Till We Have Faces

“The complaint was the answer. To have heard myself making it was to be answered. Lightly men talk of saying what they mean… ‘to say the very thing you really mean…that’s the whole art and joy of words.’ A glib saying. When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years…you’ll not talk about the joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?”

That passage is part of the climax in C.S. Lewis’ retelling, in novel form, of the myth of Cupid and Psyche, entitled Till We Have Faces. I’d like to reflect on that for a moment. The speaker in that passage was the old Queen Orual, who finally discovered, after making her complaint to the gods (read: God), that she really had no grounds for complaint because her life was a lie and she never really even knew herself, so her perception of gods and other people was skewed as well. She lost everyone she ever loved, especially her younger sister Psyche (which is Greek for “soul”; reflect on that), but she discovered in the end that her “love” was selfish, possessive, bitter, and unforgiving.

When she became queen because of her harsh father’s death, she constantly wore a veil over her face, because she was quite unattractive, and the veil served to enhance her mystery and power. But as she hid her lack of physical beauty from the world, she also hid her true self from her own awareness. Others could see how she used rather than loved people, but this inner truth was veiled for her. Finally, in a vision in which she stood before the gods to be judged, the veil was taken off her face, and her clothes were removed as well. Standing naked before the multitude, she was required to speak, and was convicted by her own words, hearing them almost as if another were speaking. Her inner self was exposed along with the outer.

People tend to wear masks or veils of one sort or another, personas or postures they adopt in order to hide what they don’t want to be seen or known, giving the illusion that they are wiser, more powerful, or simply more “together” than they really are. But they end up deceiving themselves as well as others (and perhaps they aren’t really even deceiving the others).

We may say what we think we mean, but until we discover and begin to live the profound meaning of our life, our indignant complaints and self-justifications are so much babble that isn’t worth listening to. We might as well be wearing a veil, for our true face is not being shown. Until we arrive at genuine self-knowledge (which is nothing like self-absorbed introspection or other forms of narcissism), we cannot have a genuine dialog with God: how can we meet him face to face if we don’t yet have a face? God sees through all veils, all defenses and self-deceptions, but He cannot do a whole lot for us until we are ready to be unmasked.

Repentance and honest examination of conscience are the beginnings of self-knowledge, of finding our true face, finding the “word” within us that goes deeper than the daily babble and expresses the truth of who we are, i.e., who God has made us to be, and what we have done with his gift.

We had better learn now how to stand naked (figuratively) before God on a daily basis, because we will have to stand naked (literally) before his awesome judgment seat. We also have to learn how to remove the veils with which we cover our faces before other people, because the same veil hides our true self from ourselves. Allow yourself to be unmasked; get more comfortable with being “uncovered.” The truth will always come out in the end, so why not begin to live it now? You may discover that you don’t want to veil the real you after all. You may discover within you the face of Christ, who alone can refashion all your pain and shame and can speak that defining word of grace and love within you—and thus make you able to live a life of integrity and truth in this world.

God is waiting till we have faces, till we stop hiding behind masks and veils, till it’s OK to be naked before Him. Then judgment day will not be the painful stripping of the self-deceived, but rather the homecoming of the free.

Heaven Couldn’t Wait

At the end of time, at the general resurrection, those who have been faithful to God will rise to heavenly and eternal glory, in both body and soul. But there’s someone who has been more faithful to God than anyone else, but she won’t rise at the end of time for the reunification and glorification of soul and body in heaven. Why not? Because she’s already there. The Mother of God is the first-fruit of the resurrection of mankind, the fulfillment of the promise of Christ to raise to glory all his disciples and friends. Today we celebrate the feast of her integral glorification, that is, her passing from this life and bodily assumption into heaven.

Heaven couldn’t wait for the entrance of Our Lady. It is wholly abhorrent to the Christian mind and spirit that the one who gave flesh to the eternal Son and Word of God would be allowed to corrupt in the grave like a common sinner. Her mission in this world was indisputably unique, and her sinless purity (for how could the absolutely holy God enter this world through a defiled vessel?) caught heaven’s fancy, as it were, so she was snatched up from the grave of corruption to share the glory of her Son and God, as a living icon or sign of the destiny of all the faithful.

