Being Stuck

The nun in France

They were building a chapel on their grounds. Climate activists were protesting. The nuns stood outside early in the morning to prevent any funny business. The activists went on the property regardless and started vandalizing the equipment an d the job site. Cameras are always on in these scenarios. Many people don’t want to be on camera. They are used to publicize whatever happened there. The nuns were aware of that, however they reacted would be publicized. But, if they did nothing, the people would just walk and destroy. Fed up, one of the sweet sisters went over and sweetly tackled a guy who was running around with what looks like PVC pipe. She chose the third option. Rugby!

And today we see Jesus similarly cornered. Right in front of the temple Jesus gets asked by the Pharisees and the Herodians, “Shall we pay the census tax or not?” Straightforward, but dangerous!

These are political opponents, the Pharisees, many of them Zealots, and the Herodians, “Jews” under the payroll of Caesar. They aren’t fond of each other. Yet for each, Jesus gets in the way.

(The Saint is a medicine because he is an antidote. Indeed that is why the saint is often a martyr; he is mistaken for a poison because he is an antidote. He will generally be found restoring the world to sanity by exaggerating whatever the world neglects, which is by no means always the same element in every age. Yet each generation seeks its saint by instinct; and he is not what the people want, but rather what the people need....Therefore it is the paradox of history that each generation is converted by the saint who contradicts it most. - I On Two Friars, GK Chesterton, https://www.ccel.org/ccel/chesterton/aquinas.iii.html)

If he says, “Forget the Romans, paying taxes are idolatry” - “Hear that Herodians? Arrest this man”

If He says, “Pay the tax,” the Jews would admit he’s not the Messiah.

Like the sister, He takes a third tactic, not Rugby, but using the opportunity as a teaching moment with the pithy saying, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what belongs to God.” For kids today, money wasn’t always electronic. It was this green paper stuff with Presidents on it. Same idea. If it comes from the government. Give them what they ask, but don’t neglect what belongs to God. And that goes for Presidents and governors as well. They will be held accountable for how they treat us, their subjects.

The coin, bc it really belongs to Rome should be given back to Caesar, it literally bears his image, and look how small it is, everyone’s all worked up over money. Now what bears God’s image and should be given back to him? Us.

Feast of JPII today, and he was someone who had total trust in God. He lost all of his family at an early age, and became the saint of the family, writing about families and much on femininity, masculinity, and sexuality. Living under Communist oppression, he knew that God would set things right, and God ended up using Pope JPII to do it.

And that goes for us, we can get worked up over politics, by this time next year the political machine will have us all worked up, making us think we have some sort of control… we don’t. we have God’s ear. “You only have authority because it has been given you from above.”

Oracle of the different nations that would control Israel, the statue parable. Daniel 2:32-34

New American Bible: Revised Edition Chapter 2

32 Its head was pure gold, its chest and arms were silver, its belly and thighs bronze, 33 its legs iron, its feet partly iron and partly clay. 34 While you watched, a stone was hewn from a mountain without a hand being put to it, and it struck its iron and clay feet, breaking them in pieces.

New American Bible: Revised Edition Chapter 2

44 In the lifetime of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed or delivered up to another people; rather, it shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and put an end to them, and it shall stand forever.

The traditional interpretation of the dream identifies the four empires as the Babylonian (the head), Medo-Persian (arms and shoulders), Greek (thighs and legs), and Roman (the feet) empires.[33] Miller, Stephen R. (1994). Daniel. B&H Publishing Group. p. 96.

Nobody likes paying taxes. And yet, our taxes, are instituted by lawful authority, I don’t like them, but in the Gospel they are paying taxes to a foreign power. In AD 66 a war did begin between the Jews and Rome, and Rome utterly and brutally crushed Jerusalem.

You and I might feel sometimes, “Is there even a God?” Well yes! He just does things in a more complicated fashion and simpler fashion than we might have done ourselves. But we aren’t God. You focus on giving to God what belongs to him, your soul, your life, and all.

So how? surround yourself with goodness. Move away from friends and conversations who aren’t good. Don’t watch movies that are ugly. Listen to music with good lyrics. Read books that help you to be good. Participate in good culture, good dancing, good ideals.

The 2nd Reading is about Paul speaking to people in trying times. We too are in trying times, and he tells them, “work in faith, labor in love, and endure in the hope of our Lord Jesus Christ” 1 Thes 1:3