To the Band of Brothers: October 24, 2023

On Sunday, I was blessed to celebrate Mass at the soup kitchen of the Missionaries of Charity. While it is a blessing to celebrate Mass anywhere, being with the sisters of Mother Theresa is an added bonus. If you ever want to know what a true vocation of service is all about, just hang out with these nuns for a couple of hours. What they do is heroic.

The gospel for Sunday was taken from the 22nd chapter of Matthew and tells of the exchange between Jesus and some Pharisees and Herodians. Usually, these dialogues are heated. Jesus had a lot of patience for a lot of people, from tax collectors to prostitutes, but he had little patience for the Pharisees. Not because they were Pharisees, there were many good and holy ones, but because some of them were very hypocritical. That’s really what Jesus struggled with… hypocrisy. On the outside they seem to be nice and complimentary, but on the inside they’re vicious and mean. Jesus made it a point to unmask them. 

Well, in this episode they approach Jesus with the intention of luring him into a trap. They ask him, “Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?” (v.17). On the one hand, the Pharisees who hated Roman domination in Israel looked to trap him in support of Caesar if he said “yes.” On the other hand, the Herodians, who were faithful to the Romans, wanted to trap him if he said “no.” Isn’t it interesting that two groups who, at the end of the day are at odds with each other, can come together as allies to bring down the Messiah?

Jesus knows it’s a trick and recognizes their malice. He tells them to show him a coin and point out whose image is on it. It’s Caesar’s of course. Then Jesus says the line that has resonated over and over again for thousands of years, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God” (v.21). So amazed are the people with his answer, including the Pharisees and Herodians, that Matthew tells us they left him alone and went away. 

Jesus 1, hypocrites 0.

So what’s so amazing about Jesus’s answer? Well, to understand it you have to go to the book of Genesis, a book these smarty-pants Pharisees and Herodians knew all too well. Chapter 1, the creation story, tells us when God created men and women He created them, “in His image; in the image of God He created them” (v.27). What that means is that while the coin was created with the image of Caesar printed on it, men and women are created with the image of God. So, while it is lawful to pay your taxes because that money has the Caesars image on it, men and women need to be given back to God because they have His image on them. In other words, treat people with the love and respect they deserve because they are “imago dei.”

When we think about the brutal war taking place in the Middle East right now, it is sad to read daily stories of atrocities that are taking place. We can argue back and forth about the political, territorial, and ideological motivations for the war, but the people, whether Muslim or Jewish, are the image of God and should be treated as such. Look at Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, OFM, the Archbishop and Patriarch of Jerusalem. Just last week he, a Catholic, publicly offered to take the place of Jewish children being held hostage by Hamas. Why would he do that? Because he understands these children are created in the image of God and need to be saved. Or the Sisters of the Rosary. These Catholic nuns run a nursing home in northern Gaza. When told by Israel to evacuate, they refused to leave because they needed to take care of the elderly Muslims they serve. Why would they do that? Again, because they understand the elderly are created in the image of God and need to be taken care of.

We don’t have to travel far to see this kind of heroism. The very Missionaries of Charity in downtown Miami do the same. You often wonder how these Catholic women can dedicate their whole lives to serving the poorest of the poor in Miami. How they can take in hundreds of homeless men and women no matter what their religion, state of mind, or country of origin and feed them, clothe them, and offer them shelter. They do it because they understand the homeless are also created in the image of God and what belongs to God should be given to God. While most people have a hard time seeing the image of God in the homeless, they see it perfectly.

We are living in some challenging times, but it is important to understand it is exactly at times like these that the world needs heroes. The beauty is they tend to surface. Heroes tend to stand up and make their presence known, giving hope to a world that so desperately needs it. Just remember, every person who surrounds you is created in the image of God. Be heroic and treat them that way.

Auspice Maria.