My Sisters and Brothers:
It seems to me we live at a time when everyone is expected to take very specific positions on every question, topic, issue, and/or matter with which he or she might be confronted. Once an individual makes known his or her opinion, feelings, and/or sentiments about any particular subject, then it seems he or she is immediately labeled in one way or another (e.g., liberal, conservative, radical-leftist, ultra-rightist, progressive, traditionalist, open-minded, close-minded, etc., and the list goes on and on). And often, those who don’t agree with particular or conventional viewpoints, political perspectives, and/or ideas are strongly criticized, condemned, and even shunned and ostracized. Isn’t it true that in this “Facebook generation” those who don’t “properly conform” to the most popular of opinions of certain and distinct groups of people, and who don’t pledge allegiance to whatever is thought by them to be the correct wisdom of the day, are simply “defriended” with swift clicks of the mouse? It seems to me that all too often in this time and age, people can’t anymore even seem “to agree to disagree.” But then again, I suppose this probably is not something altogether new to the human condition.
To be sure, something of this kind of dynamic was at play in the scene presented in today’s Gospel. According to the account “the Pharisees plotted how they might entrap Jesus in speech, and they sent their disciples to him, with the Herodians, saying, ‘Teacher, what is your opinion: Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?’” (see Matthew 22:15-21). As in previous situations, the scheming of the Pharisees at that moment demonstrated how utterly corrupt they were. So much so they even violated their own strict rules about associating with “sinners” as they openly colluded with the Herodians, a Jewish sect known for its cooperation with the Roman and “pagan” authorities (in any other situation, the Pharisees would have had nothing to do with those “wicked” Herodians). Once again, the hypocrisy of the Pharisees proved to have no limits! Seeking to trap Jesus “between a rock and a hard place” with their question about the paying of taxes to Caesar, they hoped he would take a very specific position allowing them to “label” him as either an enemy of God or an enemy of the state. They thought if they pinned him to one position or another regarding the taxes, he’d surely be criticized, condemned, and ostracized (we might even say: “defriended”) by one camp or another; it seemed like the perfect scheme! Ultimately of course, they sought to put Jesus to death, so any trap they utilized was done in order to reinforce their sinister plans.
Jesus however didn’t allow himself to be tricked into answers that would “trap him between rocks and hard places.” He didn’t give “literal” or “fundamentalistic” answers to treacherous questions, and I believe he likewise doesn’t want us to do so with the similar and cunning ones posed to us. Jesus’ clever answer to those conniving Pharisees, and to their Herodian cohorts, was “to give to Caesar what belonged to him, and to God what belonged to God.” The lesson was simple: Christians were called to be good citizens during their earthly lives, but at the same time people who always remained faithful to their Father in Heaven. Somehow Jesus’ wisdom, so sharply demonstrated by his answer to the question about taxes, permitted his followers to have respect for the many different perspectives they encountered in this complicated world. We might say it gave them the freedom “to agree to disagree” with others along the way, and I believe we too are called to abide by such wisdom! Therefore, may this wisdom always guide us as we gently attempt to navigate “between the rocks and the hard places” in our own lives. My friends, let’s not be treacherous and vindictive like the Pharisees and Herodians of old. And even in this “Facebook generation,” let’s not be very quick to judge harshly and then to “defriend” others with whom we might not always agree!
Praise God! Friar Timothy
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