Week 533–The Word–Fr Tony Percy–The Church-State Relationship

The Word–Fr Tony Percy–The Church-State Relationship (Today is the conflict story about the leaders who come to Jesus, and they say, "Should we pay the tax to Caesar or should we not?" This is introducing us to a great theme down in the tradition of the church over the 20 centuries of the relationship between Church and State. The way Jesus answers this particular controversy is very important. He doesn't give us prescriptive advice; he gives us a skeleton in which we can judge each issue. Jesus says, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesars and render to God the things that are God." So, you can see here the Church -State relationship coming into play. Naturally enough, the State must be able to function, and they need taxes to do it. So, on the coin, you see the image of Caesar. On a human being, the image is the image of God. And in the tradition, we say we are made in the image and likeness of God, we are made in body, soul, and spirit in the image of God. Just as we offered the State the gift of money for taxes, so we offer our very selves back to God. What Jesus has done here is to say as Christians we can do both, we can be faithful to our obligations to the State and most faithful to our obligations to God in offering ourselves to God as a living sacrifice, as Paul recommended in chapter 12 of Romans.)