Christ Himself rose from the dead, making possible the resurrection of other human beings. But, being God and the Redeemer, we don’t see in his person the resurrection of the redeemed. Mary is the first of the redeemed, the first to experience the full truth of Christ’s promise, and of the words of St Paul: “He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also…” (Romans 8:11).

Even thinking on a human level, what son who loved his mother would allow her to rot in a grave if he had the power to raise her, body and soul, to glory? A fortiori, Jesus Christ, whose love for his mother surpassed that of any other loving son, certainly came swiftly to receive her body and soul into his Kingdom as she departed from this life. Try to imagine, if you can (you can’t), what it must have been like for Mary — and what it meant for the whole universe — that God, the Creator and Lord of all things visible and invisible, by whom and for whom all things exist, entered into her body and soul, becoming man in order to save us. The God whom her people had worshiped for centuries, the awesomely magnificent, fiery, thundering God of the mountaintop theophanies, entered her womb, and she carried Him within her as a growing baby. How did she not instantly vaporize as the Almighty God permeated her entire being? The Fathers of the Church use an analogy (one among many): as the bush in which God manifested his presence on Mt Sinai burned without being consumed, so the Virgin Mary received the Fire of the Divinity without being consumed. She was chosen from all eternity to be the Mother of God, that is, the Mother of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity incarnate as man.

(No one says, by the way, that “Mother of God” means mother of the Holy Trinity, or mother of the Father or of the Spirit or of the divine nature as such. But a woman can only be a mother of a person, not a nature, which is an abstraction if it is not realized in a person. She was not therefore merely the mother of Jesus’ human nature, but the mother of a person. Jesus Christ is a Divine Person, i.e., God, who became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, thus uniting human nature to his eternal divine nature. Therefore Mary is the mother of a Divine Person, i.e., God, who took flesh in her womb and was born as the God-Man Jesus. Thus she is rightly called “Mother of God.” As early as the 5^th century, the undivided Christian Church declared it heresy to speak otherwise.)

Let us rejoice, then, that the Mother of God and our Mother has been lifted up to the fullness of life and glory with her Son in heaven. Heaven couldn’t wait for her, and I can’t wait to get to heaven! May the Lord’s will be fulfilled to glorious perfection in each of us, as it has already been done in her who said: Let it be done to me according to your word.

Where is the Kingdom?

So where is this Kingdom you’re always talking about, and when is it coming? The Pharisees put this question to Jesus as one more way to discredit Him or put Him to the test. His answer? “The Kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed…” (Luke 17:20). So He’s not here talking about the ultimate and glorious establishment of the Kingdom at the end of time. The Kingdom is still in the mustard-seed or leaven stage.

But the Lord did say something about looking for signs of the Kingdom, something that yields different meanings depending on how you translate it. Did He say, “Behold, the Kingdom of God is in your midst,” or did He say, “Behold, the Kingdom of God is within you”? The Greek word entos ordinarily means “within” but it can also mean “in the midst of.” The context suggests the latter. Remember, he was talking to Pharisees. Not long before this he had said to them: “inside, you are full of extortion and wickedness.” So it seems unlikely that the Kingdom of God would be within those “whitewashed sepulchers.” It seems rather that Jesus was referring to Himself when He said that the Kingdom was in their midst—but they didn’t recognize it (or Him), because they were looking for some other kind of sign. John the Baptizer told them too: “among you stands One whom you do not know…” (John 1:26).

Yet the Fathers of the Church (and unfortunately, some new-agers, too, who use this as a justification for their flaky “spirituality without religion”) usually read the passage as “the Kingdom of God is within you.” Many of them were mystics as well as theologians, and they had not only faith but experience of the indwelling of God, and they understood this as the foundation of our spiritual life and essential for salvation. “Abide in Me and I in you,” said the Lord, so we can in fact look within to find the Kingdom of God—provided that our souls have been cleansed by repentance, true faith and morals, and an openness to the presence of God.

