our lives, there is no problem with giving others their due.  Conversely, giving others their due doesn’t necessarily compromise God as the center of our lives.
 
When we forget that we are made in God’s image, we can easily attach ourselves to Caesars of our lives – the stock market, your career, or the New York Yankees. We may want to grasp Caesar’s false coins as our security and our destiny.  But we need to ask ourselves, can anything but God be our security and our destiny?  The old adage holds true that nobody laments on their deathbeds that they didn’t make more money or spend more time at work.  Submitting only to Caesar and the pursuit of wealth will not satisfy us. 
 
Ultimately we belong to God and the service and love of God’s people is the source of meaning and happiness in our lives.   Moreover, all of God’s creation bears the image of God.   Our care for our environment, our stewardship of the earth is giving back to God what belongs to God.
 
Even though none of us enjoy paying taxes, in the big picture, giving to Caesar what is Caesar’s is not the demanding component of today’s Gospel.   Where we are challenged is:  Giving to God what is God’s.

We give back to God out of gratitude.   Our best response to the abundance of God’s is gratitude – to live with an attitude of gratitude.

We give back to God because we recognize that everything we have belongs to God in the first place.

As we celebrate our stewardship commitment Sunday this weekend, may we embrace a spirituality of stewardship.   A spirituality of stewardship is as all-embracing as the words of Jesus:  We are to give back to God what belongs to God. We are the stewards of the abundance of God’s love in our lives. 

Stewardship is recognizing that we are made in God’s image.  We belong to God.  All is a gift of God.  We are to always grateful for the blessings of our life, and we are to share our giftedness with one another.  In other words, give to God what belongs to God.

This Sunday we are asking you to reflect on our stewardship of time and talent.  In our stewardship of time, we invite Christ into our life.  We live a Christ-centered life.  We make time for prayer in the course of the day.  In the stewardship of time, we reflect on what form of prayer helps you to encounter the Lord in your life.  The action plan, what we write on our stewardship commitment card is our commitment to make time for prayer each day.  It doesn’t matter how long your commitment to prayer is each day; what does matter is that you live your life with an awareness of God’s unending love for you in prayer.

The stewardship of talents is your willingness to share your God-given talents and abilities.  The gifts we have been given, we are given to share.

We simply ask you to place your stewardship commitment card in the collection basket today.  If you did not bring your card today,  not to worry.  There are extras in the pew for you to fill out.  Even if not fully completed, filling out this signed commitment card and placing it in the collection basket is a beautiful first step in our journey of discipleship of the Lord Jesus.