Caesar: hands off God's image! (Sunday homily)

 There are a number of passages of Sacred Scripture 

that get distorted in their meaning; today’s Gospel is one of them. 

Frequently, this passage is cited as if to say, 

if something is happening in the area of politics or public policy, 

that belongs to “Caesar,” and therefore, 

the bishops, or believers in general, have nothing to say.

And so, for example, our bishops and priests, and many of us,

have spoken out 

against the pro-abortion ballot measure this November.

Some people claim this is none of our business.

But that is not correct. 

That is not what Jesus is saying in this Gospel.

And that’s not an accurate representation of our rights as citizens,

and the right of the Church, and each of us, 

to speak out, under the First Amendment. 

First, notice the discussion was specifically about a tax—

and about a coin.

They show him the coin, and he asks, “whose image is this?” 

That word is the key: because if the coin bears Caesar’s image, 

then it belongs to him. Let him have what bears his image.

Got that? Then listen what Jesus says next: 

“And what belongs to God, give to God.”

The coin bears Caesar’s image; so Caesar gets the coin.

But tell me: what bears God’s image, God’s inscription?

Well, that would be all of Creation! 

“The heavens declare the glory of God,” Psalm 19 says; 

creation bears witness to God, Paul wrote to the Romans. 

And what, above all, bears the image of God?

You and I do, as members of the human race. 

“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,” 

is what God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit said 

before they created humanity: 

“male and female he created them.”

So when our government says it’s OK to destroy unborn children? 

And to torture people as part of war? 

Or when the poor or the sick are pushed aside as not valuable?

These are God’s treasure! They bear his image! Hands off, Caesar!

And this applies powerfully with marriage. Again, Genesis said:

“in the image of God…male and female, he created them.”

When we speak of being an image of God, remember, God is Creator. 

But where God created everything out of nothing, that’s beyond us.

 

If you are an engineer or in construction, you can build whole cities, 

but you have to labor with wood and stone and steel – 

you can’t make it out of nothing. 

If you are a poet or a painter, 

you can create people and worlds and histories—

but they only exist on the printed page or the silver screen. 

You can’t breathe them into life.

But there is a moment—just one!—

when in breathtaking audacity we humanity soar to the skies 

and come whisper-close to being just like God.

In a moment of uncalculated love, generous and sacrificial,

we can actually create something from nothing!

And not just any something, 

but another divine image, a human being who will live forever!

That’s when a man and woman come together in the marital embrace.

Marriage – requiring a man and a woman – 

is when humanity is most fully the image of God!

Hands off, Caesar!

Remember that you and I are God’s “coin”; 

We were inscribed with his Name when we were baptized 

in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, of the Holy Spirit!

As the coins in our pockets get soiled and disfigured, so do we.

The good news is that there is nothing God loves more 

than to restore his image, in you, to make you shine like new!

That’s what he does in confession, in calling us back to him.

In the Gospel, they were all concerned about that coin, 

bearing Caesar’s image. 

But notice, Jesus couldn’t care less about the coin.

What matters supremely to him is you.