So where is the Kingdom? It is wherever you find the King. He is in and around us. The only place He isn’t (aside from his sustaining presence that keeps all things in existence) is in hearts that have rejected Him—especially those that have chosen to follow the devil—and among the evil works of such people. But even there He tries to get in, tries to eat with whores and extortionists, tries to speak a word of truth and love to them, so that He can establish his kingdom where once satan set up his. In the Gospel of Luke, the first miracle Jesus performs is an exorcism (after He first got rid of satan’s personal attacks in the desert). This shows that Jesus’ priority is to overthrow the kingdom of the devil and establish the Kingdom of God. Satan’s lying boast to Christ was, after showing Him the kingdoms of the world: “all this authority and glory has been given to me, and I give it to whom I will” (Luke 4:5-6). So Jesus had to come on the scene casting out devils and saying, in effect: “No authority or glory has been given you, and you can give nothing to anyone unless God permits it. Now begone, for the Kingdom of God has overtaken you!”

The Kingdom is in your midst: in the Church, the sacraments, the word of God, the meadows and oceans and night skies, in your brothers and sisters. And the Kingdom is within you, for you are a temple of the Holy Spirit. Know that God is in and around you. Heaven can’t wait. The prince of this world is being overthrown. A new day is dawning, souls are awakening. His Kingdom is coming and is even now here: in your midst, within you.

Become a Fool

In case you’re wondering, the title of this post is a direct quote from Scripture (1Cor. 3:18). Why does St Paul want you to become a fool? I wrote yesterday about the difference between the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God. To be wise in the ways of the world is foolishness before God, so if we want to become wise before God, we had better be prepared to look like fools in the eyes of the world.

If we’re going to be fools, however, let’s make sure that we are “fools for Christ’s sake” (4:10). The world already has enough of every other kind of fool. The wisdom that makes us seem like fools to the world is the wisdom of the Cross. “The word of the Cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God… Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? …it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe… For the foolishness of God is wiser than men…” (1:18-25). Note first that those who regard Christians as fools (and the Cross as foolish) are “those who are perishing,” and we do not want to be in that crowd. Those who are “foolish” enough to believe in a crucified Redeemer are being saved by the power of God. Thus, in the end, the wisdom of the world, insofar as it ridicules the Gospel of Christ, will be shown to be the real folly. God loved us to the point of folly by sending his Son to humble Himself and suffer death on the Cross, and this will be manifested as the most profound wisdom.

But what does a fool for Christ do, aside from believing in the wisdom of God and the Cross? (I speak here of ordinary “fools for Christ,” not that specific category of saints who feigned madness in order live prophetic lives in word and act. That is rare charism and, given some of their incomprehensible antics, perhaps it’s God’s wisdom that their holy folly is kept to a minimum!) St Paul gives us a partial “job description”: “When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we try to conciliate” (4:12-13). In another place he writes: “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested…” (2Cor. 4:8-10). Perhaps we would like a more pleasant or comfortable job description, but being fools, we ought to embrace this one as the way to true happiness and fulfillment. It’s all about not returning evil for evil, enduring sufferings for Jesus’ sake, doing whatever it takes “so that the life of Jesus may be manifested.” The above description may be the “negative” side of this foolish life, but a fool for Christ is also filled with the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, gentleness, etc. This is because such a fool has learned the wisdom of the Cross.

Would you like to become a fool? Are you up to it? Let the world say what it will, but we who believe in the foolishness of the Cross are being saved by the power of God.

Man, God, World, Spirit

The second chapter of First Corinthians is a chapter of contrasts. St Paul had to make some important distinctions to converts who had a cultural background that favored wisdom and spirituality. The “wisdom of the Greeks” is exalted as the source of Western philosophy. Yet life in God requires something more: “that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (1Cor. 2:5). Not that Paul renounced wisdom as such, he only sought a higher form: “we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification” (v.7).

This wisdom of God far transcends the wisdom of man: “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him—God has revealed this to us through the Spirit” (vv.9-10). As God’s wisdom surpasses that of man, so the things of the Spirit surpass those of the world. “We have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit…” (v.12-13).

There’s a constant comparison going on here between the things of man and those of God, the things of the world and those of the Spirit, people of the world and people of God, “natural” people and spiritual people. St Paul is trying to get us to see that our faith in Christ, responding to the grace of God, has raised us up to a new level of being, has transformed us in mind and spirit, and should open us up to new and higher perceptions and perspectives. Much of the rest of this epistle has to do with the concrete forms this new life and awareness should take—how we ought to behave and how we ought not behave, as new creations, as those who “have the mind of Christ” (v.16).

