Isaiah 45:1, 4-6
Psalm 96:1, 3-5, 7-10
1 Thessalonians 1:1-5
Matthew 22:15-21
God acts in strange ways
sometimes. One day I was at the seminary in the chapel and felt convicted that
I needed to simplify my life a bit, so I prayed for the grace to spend less
time on the computer, internet, and my phone. I concluded my prayer, went upstairs,
sat down in my chair and swung around to work at my desk. In this swing I hit
my knee on the desk, causing my solid glass picture frame to come crashing down
directly on the screen of my laptop. Prayer answered! Not how I had expected
and much more expensively than anticipated, but prayer answered.
For the past couple of weeks
there has been a Synod of Bishops (a gathering of Cardinals, Bishops, lay men
and women, and various professionals from across the globe) in Rome to discuss
“The Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization.”
That’s a mouthful of a title, but the basic idea seems great – how can the
Church help families today to thrive in life and in faith. And so they had
hours and hours of discussions on a whole host of topics, but interestingly
enough, when the secular media read the document that was released half-way
through the Synod as a summary of their discussions something entirely
different came up – ‘The Church is Okay with Gays!’, ‘Ground-breaking changes in
the Church!’ and ‘Church finally coming out of dark ages!’ And my first
thoughts were basically (pardon my language) ‘What the hell does any of that
have to do with the family!?’ Nothing! And with those announcements came a
great uproar from all sides. Some greatly in favor of such changes and other in
shock because they Church cannot make such changes. But in the midst of all of
this, we have to realize one thing: this is a test. Do we trust God to work
through all of this? It’s a test.
We don’t often think about God
testing us these days. It’s not part of our concept of God and yet it is very
much God’s concept of Himself. It happens all throughout the Scriptures, over
and over again; testing the love of the people for God. We see one instance in
our first reading from Isaiah about ‘the anointed, Cyrus.’ Such a description
would have caused a great scandal among the Israelites because the anointed was
the Messiah, the savior of God’s people, but Cyrus wasn’t even a Jew. He wasn’t
even a believer! “It is I who arm you, though you know me not,” the Lord says
of him. Talk about a test – the savior of the people chosen by God wouldn’t
even believe in that God himself? Wow.
And it’s not just the Lord who
puts us to the test, right? Sometimes we put God to the test, though we aren’t
necessary supposed to do so. But that’s what happens in the Gospel this week.
For the past few weeks, Jesus has been on the offensive, asking questions and
speaking parables. But this week they come after Him with questions, beginning
with that of the tax to Caesar. It was a good question because either way He
answered it meant rebellion; to pay the tax was to rebel against the Jewish
culture and apparently acknowledge an earthly ‘god’ in Casear, to not pay the
tax was to rebel against Caesar and surely merit death. And to this quandary
Jesus poses the question about whose image is there. In the coin, we see the
image of Caesar and are challenged to give to Caesar what is his, but the next
step is the catch – but we must give to God what belongs to God. The coin was
in Caesar’s image, but what is made in God’s image? Us – you and me. And that’s
the problem.
It’s hard to ‘give to God what is
God’s’ because means that we must give God our entire self. Our mind, our
heart, our will, our desires, our hopes, our dreams. It goes against one of our
deepest desires, which is to have control. To have control means we can have
some comfort in knowing what to expect of the future, we can put our trust in
our own work and not have to interact with anyone higher (or so we think). So
the real question here is do we trust God that much? Each night for the
Church’s official Night Prayer there is a response that echoes the Psalms and
the Lord Jesus on the Cross which says, “Into your hands, Lord, I commend my
spirit.” I had prayed those words well over a thousand times but then one night
I prayed them and looked at the crucifix and realized what was in the hands of
the Lord: nails. “Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit.” Into your hands
I place my life, my will, ever wish I have for the future, there to be nailed
with your hands to the Cross and there to die, trusting that the resurrection
reality you have in store for me is that much greater.
With the Synod there were three
main responses and to each of them the invitation is to trust. For those who
are afraid that the Church is making all sorts of seismic shifts and changes,
it is an opportunity to trust that the Lord who gave the Church the Holy Spirit
to lead us in all truth and promised that the gates of hell shall not prevail
against her will be faithful to us and protect us from the influence of the
evil one. For those who are excited about the prospect of radical change in the
Church, it is an opportunity to trust that the Lord who gave us the law of Love
2000 years ago has not abandoned us and that the Law that sometimes feels
harsh, or exclusive is meant not to weigh us down but to lift us up into
heaven. And for those who have no concern one way or the other, this time is a
chance to trust that all of these things being discussed and the decisions to
be made have a great importance in the life of the Church and the world.
God works in strange ways
sometimes, but in those strangest of times we need only remember that it is
likely a test to measure the extent of our love for the Lord. It is a test to
see just how much we are willing to place our will into the crucified hands of
Jesus. It is a test to see how firm we our in awareness of the Spirit’s action
all around us. As we come to receive Holy Communion today it is an opportunity
to unite ourselves to God not only in the flesh, but also to let our will
become more conformed to His. Do we love God that much?
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