Bishop Barron's Sunday sermon on rendering to Caesar and to God
Bishop Robert Barron delivers a Sunday sermon on the Gospel passage about Caesar, taxes, and God.
Summary
Bishop Barron reflects on the 29th Sunday of the liturgical year, focusing on the famous Gospel exchange in which the Pharisees attempt to trap Jesus with the question of whether it is lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar. He argues that Jesus's famous one-liner — "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's" — did not simply resolve the question but opened a long tradition of debate about church and state. Barron contends that both theocracy and radical secularism rest on a flawed metaphysical assumption: that God is merely the greatest being among many. Drawing on St. Thomas Aquinas, he argues that God is not a supreme being competing with worldly powers, but the creative ground of all existence — and that this understanding is the key to properly balancing religious and civil authority. The sermon concludes with the observation that the coin belongs to Caesar, but Caesar himself belongs to God.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Opening: The Pharisees' Trap
Bishop Barron: Peace be with you. Friends, for this 29th Sunday of the year, we have this famous story about Caesar and God — rendering to Caesar and to God — which has been the source of lots and lots of commentary and controversy over the centuries. I'm going to try to shed some light on this famous old dilemma.
I'm always kind of amused by how this story opens. The Lord is in dialogue with the Pharisees — he's not crazy about them — and we hear that they're plotting how to entrap him in his speech. That's an old game, isn't it? Let's try to set this guy up so that whatever he says, it'll go against him. I know a little bit about that, by the way. Anyone who works on the internet knows about this old trick.
And listen to how this guy approaches him. You could practically see it: "Teacher, we know you're a truthful man. You teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You're not concerned with other people's opinions. You don't regard a person's status." Yeah, yeah, yeah. He might as well say, "I know when I'm being buttered up here. I know when I'm being set up for something."
So that's what's happening. And then here comes the trap: "So tell us then, what's your opinion? Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?"
Well, it's a pretty good trap they've set. It's a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation. If he says yes, he's got all the people who are upset at Roman oppression — all the revolutionaries, all the zealots — angry at him. If he says no, it's not lawful, we shouldn't pay that tax, now he's got the Romans and their collaborators coming down on him. No matter what he says. And the fact that they set it up as a yes-or-no question — either way, heads I win, tails you lose. It's just going to be a disaster.
Jesus's Famous One-Liner
And then Jesus delivers one of the most famous one-liners in history. "Show me the coin. Whose image is that?" "Well, it's Caesar's." "All right. Give to Caesar what's Caesar's, and to God what's God's."
So clever, of course. But there's much more going on there, I think. Did he automatically solve the problem with that one-liner? Well, no — because in a way this bequeathed to the whole tradition a long, long conversation about church and state, about the sacred and the secular, about government versus religion, all of it. Coming up out of this exchange, we see this long tradition.
The Two Extremes: Theocracy and Radical Secularism
And this question has two great extremes. The one we'll call the theocratic extreme — theocracy — which is that religion just dominates government, religion basically takes over. Think of the present situation in Iran, a country run by the Mullahs, run according to religious Sharia law, where religion has really just taken over the secular or governmental responsibility. Have there been theocracies up and down the centuries, across cultures? Sure.
The other extreme, much more prevalent today in the West, would be a kind of aggressive secularism. They would say, "Government, all that — that belongs to the secular leadership. And religion, well, that's fine if you like that sort of thing. We'll tolerate it as a kind of private hobby, but it's got nothing to do with the public order." So the one is religion dominates government; the other is government is completely independent and religion is a sort of sidelight, a footnote.
Historical Attempts at Mediation
Well, if those are the two extremes, have there been attempts over the centuries to find some sort of mediation between them? Yes. Even in the Middle Ages, when the divine right of kings held sway, there was still a sense of the two orders — the ecclesial order and the governmental, the kingly order. They even sometimes made reference to the two swords. Remember in the story of the Last Supper, when Jesus said, "How many swords do you have?" "We have two." "Well, that's enough." So the sword of the state, the sword of the church, and so on. Different altar-throne relationships, sometimes tending more toward the altar, more toward the throne.
Were there conflicts between these two views? Of course. Go back to Henry II in England against Thomas Becket. Watch the movie Becket sometime, with Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton — it tells that story. It was a conflict between a churchman's prerogatives and the king's prerogatives, and the two of them butted heads.
Then, a few centuries after that, another Henry and another Thomas — this time Henry VIII and Thomas More. The same kind of battle between the primacy of the church and the primacy of the state, who holds sway.
And another Henry — not of England, but Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor — perhaps the most famous case: he was excommunicated by Pope Gregory VII, and then Henry had to go to the Pope's winter palace and beg in a penitential spirit. So altar-throne, king-pope, church-state battles raged throughout the Middle Ages and throughout the history of the church.
