Last week's gospel was about "giving Caesar what belongs to Caesar, but giving first and foremost to God what belongs to God." It was not so much an either or question, but one of primacy and priority. What is most important is rendering God all glory, praise and thanks!
Constantly, and for everything! In the right ordering of society (which is the realm of "Caesar") God expects us to
use our intelligence to move always towards the good and the truthful and the just. Natural intelligence and reasoning power can help us along these lines – but what can help even more is available supernatural help!
The Primary Truth, Good and Justice is God himself! And so to allow us deeper insight into keeping our priorities straight – he gives us supernatural aids: 1)the Word of Scripture that we read at this and every Mass; 2)the homily which is a practical application of the readings; 3)the possibility of offering ourselves and all of creation to him by the prayers of this Mass over the bread (which represents all these things) that is brought up in the Offertory Procession; 4)and to have them transformed into real spiritual food (the very Body and Blood of Jesus) to help us live balanced and abundantly rich spiritual lives. It is in the Eucharistic Celebration that Jesus himself unites us to his Passion and Death, so that we can also be sharers in the newness of resurrected life – and by the gift of the Spirit, to always know better what to do when we need to know it and do it!
The motivation behind all of this is the LOVE OF GOD! The LOVE that God has for us; the LOVE that he expects us to have for him and one another in return! The readings today speak of such love!
In the gospel passage when asked about the "greatest commandment" – Jesus recites the age old Jewish prescription: "You shall love God – with all you've got! AND you shall love your neighbor as you love yourself." These TWO he tells them forms ONE commandment.
What Jesus is doing here is telling us outright that WHEN WE LOVE OUR NEIGHBOR AND OURSELVES WHOM WE CAN SEE – we are at the exact same time loving Him whom we cannot see with our human eyes! And this is very pleasing to God.
The converse is also true: WHEN WE DO NOT LOVE OUR NEIGHBOR NOR OUR SELVES to the extent that we are empowered to, then we cannot possibly be loving God. And God is not pleased – at all. This means that even if you pray all day and go to church every Sunday – IF YOU DO NOT REALLY CARE ABOUT THE PEOPLE SITTING BESIDE YOU or the people living next door to you or down the street – or across town, or across the country or across the world - St. John – who is an expert par excellence on the love of God – says – to the extent that you don't do these things: you are a liar! Pretty strong words!
And so: giving God what is his due: glory, honor, praise, thanks and LOVE always comes first!! And then, everything else just seems to fall into place. We know much more easily how to get along with one another; we know much more easily how to
interact with one another peacefully on the family level, social level, as members of society, as members of the world; we know much more easily how to discern and choose the good, the true and the just – and how to go after it; we know much more easily how to decide how to "render to Caesar what is his due" in the business of formal government: the bottom line here beings always: that is best which promotes the greatest good and gives the most freedom to put God first and his precepts, his laws and his commandments.
GOD is meant to be our strength, our rock of refuge, our shield, the horn of our salvation, our stronghold! Not Caesar! "Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, but give to God what belongs to God!" Let us keep our eyes fixed on him and pray that he always be our primary ruler and guide – and we will always be on the right, good, true and just path – and we will end up where we ought to be! HIS KINGDOM – where JESUS will reign as KING forever!
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