Thomas J. Gumbleton Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Detroit, Michigan * Thisweek's readings ** Isaiah 45:1, 4-6 Thus says the Lord to Cyrus His anointed, whom I have taken by the right hand, to subdue nations before him and to loose the loins of kings; to open doors before him so that gates will not be shut: "For the sake of Jacob My servant, and Israel My chosen one, I have also called you by your name; I have given you a title of honor though you have not known Me. "I am the Lord, and there is no other; besides Me there is no God I will gird you, though you have not known Me; that men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun that there is no one besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other." 1 Thessalonians 1:1-5 Paul and Silvanus and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace. We give thanks to God always for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers; constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father, knowing, brethren beloved by God, His choice of you; for our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. Matthew 22:15-21 Then the Pharisees went and plotted together how they might trap Him in what He said. And they sent their disciples to Him, along with the Herodians, saying, "Teacher, we know that You are truthful and teach the way of God in truth, and defer to no one; for You are not partial to any. Tell us then, what do You think? Is it lawful to give a poll-tax to Caesar, or not?" But Jesus perceived their malice, and said, "Why are you testing Me, you hypocrites? Show Me the coin used for the poll-tax." And they brought Him a denarius. And He said to them, "Whose likeness and inscription is this?" They said to Him, "Caesar's." Then He said to them, "Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's." * Alongtime national and international activist in the peace movement, BishopGumbleton is a founding member of Pax Christi USA and an outspoken criticof the sanctions against Iraq. Hehas appeared on numerous radio and television programs, and has publishednumerous articles and reports. * Scripture texts in thiswork are in modified form from the American Standard Version of the Bibleand are available as part of the public domain. For your convenience, theScripture texts, as they appear in the Lectionary for Mass for Use in theDioceses of the United States, second typical edition, Copyright ©1998, 1997, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C.,may be found at the website of the United States Conference of CatholicBishops (USCC). http://www.usccb.org/nab/ **The Web link to Pax Christi is provided as a service to our readers.

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It's probably not the proper response but I confess that I get a certain delight when Jesus so easily and so quickly puts down those Pharisees and Herodians. You know we're not supposed to delight in other people's discomfort but once in a while it feels good. In fact there's a name for it, I remember from moral theology, we call that delectatio morosa or "the delight in other people's bad luck." It's hard not to feel some of that as we listen to today's Gospel, but there is an awful lot for us to reflect on in today's Gospel.

The first thing that comes to my mind is how Jesus is confrontational. You know, that's something that maybe most of us don't connect with Jesus that often. But if you remember the last the last few Sundays, Jesus has been in a dispute, an argument, with people who are challenging him. And he confronts them. He doesn't just back off, and he's not passive. That's important for us to know about Jesus, because as we speak about the nonviolence of Jesus and how that is so clear, sometimes you get the idea that it means passivity, but it doesn't. The way for us to try to transform our world into the fascinating power of love, through nonviolence, is not going to be passive. Jesus certainly wasn't passive today when he says to those Herodians and Pharisees immediately, "You hypocrites!" He names them for what they are.

Perhaps it's important to explore a little bit of what was going on here. Matthew says at the very beginning of the gospel that the Pharisees, the leaders who had been in these disputes with Jesus, went back to think it over, asking, "How are we going to trap him?" So they went to the followers of King Herod and got them to go with them to see Jesus. They had this question, which they think will put Jesus in a very, very impossible situation. "Do we pay taxes to Caesar or not?" The question itself is a good question. Should we pay taxes to an empire? Faithful Jewish people had to think about that very carefully. And perhaps it's a question we should think about right now. A few years ago, some of you may remember, Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen who was the archbishop in Seattle, Washington, made a public declaration that he was going to refuse to pay half of his income tax to the federal government. It was his way of protesting the misuse of tax money.

The use of tax money certainly isn't any better today. I read this past week in the newsletter of the Oakland County Peace Center that, if I remember the numbers correctly, as of September our nation has spent over $160 billion on the war in Iraq. By this time it's probably $200 billion. Our tax money is being used on a war that was based on false premises and is killing so many people and devastating a whole nation. We're being told, "We're bringing democracy there because they voted yesterday." Well, in one area of the country, the only people voting were the guards at the polling booth and the ones there to count the ballots. In many parts of Iraq that was the situation. Clearly, we're not bringing democracy there. We're bringing death, devastation and destruction. Should we allow our tax dollars to go for that? I'm not going to answer that question right now, but it is a question that all of us probably need to think about once in a while. Our tax dollars should be going to provide help, social services for the poor, people without medical care, people who will be without heating and lighting this winter because heating bills will go so high.

