Power Spirit Conviction
29th Sunday of the Ordinary Time – Power Spirit Conviction
I remember the afternoon as overcast, and although it was mid-August, it was not ungodly hot. My Dad had just been placed on hospice the day before, and although his strength was waning, he woke up that morning feeling relatively okay, and so I asked him if he wanted to take a drive to the marina where he fished from the back of his boat for more than 20 years. For him, this place was holy ground. To my surprise and delight, he agreed.
We didn’t stay long. Each step down the ramp to the dock took effort, but for twenty minutes or so he was able to cast a line one final time into the depths of the murky Darby Creek. He was happy just being there, and so we sat together in that contented silence, him on his favorite fishing chair and me on an extra-large dock box that once housed all his boating supplies. Although I was hopeful there would be a few more of these opportunities, my Dad somehow knew there wouldn’t be, and so into that sacred moment he said this to me: “Continue to do good things with your church, Bud, and make sure you take care of your Mom and brother.”
I promised I would. A week later, my Dad was gone.
These were, in truth, his final words to me – and they were words that captured everything he wanted to impart before leaving this world – a truth he needed to pass on from his own heart to mine. “Take care of your church, and make sure you care for your Mom and brother.”
Jesus was doing the very same thing here in today’s Gospel when he spoke to the religious and political leaders of his day, the men who were actually using deceit and hate to trap him by trying to manipulate and twist his own words. What they hoped would ensnare him to look as though he was favoring Roman rule over the Jewish faith, he instead turned into a teaching moment – one that happened only days before Calvary: “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”
Jesus was telling us something vitally Important in these final days of his life … and it’s not what you or I think.
I am sure that most of us have heard these parting words as some sort of creedal statement that reminds us to separate Church and state, or that it’s incumbent upon the religious person to also give due honor and appropriate respect to the political world in which we find ourselves. No doubt, there are kernels of truth in those statements. All we need to do is peruse the Gospels and Paul’s letters in order to find examples in which faith and the secular world must coexist in a healthy balance in order for right living to occur.
But the more I pray with this statement of giving to Caesar what is his and to God what is His, I actually think Jesus was saying something so profound that it goes far beyond the need to separate Church and state. He was, in that moment, revealing His very Heart to us, and that statement of “Caesar and God” held a great truth for us as people of faith and as citizens of whatever nation or political system we find ourselves a part of.
Phrasing his response the way he did, I see echoes in the way my Dad also spoke his parting words to me. What was said last – if carried out as it should be — puts the first part in a proper, healthy and holy order.
Thus, when my father said, in essence, live your vocation as priest well and take care of your mother and brother, he was revealing that, to him, I needed to make sure that caring for family formed how I provided for my Church family. In other words, when I took care of home – which was his biggest concern – then all else would fall into place.
Jesus, too, was indicating the very same thing: By giving God the proper respect and foremost place in our lives, than our interactions with Caesar will happen the way they should. When God is at the center of all we say and do, then we know how to live in the world that can often be filled with challenges, roadblocks, trickery and deceit. When God’s ways are centered in a healthy way in our conscience and our daily practices, then politics doesn’t become our “god,” and we can offer Caesar what is his due when it doesn’t conflict with the ways of our faith.
Notice that Jesus is not saying “Circle the wagons, live your faith only and forget about the messy, sinful world around you.” That’s a Pharisaical view, and that is not of God. Nor is he saying: “Keep God out of the voting booth; He doesn’t belong in what secular society is trying to create for its citizens.” This, too, is a fallacy. Instead, Christ is reminding us: Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and then everything else will fall into place as it should, in the world and the Church.
St. Paul echoes this powerfully in his letter to the Thessalonians. It is one line in the opening part of his statement to that Church, but it is one worth repeating and memorizing as we make ourway as disciples and citizens. Paul says to all of us, then and now: “You are loved by God, and you are chosen.”
Loved and chosen. When we live from that conviction, look how it forms our daily lives both in the pews and in the world:
When I know I am loved and chosen, I can see that I must use my voice and my prayers to stand-up for the ones in society who have no voice, from those living under the threat of abortion and euthanasia to those who are sex-trafficked and immigrants treated as less-than.
When I know I am loved and chosen, I can stand-up and declare that regardless of what really happened in that Cornell frat house, there should have been young men willing to step-in and say: “We won’t let this happen here. Stop the debauchery, the impurity and the misuse of sexuality.”
When I am loved and chosen, I can look at a planned, televised public execution by one’s own government and say: “I will not take part in making a spectacle or circus out of another man’s execution, even if the government claims that ‘right’ to punish in order to protect its populace.”
When I am loved and chosen – when God is first – than everything I do comes from the three things Paul promises to those who live from that understanding: my entire life – from work to play; from social media use and conscience formation — reflects the Gospel in power, Spirit and conviction. When I know from the depths of my being that God is the Lord and nothing takes His place, then in power, Spirit and conviction, I can make decisions with regards to Caesar from a place of truth, not deception; from peace, not anxiety; and for love of all, not selfishness.
The image that matters, ultimately, is not found anywhere else but in the heart, and that image should be in the shape of the Cross, the Crucified One. When He is at the center, then we truly live from that space where we can know right from wrong and truth from lies. We know who and what belong to God, and from this vantage point, we can then offer Caesar what is appropriately his due.
By reminding me to look out for my mom and brother in the days before he passed, my dad was actually teaching me how to love all. By sacrificing for my family after my Dad was gone, I was learning what it means to lay down my life for my parishioners as well. His final words became the direction for living life selflessly for others, not just my mom and brother. As his Calvary played out along the Darby Creek, he was reminding me one final time what should ultimately shape my heart and my future.
Who would have guessed he took a page out of Christ’s very own playbook?
God first, and everything else in right order – in power, Spirit and conviction.