Do we live like we have the mind of Christ? Do we understand the things that have to be spiritually discerned? Are we aware that the “wisdom of man” is inadequate to live a life that is pleasing to God? Do we uncritically accept what comes from the “spirit of the world” when we are called to perceive and respond to the events and tasks of life according to the Spirit of God? “Going with the flow” will only take you down the drain. We have to absorb the wisdom of God and then communicate it to this world by the way we think and speak and act. It is important to understand this, for the cost of ignorance is high. St Paul reminds us that those who did not understand the wisdom of God crucified the Lord of Glory (v.8). Don’t settle for wisdom that is less than divine.

Mustard-seed Church

I’d like to begin with a quote from an article on Pope Benedict XVI by Michael Rose, published in the New Oxford Review (July-August 2005): Cardinal Ratzinger, some years ago, “shocked the Catholic world by suggesting that we may need to disregard the notion of a “popular church” that will be loved by everyone. Rather, his governing metaphor for the short-term destiny of Catholicism is the mustard seed (Mt. 13:31-32), suggesting a much smaller presence but with a faith whose dimensions could move mountains. He envisions a “creative” minority capable of restoring religious vitality to Europe and beyond. Pope Benedict’s objective is to sanctify souls through faith and grace. He believes that can be accomplished only by the reawakening of Christian identity…”

That quote has a clear ring of truth, and I think it is something that we ought to consider carefully. So much time and energy and ink and cyberspace has gone towards trying to make the Catholic Church an institution that is open and welcoming to all current fads and even spiritual and moral aberrations, in the name of a vague and vacuous “love” and “compassion” — or worse, in the name of merely adapting to the times, that is, to this “evil and adulterous generation” (Mt. 16:4). If you open the doors and do not have the necessary screens, you let in the flies and blood-sucking mosquitoes. The Church simply cannot (and must not) meet this world’s criteria for an all-inclusive, “tolerant,” politically correct, dogma-less organization.

Can you imagine the Church receiving rebellious and unrepentant sinners into her good graces, the communion of the Holy Mysteries, without setting any standards, without requiring a change of heart and belief? All organizations reserve the right to set requirements for membership.

“I don’t believe in the Resurrection.” “Come right in!”
“I don’t believe in the Eucharist.” “No problem! Come one, come all!”
“The Pope cannot tell me what to do.” “Bless you!”
“I’m an active homosexual.” “Step right up for Holy Communion!”
“I support abortion, and I even had two myself.” “You come to Holy Communion, too!”

Forget it. The true Church can only be that which is faithful to the Gospel of Christ, the tradition of the fathers and councils, and the witness of the martyrs. If that Church is but the size of a mustard seed today, so be it. Better the truth in a mustard seed than a mountain of falsehood and apostasy. The faith of that mustard-seed Church will eventually move that mountain off the face of the earth.

Let us pray with Pope Benedict for the reawakening of true Christian identity, for the sanctification of souls through faith and grace. Be willing to be a mustard seed in the face of the world’s disdain and contempt. The Church will grow in holiness in direct relation to her members’ uncompromising fidelity. This is the Church against which hell cannot prevail. As for The Church of What’s Happening Now, hell has already prevailed.

Lose Your Life

Yesterday I wrote about the cost of discipleship, the various renunciations, etc. But there’s one other important thing you have to do: lose your life. “Whoever loses his life for My sake will save it” (Luke 9:24 and parallels). This is not an isolated statement of Jesus; it appears in all the Gospels, in some more than once (in the Synoptics it occurs in the context of carrying one’s cross; in John the parallel is the grain of wheat that must die to bear fruit).

What is Jesus talking about here? The larger context is, as in yesterday’s post, discipleship. If you want to be Jesus’ disciple (it’s an invitation, not a coercion), then you have to deny yourself, take up your cross—daily—and follow Him. Then comes the paradox: “For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.” And the further explanation: “For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and of My words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when He comes in his glory…”

What does it mean, practically, to “save your life” and to “lose your life”? Anything you do to preserve your (false) sense of security, to build your ego, to avoid the demands and sufferings required by faithfulness to the Gospel, or simply to insulate yourself in a comfortable and self-centered way of life, storing up earthly instead of heavenly treasure, is “saving your life.” This you will be sure to lose, in the end if not sooner. Saving your life is also related to being ashamed of Jesus and his words. You may “save your life” by not standing up for the words of Jesus and the teachings of his Church, especially in hotly debated issues like abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, and various unacceptable forms of religious or cultural “diversity.” Sure, you may blend in with the crowd and not be ostracized or berated for taking an unpopular stand, but what gain is that if the Son of Man is ashamed of your cowardice when He returns in his power and glory?

