What gives money its value? A $100 bill
isn’t printed on a hundred dollars worth of paper. If I went to Home Depot and
bought a washer the size of quarter it might cost me more than 25c. So what
gives currency it’s value? In the Gospel, Jesus asks “Who’s image is on it?”
The value comes from the one who mints it. The value comes from the one who
backs it, who guarantees its value. A $100 bill is worth $100 because the State
back it, secures it, and guarantees it- not because it is printed on $100 worth
of paper.
In the Gospel today, Jesus is approached
by the Pharisees and Herodians, the equivalents of the Democratic and
Republican parties; Jesus is neither party. Both parties seek to trap him. But
Jesus deftly maneuvers the political question of his day: “Is it lawful to pay
the census tax to Caesar?” Jesus’ answer, “Give to Caesar what belongs to
Caesar; give to God what belongs to God.” He teaches two things. First, that as
Christians we must not avoid civic responsibility. We must be involved in
society. Second, more importantly, and this is the major point of the Gospel
which is often lost, we need to give to God what belongs to God. We can’t avoid
our religious obligations either.
So what does this mean for us today? We
must give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar; and to God what belongs to God. I
don’t know if you’ve been following a lot of the political goings on recently,
if you have been aware of the arguments being heard by the supreme court, or
the recent mandate issued by the Department of Health and Human Services with
its extremely narrow religious exemption clause, but let me frame the challenge
this way: Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God,
means don’t give Caesar what doesn’t belong to him. Don’t give to Caesar what
belongs to God.
In the book of Genesis, it says God
created man and woman in his own image and likeness. At the very beginning,
mankind was created, minted, stamped with the very image and likeness of God.
Like a quarter or $100, God’s image is stamped on us. And it is God who
guarantee’s our value. He says “you are my beloved” and in Jesus, God shows us
that he would rather die than risk loosing us for eternity. We are worth a lot
to God. It is He who sets our value. God is the foundation of our human rights.
Human rights by nature are universal and
eternal. They must be, because they come from God. And we expect them to be. We
expect rights to be for everybody, and we expect them not to change or be
capable of change, else they are not rights. Rights come from God. They come
from our common human nature, created in the image of God. Rights are not the
property of the State. The State does not have the “right” to issue rights.
Only God can do that. The State’s responsibility is to recognize people’s God
given dignity and to protect and promote human rights.
The problem is, if you take God out of
the equation, human rights lose their foundation, they lose their guarantee.
That’s why in the 20th century we’ve seen some of the greatest
abuses occur in secular and atheistic societies. If there is “no God” or people
pretend that God doesn’t exist, than its easy for the State to overstep it’s
bounds . In Nazi Germany, the State defined an entire class of people
“non-human”. It denied the dignity of the Jewish people, failed to recognize
the image of God impressed on their souls, and instead stamped their own image
on them, tattooed their arms and marched them off to death camps.
The question of give to Caesar what
belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God is the central issue today. It
is what lies behind all the other issues: like health care rights, abortion,
euthanasia, and same-sex marriage. For instance, the problem with same-sex
marriage isn’t really homosexuality. Our opposition to same-sex marriage has
very little to do with homosexuality. It has more to do with marriage and the
role of the State. Whereas the Church believes the State has a responsibility
to recognize and defend the dignity of all homosexual persons, we do not
believe the State has the right to redefine marriage. The right to marriage
comes from our human nature, from our being created in the image and likeness
of God. Marriage does not belong to the State. And we should not give to Caesar
what doesn’t belong to Caesar. Otherwise it is very difficult to get it back.
It may seem good now, and some people may benefit from the State’s interference
in the short-term, but what’s to stop the State at in the future from asserting
the authority we’ve ceded to it to deny people the right to marry because of
their race or the color of their skin? What’s to stop the State from dissolving
your marriage? Or telling you who you must
marry.
Ok. I’m not a politician. I am your
pastor. I will not tell you how to vote. But I will tell you what the Gospel
says. The Gospel says that you cannot avoid being part of society. That you
have a moral obligation to be involved. You must inform your conscience. You
must know your faith. And you must participate in our civic society. Not too
long ago your parents and grandparents were denied a voice in American society
simply because they were Catholic. They worked hard and made many sacrifices to
change that. We should not be politically apathetic.
Second, you must give to God what
belongs to God. The only reason we are debating things like same-sex marriage and
abortion today is because long ago Christians stopped giving to God what
belongs to God. And that’s the challenge. The burden is not on others. The
burden of responsibility is on us. We have to give to God what belongs to God: Life
belongs to God. Marriage belongs to God. The problem is that too many
Christians have give life and marriage to other things and embraced a culture
of contraception and divorce.
You have a moral obligation to
participate in society. For some of you that will mean becoming lawyers and
lawmakers. But for most of us, it will mean getting very serious about giving
God our life and our marriage. The only way we will be able to defend the right
to life and the institution of marriage is if we are living our Catholic faith
at work, at home, in the marketplace, in the public square. If you want to make
a difference in this world, give God your life, give God your marriage. Give to
God what belongs to God.
