Jump to: Lens | Reflection Prompts | Weekly Practice
First Reading: Isaiah 45:1, 4-6
Psalm 96: 1, 3, 4-5, 7-8, 9-10
Second Reading: 1 Thessalonians 1:1-5b
Gospel: Matthew 22:15-21
The Pharisees went off
and plotted how they might entrap Jesus in speech.
They sent their disciples to him, with the Herodians, saying,
“Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man
and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.
And you are not concerned with anyone’s opinion,
for you do not regard a person’s status.
Tell us, then, what is your opinion:
Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?”
Knowing their malice, Jesus said,
“Why are you testing me, you hypocrites?
Show me the coin that pays the census tax.”
Then they handed him the Roman coin.
He said to them, “Whose image is this and whose inscription?”
They replied, “Caesar’s.”
At that he said to them,
“Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar
and to God what belongs to God.”
Anchor Verse
“”Whose image and inscription is this?” They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
— Matthew 22:20-21
🔎 Lens: The Master of the Mint
The Pharisees and Herodians think they’ve built the perfect trap. Say taxes shouldn’t be paid, and Jesus is a rebel against Rome. Say they should, and he’s a collaborator against his own people. Either answer destroys him. Jesus asks for a coin instead, and asks one question: whose image is this? Caesar’s, they admit. Then render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, he says, and to God what is God’s.
Saint Augustine, preaching directly on this passage, noticed something underneath the cleverness. The trap was never really about taxes. It was about which image people were paying attention to. As St Augustine put it, if Caesar can look for his image on a coin, is God not to look for his image in a man? These men were anxious about a denarius bearing Caesar’s likeness while carrying, unattended, a soul bearing God’s. St Augustine pushed the coin image further still: just as Caesar’s face wears thin on a coin passed hand to hand, worn smooth by careless handling, so does the image of God in us wear down under the friction of sin. But Jesus, he said, is the master of the mint. He has come to strike the coins afresh, to pardon sin and restore what use and neglect have worn away.
That is the real content of this Gospel. Not a clever political dodge, but a Christ who wants to re-mint something in you that’s gone thin from handling.
Reflection Prompts
- St Augustine says these men were careful about a coin and careless about their souls. Where in your life is your attention going to the “coin” while the thing bearing God’s image goes unattended?
- “Just as Caesar’s face wears thin… so does the image of God in us wear down.” What has worn your own sense of belonging to God thin lately — not one dramatic thing, necessarily, but ordinary friction, repetition, neglect?
- Jesus is called “the master of the mint,” able to strike the coin afresh. Is there a part of yourself you’ve written off as too worn down to be renewed?
- Isaiah calls Cyrus, a pagan king, God’s “anointed” and uses him for God’s purposes without Cyrus even knowing God. Where might God be using circumstances or people outside your control for a purpose you can’t yet see?
Weekly Practice
At Mass
During the Confiteor, picture the “re-minting” St Augustine describes rather than a courtroom. Let it be a restoration, not a verdict.
After Mass
This week, notice one place where you give more careful attention to something replaceable (a device, a possession, an image you project) than to something in you that actually bears God’s likeness.
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