To “lose your life” is to give all in the service of Christ and his Gospel, his Church. It is to make the necessary sacrifices that come with not being ashamed of his words, being willing to lose the esteem of your politically correct peers for Jesus’ sake. It is being willing to serve others before yourself, to have the courage of your convictions, to let go of anything or anyone that would prove an obstacle to your unswerving fidelity to the Truth and Love of God. Losing your life is constantly making choices in accord with the Gospel, which often end up going against the grain of this world’s pleasure-loving and godless ways. Why gain the “world” when you can gain the Kingdom of Heaven? You can’t have both, so it’s time to make a choice. Whose friend do you want to be when the Lord returns and all worldly gains vanish?

Take up your cross and follow Jesus. What have you got to lose? Only your life, that is, the superficial, selfish life that this world promotes. Lose that, and save your true self for eternal happiness.

Are You Able to Finish?

Jesus Christ is looking for a few good men and women. Ultimately, He seeks all those He created to join Him in everlasting happiness. But He has to start, it seems, with a picked group of die-hard disciples who know the cost of discipleship and aren’t afraid to pay it. Then hopefully others will be attracted by the good fruit that their faithful and devoted lives bear. It doesn’t help Jesus’ cause to have timid or half-hearted or worldly disciples (see the parable of the sower) or those who quit because they didn’t know or couldn’t accept the demands of genuine Christianity.

The Lord speaks of this in the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of Luke. He reiterates some of the conditions for discipleship, like bearing one’s cross, self-renunciation even unto poverty and detachment from family ties, etc. He knows that it is demanding to follow Him. He also knows that it is ultimately the only thing worth doing, for eternal life is at stake. The Kingdom of Heaven is worth whatever it takes to enter it, and Jesus gives us the conditions in many places throughout the Gospels.

In this chapter of Luke He gives us the example of a builder who laid a foundation but was unable to finish the building because he did not first “count the cost” of completing the building. If he is not clear on just what it takes to finish the building, and if he is not prepared to put forth the money and the effort to complete it, “when he has laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish’” (Luke 14:29-30).

Jesus uses that as an analogy for our life of faith and discipleship. Do we know what it will require of us? Are we ready to give our all so that the “building” may be completed on time to stand before the judgment of God? If we begin our spiritual life with only vague ideas or unrealistic wishes about what it means to be faithful in all things to Christ, then we may give up when things get difficult. We may look for an easier way (though there isn’t one, if you’re interested in heaven) when it becomes clear that the Christian life is not easy and that it costs much to stand up for the truth in a world of lies, to embrace the Only Savior in a world that offers the “cheap grace” of do-it-yourself spirituality. Then we are like people who lay a foundation but can’t finish the building. All we can expect after that is well-deserved mockery.

The Christian life is both all-demanding and all-rewarding. No half-measures will work. Jesus tells us from the start about a life of faithfulness to Him: “first sit down and count the cost, whether [you] have enough to complete it” (Luke 14:28). Are you up to it? Are you willing to invest in the future—your eternal future? God’s grace will always be available, but our full co-operation is required to finish. The one who endures to the end will be saved, He said elsewhere. Are you able to finish? Give it all you’ve got, for the Lord gives all He’s got. Be willing to make the required renunciations, and God will reward you a hundredfold—and more.

Transfigured

When Jesus took his disciples for a hike up Mt Tabor, they had no idea what they were about to experience. As they reached the summit, suddenly they saw Him not only as their beloved Teacher, but as the Lord of Glory. “His face shone like the sun, and his garments became white as light” (Matthew 17:2). What had happened?

Jesus went through a “metamorphosis” (the Greek word we translate as “transfiguration”), which means literally a change of form. Jesus was for all eternity in the form of God, but at the Incarnation took the form of man (see Philippians 2:5-11). Now on Mt Tabor, He revealed to his disciples something of his eternal form of God through his human form. His humanity and divinity are inseparable, but He could reveal or conceal his divine glory as He willed.

