Homily for the Twenty-ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time

World Mission Sunday

October 22, 2023
Saint Rita Catholic Church
Fort Worth, Texas

Isaiah 45:1, 4-6
Psalm 96:1, 3, 4-5,7-8, 9-10
First Thessalonians 1:1-5b
Matthew 22:15-21

Pope Francis has set for the theme for this year’s World Mission Sunday, Hearts on Fire, Feet on the Move. Our hearts are on fire with love and our feet move forward with zeal. The grace of our Baptism and full initiation in the life of the Church makes us missionaries who have come to recognize the Lord in the opening of the Word and in the Breaking of the Bread and then we are sent to bring this good news of salvation and mercy to those to whom God sends us. God uses many different means to send us out for His mission.

For example, in 589 BC, the Babylonians conquered the Israelites and took many of them back to Babylon. Fifty years later, the Persians led by Cyrus the Great conquered the Babylonians. The Persian victory gave the Israelites hope that they might be set free. Cyrus was neither a Jew nor a believer, but the Israelites saw him as being sent to carry out God’s plans so that they could return to their home in the Promised Land. We cannot always say for sure what God’s particular plans are, but we certainly do know that He often works in mysterious ways to bring us home to eternal life.

In today’s Gospel, the Pharisees and followers of Herod, who are not friends, devise a plot to trap Jesus since He had recognized their hypocrisy. They are so threatened by Jesus that they conspire to ask Jesus if it is lawful to pay tax to Rome or not. This is a trick question, since either way Jesus responds to the question would be unfavorable to the crowds. A yes will make him seem to endorse Rome’s rule over the Jews, and a no will make him look like He is a revolutionary enemy of Rome. The people would see Jesus as either a traitor or a rebel, and His enemies would trap Him.

Jesus’ response to the question is unforeseen in its honest simplicity. His answer shows a difference between our lives as worldly citizens and as members of God’s Kingdom. The Kingdom is different from the city or country in which we live, but it does not need to diminish our patriotic bonds. The Kingdom is a further dimension in our lives, whose virtues are meant to help us to know our true destiny and thereby improve the places where we live. The compassion and charity required of us by God’s Kingdom should help us transform our world for the better. We live within the world as citizens who make others aware of a greater citizenship with greater responsibilities which we are all called to fulfill in love of God and neighbor.

Jesus’ response is not just unexpected, but it is also challenging. The poverty and simplicity of Christ always confound the complications inflicted upon the human soul by sin and error. Jesus confounds His confronters with an answer that calls for a commitment and not just an acknowledgement. Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. What are the things that are Caesar’s, and what exactly belongs to God?

Caesar will claim as his own authority over life and death. Caesar will impose the redefinition of the embodied and God-given sexuality of human beings through gender ideology. Caesar will impose the redefinition of marriage from its divinely instituted nature of a permanent and faithful covenant between one man and one woman open to God’s gift of children. Caesar will grab as his own the responsibilities of fathers and mothers in the education of their children. Caesar will seize as his own the freedom of assembly and authenticity of worship to suit his own purposes. Caesar will foment divisions and acrimony among peoples of different races to subjugate them in fear. Caesar will wage his wars for his own riches and for his powerful collaborators.

Caesar or the worldly city will certainly try to demand from us what it claims that we owe it and extract the payment from us in full. However, as conscientious citizens we also need to judge when the laws and customs of our country cease to respect the life and the human dignity God has given us. Not everything the world considers valuable is in fact valuable in the eyes of God. Not everything that the world prioritizes is in accord with the priorities of God as revealed to us. That which is legal is not necessarily that which is just.

Of the gravest concern for us today is the resurgence of antisemitism, hatred for the Jews with corresponding desires for the commission of genocide against them. In our own country we see this espoused irrationally but with cunning by those educated in the universities purported to be among the finest in the world. Yet, their racism shows itself because it is the fruit of their godlessness. No one can be a faithful Catholic and tolerate such irrational hatred. Jesus and Mary are Jewish and God has chosen to save us through the Jewish people; He never cancels His Covenant. We must stand with the Jews, and we must stand and pray for peace.

Our second collection today for the Pontifical missions goes to assist the Church in parts of the world where She is under duress because of Caesar, especially in the freedom to worship, to teach the true faith, and to perform works of compassion and mercy for those who are in dire situations of poverty. For example, in India today, the nationalist government forbids baptism of new converts in many parts of the nation. Catholic schools are forbidden to be built. Most especially, the education of women is undertaken by the Church under persecution and threat of harassment. Women are treated with less respect than cows; young girls and elderly women are frequently thrown out of their homes to survive in the street as slaves. It is the mission of the Church to educate them and to ensure their proper dignity as children of God. The Church perseveres in this mission with our assistance as the missionaries of today, whom Christ sends to preach the Good News through our generosity.

As far as what belongs to God, I suppose the answer would be everything … even Caesar. The Israelites knew this when they accepted the pagan king Cyrus as a sign and instrument of God without letting him take the rightful place of God. The challenge for us now is to take a step back from the things of Caesar and to renew ourselves in the practice of faith and charity. Perhaps that is the best service we can give to a country and a world that too frequently seems lost in selfishness and sin.

In every age, every Caesar has put his image on coins of gold, to announce to the world Caesar’s warping of the Golden Rule, namely, “He who owns the gold makes the rules.”  God has impressed His image upon the greatest currency of His Kingdom, the human person through His creation and redemption of us by His Son Jesus. We are to announce to the world that we are like Him, we are His, and we are called to love Him and our neighbor as ourselves. True worship sets us free, while idolatry — that is, worship of false gods, including any power that usurps God’s authority — manipulates us, enslaves us, and deprives us of life. Our human nature is such that we cannot separate God’s image from our being. We must remind each other of who we are and whose we are. We may form fellowships and organizations and even states, and we may rightly serve them with loyalty and patriotism if they are just, but our final and absolute loyalty belongs first to almighty God.

It is our mission that He entrusts to us that we pray persistently for the gift of faith that we not become indifferent to this precious gift. It requires our conversion, the fruit of prayer, and that brings about the concrete generosity born of unconditional love and gratitude for our salvation. It is the Eucharist, the sacrificial banquet of Christ’s Body and Blood that converts us and nourishes us in faith to offer concrete works of charity among the poor thereby revealing the truth of Christ’s Gospel.