Death and Taxes
Dear Sisters and Brothers,
I enjoy feedback, whether a compliment or constructive criticism, and so far I have received several pieces of feedback regarding YOLO - You Only Live Once - our current message series. The idea forces us to ask some hard questions: what is the purpose of life? What is life for? How ought we spend this life?
People are taken with the title, but more so with the reality that we only get one shot. That truth can stir a certain urgency in us, at least in me. Last week, we focused on time. We can measure our bank accounts, but we have no idea how many more minutes we will be here. Someone asked me: “Father, we only live once but we live forever, right?” Yes, most definitely. But last time I checked, no one gets out of here alive! We live forever, but death is the gateway between this life and the next. No one escapes death.
In our culture today, YOLO can include a certain nihilism: go for it, this is your only chance! While there is an urgency to this life - remember Paul’s advice “run so as to win” (1 Cor 9:24) in this race of life - we also admit that all our efforts and energy will bear on our eternal life.
All that we say and do and think matters in the next life. Each day is a gift - but how will we use it? Each talent is a blessing - how will we cultivate it? Each resource is precious, so how will we use it for God’s honor and glory, to build up the Body of Christ?
When we die, it is not just that someone turns off the lights and we fall into an eternal slumber. Rather, at death, we come face-to-face with Christ our Savior and Judge. Prayers from one funeral Mass go like this: “May he who did not doubt your Son to be a loving Savior, find in Him a merciful Judge.” Yes Lord, for this we pray.
In the first week, we focused on appreciating that all we have been given is a gift from the Lord. In the second week, we homed in on time - that precious commodity about which we are never sure just how much we have. This week, our focus is on the distinction between the temporal and eternal, between the natural and the spiritual, between God’s realm and our earthly reality.
The Pharisees try to trap Jesus with a question about taxes. No good Jew would want to pay taxes to the Roman authorities. It was perceived as paying for the oppression to continue, paying to maintain the foreign power. And yet, should Jesus openly advocate for not paying the tax, he would be considered a rebel and upstart by the Roman authorities. Tread carefully, Jesus - and so he does.
Jesus reminds us of the relationship between the temporal and the eternal. He opines: sure, pay the tax. Many of us can even quote the line. It is so memorable: “Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God” (Mt 22:21) And they were left speechless. How could they argue with that?!
If you think about it, money is just a means to an end, a way to store and trade value. But we take none of it with us. So give the coin to Caesar; his face is on it. The last part though, is the tricky part. What belongs to God? If we follow Jesus’ advice, where does that take us?
I belong to God. You belong to God. At Baptism, each of us was marked, imprinted, stamped with the insignia of the Holy Trinity. “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” That spiritual tattoo is permanent, a mark on our souls, never to be washed away. For ever, for all eternity, we belong to God. He doesn’t just want an hour on Sunday morning, but that our whole lives are rendered in service to his Kingdom. After all, we pray “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done.” And we are meant to be a key part of how that comes about. We are not on the sidelines, but teammates in this game of life.
Next week is Stewardship Sunday. We will be asking you to prayerfully consider the gifts that God has shared with you, recognize that everything you have is a gift from God, and to plan your commitment to our parish for the coming year. Please remember Jesus’ advice and how generous God is with us.
Yours faithfully,
Fr. Wilson
