As I sat waiting to see if my name would be called during jury duty, I thought to myself, “I suppose this is an example of repaying Caesar.” In the end, I was not selected but had done my civic duty and so was free to go.
 
Being a citizen continues for me, but the experience is now only a memory, part of the past. My civic obligation belonged to the state and I fulfilled it by the time I took to comply and participate. I had made the proverbial repayment of what belonged to Caesar, to public authority. Still, the experience has prompted me to think, what about “repaying to God what belongs to God”?
 
Today’s reading from the 22^nd chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew begins a series of three encounters between Jesus and the religious authorities of his time. These were not friendly meetings but were marked with malicious intent and deception against him. In the encounter we read or just listened to, the Pharisees and Herodians sought to ensnare Jesus in a hypothetical conflict between obligations to God and the empire with the question, “Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?”
 
In his response, “repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God,” Jesus does not teach people to follow the way of blind accommodation to worldly powers, but to know that our duty to the state has to do more with temporal and social obligations and needs and repaying God concerns our willingness to be in relationship with him and participate in his will and salvific work.   
 
In the reading, Jesus is addressing temporal matters when it comes to Caesar, the Roman Emperor. When it comes to God, obviously, something distinct is at stake. In short, we owe nothing, that is, no thing to God in the same manner as we do to the state or society. It is not a matter of things belonging to him as possessions, for he has no need of any material things, objects or even allegiances.
 
The senses of “what” or things have little place in God’s mind and do not count greatly among his desires. When it comes to God, it is truly more accurate to think “who,” not “what” belongs to God. That is where we come in. Here there is no discussion of things but people who bear the image and likeness of God our Creator. Now the issue becomes more personal. The God part implies relationship. He includes humanity in his mercy and invites us to be included in his plans.
 
With that as a backdrop, we have to consider then, how can we possibly “repay” God and how do we belong to him? We make repayment by giving ourselves to God in love. This giving of self to God is the opening of our hearts and minds to him so that his love – given through his Holy Spirit – might find a welcome within us and be expressed through our thoughts, words, actions and commitments. To belong to God not only means that we love him and appreciate his blessings but that we recognize ourselves as his beloved children because he first loved us.   
 
Saint Teresa of Avila, whose feast day we celebrated three days ago (October 15, 2020), sums it up in her timeless prayer when she says:
 
“Christ has no body but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours, yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world, yours are the feet with which he walks to do good, yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours, yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”¹
 
As that great saint and doctor of the Church makes clear, when it comes to belonging to God, there is no hint of servitude but it is all about being in relationship.
 
You can say that we are indebted to God and that he is due much repayment, but the good news is that he never counts. The giving of ourselves to God signifies much more than just our decision but also makes clear just how much he gives to us. Any movement on our part to repay is only possible because God has first loved us and always will.
 
God does not look for loyalty or recompense but longs for our love. He loves us unconditionally and asks that we love him and those around us in the same manner. When that occurs we not only walk in the way of Christ, but we also become a way for him to walk in the world.
   
 
Notes:
 
¹ https://bustedhalo.com/ministry-resources/lessons-from-st-teresa-how-to-be-the-eyes-hands-and-feet-of-christ