It is a good question, but Jesus doesn't -- in one sense -- answer that question. What he does is show the hypocrisy of the Herodians and Pharisees by asking them that simple question: "Show me a coin." Right away, one of them pulls out a coin and right there in the temple precinct, they have a coin that has an image on it. The Jewish religious tradition didn't allow images, and especially not of a pagan, but on that coin was an image of Caesar. Anybody who had one of those coins had to buy it in order to enter into the economy of the empire. Having that coin shows that they were unfaithful to their own Jewish traditions, and so they were not asking Jesus an honest question. They were hypocrites because they even had this coin. But then Jesus says, "O.K., who's image is it?" They say, "Caesar's." "Well, then give it back to Caesar. Let him have what's his." It doesn't belong in the Jewish religious tradition at all, he means.

But then what Jesus added is the really important part. "Give to God what is God's."

What is God's? What belongs to God that we give back to God? Not church buildings like this, beautiful as it is. We give back to God our living worship. We gather here in this building so we can give God our praise, our love, our joy. We give back to God what is God's and all of creation is God. All of creation belongs to God. So we are stewards of that creation. We should be giving back to God a planet that is made as beautiful as possible instead of being exploited and destroyed in so many ways.

But most of all what is God's is every human person. Every human person belongs to God and what God wants from us is that we give back to God human persons in the fullness of their personhood. Being full human persons. We live in a world where the vast majority of people on this planet cannot become full human persons because they are in absolute poverty. They don't have what it takes to become a full human person: food, water, clothing, shelter, healthcare, education. They're in absolute poverty. Because some of us have way more than we have a right to, they are deprived. They're not able to be the full human persons that God calls them to be.

Of course, if we're going to give back to God what belongs to God, this probably means some change for all of us. We have to try to understand better how distorted the world's wealth and resources are. We have to understand better how much we have to reach out to the poor and the oppressed, the marginalized. If we're going to give back what is God's -- and that is every person in their fullness as human persons -- we probably have to help to bring about a change in the direction of the Archdiocese of Detroit. And I don't say that lightly

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I saw an article in The Michigan Catholic this week that talks about changes in the church. It talks about a television show that is being put together and will be showing soon about the "Together in Faith Project." We're all familiar with that. That is the process by which we're developing a five year plan to close a cluster of parishes all over the archdiocese. The article said:

"The Together in Faith process isn't happening in a vacuum, but is a part of the continual change that the Church of Detroit and its people have faced through their history. That's the idea behind "Changing times, A Changing Church," a special program the Catholic Television Network has put together to discuss the spiritual, theological and pastoral changes going on in the Church of Detroit."

mentions that change -- such as the liturgical changes from Vatican II -- take time to adapt to. Some change even comes with sorrow. But it's important in shaping who we are as Catholics. … The church in every gathering is about change -- not only change of the elements"

"but the change of us."

"The dialogue concludes with a discussion of Together in Faith -- the initiative that will change the landscape of the local church in to the future. Together in Faith is meant to respond to current challenges such as shifting demographics"

"… shifting demographics, a shortage of priests and economic challenges to both parishes and Catholic schools."

In 1986 the Catholic bishops of the United States published a pastoral letter on the U.S. economy. It caught a lot of attention because it was sort of radical. You might not believe that's possible for bishops to be radical but this time they were. In that letter --when we were examining the U.S. economy and the effect it was having and who it was benefitting and who it wasn't and where the money was going and that sort of thing -- the bishops suggested that every time we make a decision within the church, in a parish, in a diocese, or for the whole Church, we should ask ourselves three questions:

• What will this do to the poor?
• What will this do for the poor?
• And, how do the poor participate?

If we really took this seriously, we would be reaching out to serve the poor in Detroit, in the archdiocese and beyond to other parts of the world. That's what we could be doing as a church if we really took seriously what Jesus teaches us in today's Gospel. "Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's." Whatever coins or things belong to Caesar, yes, give them back. But all of us should get serious about giving back to God what is God's, what belongs to God and that is every person given back to God as a full human person.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.