The American Experiment
A very interesting place to look is our own country. I know this sermon goes out beyond America, so I'm speaking of my own country, the United States. I think in a kind of stroke of genius, James Madison, who formulated the Bill of Rights, wrote in the First Amendment to the Constitution: "Congress shall make no law pertaining to the establishment of religion." He didn't want there to be an official state religion. At the same time, Madison says there should be no law of Congress restricting the free exercise of religion. A kind of stroke of genius in this pluralistic religious society, where there wasn't a clear consensus about matters of church and faith — no established religion, but no restriction on the free exercise of religion, trying to find that right balance.
Did Madison solve the problem definitively? Well, clearly not, because up and down the American centuries we've been debating that problem — to what degree are we doing too much establishment, too much restriction? The Supreme Court has gone back and forth on that issue. In the last year of my life I was on a religious liberty commission, and we looked at that issue a great deal.
My point here is that you've got these two extreme positions — theocracy and a sort of radical secularism — and then over the centuries a lot of mediating positions attempting to bring church and state into some kind of equilibrium.
Back to Jesus: The Metaphysics of God
Now let's go back to Jesus and this famous scene. Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not? Show me the coin. Now, watch this, everybody. "Whose image is on the coin?" is what Jesus asked. It's very important. Keep that in mind. Whose image — whose imago — is on the coin? Caesar. Okay.
To solve this thing, I've got to commit an act of metaphysics, so I'll put my philosopher's hat back on for a minute. It's very important to get this right, because I think the various faulty ways of thinking about this — from one extreme to the other and throughout the middle — depend upon a false understanding of how God relates to the world.
In a standard view, God would be the supreme being. So there are lots of beings — from this podium to me to the planet Jupiter, everything in between — and then God would be the biggest thing around, the greatest of all beings. Now, watch what happens if we understand God in that way.
Let's say the planet Jupiter — the biggest of the planets — fell out of orbit and was now falling toward the sun, on a collision course with Earth. What would happen? Earth would just be obliterated, destroyed. Jupiter would overwhelm it. Because in the world of things, there is a competitiveness — the bigger the thing, the more powerful it is. There is a mutual exclusivity in the world of things.
Now flip this around. Let's say Jupiter stays where it is. It's very easy for me to forget about it. In fact, I rarely think about the planet Jupiter. It has zero impact on my life. I live my life without any reference to it.
Can you see my point here? These two extremes — religion obliterating the state, dominating government, taking over, theocratic; or secularism, where I'm indifferent to God, completely doing fine without him — both of those extremes are predicated upon the assumption that God is a big being among many.
Aquinas and the Correct Metaphysics
The correct metaphysics — and if you want the details, read St. Thomas Aquinas — is not that God is the supreme being, one among many. Rather, God, Aquinas says, is Ipsum esse subsistens: the sheer act of to-be itself. Which is to say, the creative ground from which all finite reality comes — not a being in the world like the ancient mythological gods and goddesses, but the creative source of all that is.
Now, watch what that means. Is the world therefore other than God? Yes. The world has its own integrity, its own independence. God is not one of the denizens of the world. God is not in a threatening, conflictual relationship with anything in the world. But at the same time, is God present to everything in the world? Yes — because he is the creator of all things. He is the creative ground of all reality. He sustains all reality and draws it to himself. "Where is God?" asked the catechism. Answer: everywhere. Not as a big being in the world, but as the source of the world's existence.
You see how this is moving us toward a solution of this problem? When we conceive of God as a big being, we're left with these dilemmas — too much religion, not enough religion, religion overbearing, the state having too much. A plague on both your houses. Rather, what? God can let the world be. The church can let government be and do its thing, even as it acknowledges that God impinges upon, sustains, and draws to itself the work of government.
The Image on Caesar
Go back to that image idea again. "Whose image," Jesus asks, "is on the coin?" Caesar's. All right. It's Caesar's coin, stamped with his image. Caesar is the Roman emperor. He's rightly constituted. He runs the show here. Render to Caesar what's Caesar's.
But here's the implied truth: what image is on Caesar? God's image. Because all human beings, we hear, are made in the image and likeness of God. That coin belongs to Caesar — fair enough. But Caesar belongs to God. Caesar has his own legitimate role to play and work to do, and Caesar's work belongs to God and the purposes of God.
Go now to one of Caesar's local representatives — the governor of Judea at the time of Jesus, called Pontius Pilate. When he says to Jesus, "Don't you know I have the power to crucify you or let you go?" Jesus says to him, "You would have no power unless it had been given to you from above."
Notice the beautiful balance there. "You have power, Pilate. You do. I acknowledge that. But you wouldn't have that power unless it came from God and was ordered by God." The coin belongs to Caesar — fair enough. Caesar has his own role to play. But Caesar belongs to God.
Once we get that, I think we move toward solving this dilemma as Jesus wanted us to. And God bless you.