Tuesday of Week 9 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on 2 Peter 3:11-15,17-18

The early Christians had high expectations that the Lord would come back to them very soon.  As time passed, they began to realise that it might not be as soon as they had first thought, namely in their own lifetime.  This is reflected in the way later books of the New Testament are written.

But even here in this relatively late book the anticipation is still there.  We are even urged to hasten that day.  How can we do this?  By working harder to bring more people to know the Way of Christ, to share his vision of life and thus realise the full establishment of the Kingdom.  We still have a long way to go!

The “Day of God”, the end of the world, is visualised as utter destruction of all we know now, but it will be replaced by “new heavens and a new earth”, words taken from Isaiah and also used in the book of Revelation (21:1).  This new world is “where righteousness is at home”.  There truth and goodness will dwell as unchanging and unchangeable elements. This will be a time when what we pray for in the Lord’s Prayer—”your Kingdom come, your will be done”—will be fully realised.

For each one us, it is a reminder to lead lives “without spot or blemish” (words applied to Jesus in 1 Peter) and at peace with God.  In this way, we are always prepared no matter what time the Lord decides to take us to himself.  We are told to “regard the patience of our Lord as salvation”. This echoes words of Jesus in John’s Gospel that he has come not to condemn, but to bring salvation.

We are told to:

…beware that you are not carried away with the error of the lawless and lose your own stability.

In this case, the warning is against Gnostic teachers who held ideas which were in conflict with the gospel. In our day too, there are many kinds of ‘error’ which can lead us far from the ways of truth, love and justice.

But we are also told to:

…grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

To grow in grace is to open ourselves more and more to the experience of being loved by God.  To grow in the knowledge of Jesus is not to know more about him, but to grow in a personal and intimate relationship of mutual love.

This kind of knowledge is on a different plane altogether from the esoteric knowledge that the Gnostics proclaimed. In our own day, some come pretty close to Gnosticism when they put an excessive emphasis on doctrinal orthodoxy. This is a modern version of Pharisaism.

Jesus said that people would know true Christians not by their theology, but by the love they show for each other, and especially for those in any kind of need:

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13:35)

and

I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. (John 17:23)

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Tuesday of Week 9 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Mark 12:13-17

Possibly in response to the parable of the wicked tenants which we read yesterday, a delegation comes to confront Jesus. Their composition is rather unusual, but proves the ancient saying that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. It would be hard to find two groups more ideologically opposed than the Pharisees and the Herodians. The Pharisees set the highest standards in their observance of the Law. They were highly patriotic and strongly anti-Roman. The Herodians, on the other hand, were seen as rather lax and not particularly devout. And they had the reputation of being a little too cosy with the Roman colonial powers. In normal circumstances, these two groups would never be seen in each other’s company. But now they had a common opponent in Jesus. For Jesus was seen, depending on how he was interpreted, as challenging the Law on the one hand and as a potential rallying point for anti-Roman sentiment on the other.

The confrontation is carried out with a good deal of subtlety. It begins with shameless flattery:

Teacher, we know that you are sincere and show deference to no one, for you do not regard people with partiality but teach the way of God in accordance with truth.

In fact, every word of this is absolutely true and would that it could be said of every one of us! In their book, however, it means that Jesus is a very dangerous person and, indeed, people like Jesus have run into trouble all through history, not least in our own days.

Having, as they imagined, totally disarmed Jesus by their positive approach, they smoothly slip in the knife. One can almost hear the blandness and feigned innocence with which they ask their question:

Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?

It sounds to us a very straightforward question, but it was, in fact, one of the most politically sensitive issues of the day. And of course, it was a trick question.

If Jesus said it was permissible, then he incurred the wrath of every Jewish patriot, most of all the powerful Pharisees, who deeply resented the presence of the Roman power on their land. If he said it was not permissible, then he could immediately be denounced by people like the Herodians to the Roman authorities for subversion. In either case, he would lose.

Jesus, of course, immediately sees through their deceit. He asks to be shown a denarius, a coin roughly equal to a day’s wage. It was a Roman coin and it carried the head of the emperor, Caesar Augustus. Pointing to the image, Jesus asks whose head it is and he is told it is that of the emperor. Jesus said,

Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.

His enemies “were utterly amazed at him” and reduced to speechlessness with no comeback. It was an answer that said everything and said nothing. It said everything because no one could quarrel with it; it said nothing because it did not decide in any way what belonged to God and what to the emperor.

The whole scene, of course, reflects a serious problem besetting the early Church. How much allegiance did they owe, as Christians, to the temporal power, especially one where the emperor was seen as having divine prerogatives or was openly persecuting Christians? There were clearly limits to the allegiance they could give. This resulted in waves of persecutions and large numbers of martyrs dying rather than compromising their faith.

The problem of how much allegiance Christians owe to temporal powers is still a live issue for us today. It concerns the question of separation of Church and state and how that is to be interpreted. It concerns the way we—both electors and elected—vote when sensitive moral issues are at stake.

In one sense, God has a total claim on our allegiance. There is nothing which does not belong to him. Nevertheless, society, through its legitimate authorities, also has a claim on our allegiance. It can make demands on us in asking us to contribute, e.g. through taxation, to promoting the overall well-being of our whole community, especially of those who are in need.

As Christians, we cannot simply isolate ourselves from the political arena, that is, the area in which the interests of the citizenry are discussed and managed. The political arena is inseparable from issues of truth and justice, and there is no way that Christians, who are committed to building the Kingdom, cannot be concerned about the welfare of their fellow citizens. “The Church should not dabble in politics,” say some. No, it should not dabble; it should be deeply involved in every important moral and social issue.

Nevertheless, the words of Jesus remain our guiding principle: we give to God what belongs to him and we give to society what it has a right to ask of us—our cooperation in making it a place guided by the principles and values of the Kingdom. To do anything less is to fail to give everything to God.

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