The disciples needed to be strengthened in their awareness of Jesus’ divinity, because their faith would be put to the ultimate test when they would see his human form torn and bleeding and nailed to the Cross—what St Paul described in the passage cited above as “being obedient unto death, death on a cross.” But there is much more to Christ’s transfiguration than the manifestation of his divinity, as astounding as that is.

His incarnation, the incredible union of the Uncreated with the created, made it possible for material creation to bear and manifest divine grace and glory. This is what makes the whole sacramental system possible: the matter of bread and wine is transfigured unto the body and blood of Christ; water and oil become communicators of the grace of the Holy Spirit. And since we see that it was through his humanity that the divine glory was manifested, the message to us is that it is possible for divinity to permeate and ineffably exalt humanity—that would be you and me.

We are called to a personal transfiguration—not the visible, blinding divine glory that stunned the first apostles, but to an inner, though no less real, transformation of mind and spirit (see Romans 12:2 and 2Cor. 3:18, where the Greek “metamorphosis” is used; usually it is translated as “transformed” or “changed”). We are called, beyond all merely human possibility, to “become partakers of the divine nature” (2Peter 1:4).

One author says that as the radiant angels in heaven reflect the divine glory to one another, we on earth are also supposed to reflect that same glory in a spiritual manner. He says that this is the special vocation of monks, who are called to give their whole life to this inner transfiguration, for the sake of shining the face of Christ on a sin-darkened world, but St Paul reminds us that “all of us…are being transformed into his likeness…” (2Cor. 3:18). All who are baptized in Christ have put on Christ and hence can grow into his likeness and thus manifest his face to others.

So let us go up the mountain and begin our transfiguration through the mercy and grace of the Lord. “Today all mankind begins to reflect the divine splendor of the transfiguration of the Lord, and in every heart is this exultant refrain: Christ is transfigured for the salvation of all!” (hymn for the pre-feast).

The Things That Are God’s

Jesus had a way of silencing his opponents, especially when they posed questions merely to trap Him in his speech, so that they could have some charge to level against Him when the time came, as it surely would, to put Him on trial.

A particularly volatile issue was that of the relationship of the Jews to their Roman oppressors. Some were more or less accommodating (if they could win enough favors through bribes), most were opposed to them but felt there wasn’t much they could do about it, and some were itching for a violent revolution. So the issue of paying tax to the emperor was bound to arouse interest on all sides. Those who asked the question figured that they couldn’t lose. Whatever Jesus said, they thought, would either brand Him a Roman sympathizer (thus alienating most of the Jews) or put Him in the camp of the rebels and thus bring upon Him Roman suspicion or arrest.

Of course, Jesus outwitted them all and gave a profound teaching in the process. When asked if they should pay tax to the emperor, Jesus first asked for a coin. “Whose image and whose inscription is on this coin?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. So He answered, “Then give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, but give to God the things that are God’s” (Luke 20:24-25). His answer was not simply, yes, it’s right to pay the tax, to give tribute to Caesar. He wasn’t entering into the political aspect of the question at all. If something has Caesar’s face and name on it, then it’s his, so give it to him. Caesar is a kind of metaphor for the “world” (in its negative connotation), or more precisely, for that which is not of God. So, let the dead bury the dead, let Caesar have his coins, let the world love its own. But give to God the things that are God’s.

And what are the things of God? First of all, “the earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof” (Psalm 23/24:1). The world (in its positive connotation) is of God, for He made it and called it very good. So we are to make an offering to God of all that is good in the world, all that we make use of for our enjoyment and for the service of others. Give to God the things that are God’s, i.e., use them in a way that is in accordance with his will and hence for our own good.

There is more. Whose image and whose “inscription” are on our immortal souls? “God said: Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). Well then, when we give to God what is God’s, we must give our very selves. This is what Jesus was trying to drive home to his listeners. It is not for Him to take sides in political squabbles, to be one opinion among many. His mission was much more sublime and universal. He came to save people on all sides of the argument, for there is a far greater issue at stake: our eternal destiny. Emperors and presidents come and go, oppressors and oppressed change roles, tax structures change (but never disappear!), political issues are endlessly wrangled. But everyone must give to God what is God’s.

Shall you pay tribute to the Caesars of today? Follow your conscience. But make sure, at all costs, that you give to God the things that are God’s—especially yourself.