Give to God what belongs to God
In the Gospel scene of Mat 22: 15-21, the Pharisees and the Herodians try to trap Jesus with a question. Jesus sees through their hypocrisy and reverts to them with wit “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” There is a clear demarcation that what belongs to Caesar is of this world and what belongs to God is everything sacred created by God.
In his homily, Fr. Martin told a story of a family who requested for a blessing from a priest but had consulted a witch doctor first to restore health. When the priest came to know about it, the blessing was not given. Fr. Martin stressed that we cannot subject ourselves to what is profane and also to God.
Fr. Martin said that we give most of our resources to what is not Godly and only the remnants to God. He then gave an analogy of a little girl who was given two dollars. Her father had told her that 1 dollar would belong to God and the other dollar is hers. Happily she dashes to a shop nearby to buy herself a chocolate bar and accidentally trips and falls. Her one dollar falls into the drain and she tells God that, that dollar was meant for God and uses the other dollar to buy her chocolate.
How often do we not give God what belongs to him and instead indulge ourselves in what is worldly?
We are God’s work of art created in his image and likeness (Eph 2:10) and thus called to be holy in all that we do ( 1 Peter 1:15). We are not be adulterated by the world or conformed to this world (Rom12:2). Our body, our vocations, our work and relationships all belong to God and should have “Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives tales (1 Timothy 4:7).” -SR
“The world tells us to seek success, power and money; God tells us to seek humility, service and love.”
Pope Francis