Give Back To Caesar What Belongs To Caesar And To God What Belongs To God

Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

There is a popular hymn which is often used on Remembrance Day but is also heard, surprisingly, at weddings.  It is set to music by Gustav Holst with a tune derived from his Planets Suite, which is part of the reason for its popularity. The hymn is “I Vow To Thee My Country” and it has always made me feel rather uncomfortable when it is used in church.  I was reminded of this hymn when looking at the “punch line” of today’s Gospel. 

In the Gospel Jesus has been asked by the Pharisees whether or not they should pay taxes to Caesar.  It is a trick question.  If he says “yes” he will get into trouble with the Jewish nationalists who want to overthrow the Romans and if he says “no” he will get into trouble with the Romans.  He gets the Pharisees to show him a coin with Caesar’s head on it and says to them, “Give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” 

There is a way of interpreting this saying which is reminds me of the hymn.  The hymn has two verses.  The first is about duty to country and it was rewritten to reflect the sacrifice of the First World War.  It offers a love of country which is “entire and whole and perfect”, a love that “asks no questions”.  The second verse talks about “another country”, the Kingdom of Heaven.  Entry into this Kingdom is portrayed in rather individual terms and the hymn gives the impression that these are two completely different realms, two totally separate duties.  This is the way the Gospel can be interpreted, there is our civil duty to our nation or community and there is our duty to God, with very little connection between the two.  However, if we look at the point Jesus is making in the Gospel the two are not somehow equal.  If we ask what belongs to God the answer is everything.  The first reading about God using the Persian ruler Cyrus for his own purposes brings this home.  Everything belongs to God, including Caesar, and duty to God shapes everything else. 

A sense of identity, a sense of civic duty, a sense of obligation to serve the society to which be belong is an important part of human life.  Pope Francis acknowledges the importance of a sense of identity and belonging in his latest Encyclical on “fraternity”. Our call as Christians is to work to ensure our country embodies Gospel values, particularly those values of solidarity with all peoples, especially those most in need, which Pope Francis talks about in his Encyclical.  Perhaps we can see our call to work for the Kingdom of God and carry out or civic duty more in terms of that other patriotic hymn where we pledge ourselves “to build Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land”. 

 We can rightly honour those who gave their lives for their country in the way that Sir Cecil Spring Rice and Gustav Holst sought to do when the produced the hymn. That does not mean we have to say, “my country right or wrong” or think that its interests have to come first in a way which denies the needs and interests of others. 

I was quite happy as a Wolf Cub (as they then were) at the age of 8 to promise to do my duty to God and the Queen but I was always clear which came first.  I would still think the same today and get worried when the two are separated.  

Fr Chris Pedley SJ