caesar's power, god's power

Let me attempt to interpret what I could not do in this morning’s mass. Jesus said, give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give back to God what is God’s. Before saying this Jesus asked for a coin and he asked whose image and inscription is in the coin. The image they said is that of Tiberius with an inscription, "Tiberius Caesar, August Son of the Divine Augustus," and on the other side the inscription "Pontifex Maximus," meaning high priest, can be found. Whose image can be found in it? Then give it back to him. Who’s the authority that minted the coin? Then give it back to them. It is an acknowledgement that the state, our rulers have power of us. Indeed to a certain extent they have. Some of you might not feel it yet but we do. Do you know for example that our seminary has to pay tax? Yes we pay our taxes even though we are losing money every month and every year. And though we pay our teachers a pittance compared to what other schools pay their’s, our teachers are still required to pay taxes - 10 percent of their salary goes to the BIR and not to their pockets. So if we pay them 10 thousand, 1 thousand of that goes to the BIR and added to this, they have to pay monthly around 200 for Phil-Health, 400 for SSS, and another 300 for Pag-ibig. If they don’t pay, they can land themselves in prison - that’s the power of the state over us.


And probably the first year seminarians do not know it yet, but there is a plan to extend high school for another two years. So they cannot graduate four years later. They can only graduate six years later. So some of you first year will stay here for another six years, and for the next six years I will ahve to suffer your knocking at my door saying Father puede ka lisensiya magguwa nagasakit tiyan ko, and some of you would ask, father may vicks ka da. O my God this I have to go through for the next five years. And I could not see Silloriquez, Lamier and Ascino, seminarians I am mentoring, I could not see them graduate because the term of the rector is only five years and they will graduate after six years. So good luck on your graduation.
That’s the power of the state in our lives. Jesus by saying give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, is acknowledging that to some extent our lives are run by the state, our life, our plans, our goals, and even, I should say, our happiness are determined to some extent by the power of state.
But, and this is a big but, but Jesus also said that we should render to God what is God’s. I think, and this is just my thinking, I think, if Jesus had more time and more patience in dealing with these hypocrites, the Pharisees and the Herodians, if he had more patience, I think he would not just ask for a coin. He will also ask for a child - show me a child, and he would pick up the child, hold the child’s head toward them and ask, whose image is this? Whose image is marked in this little child? And I believe they would recall the book of Genesis, as every good Jew would do, and they would remember that every child, every man and every woman is made in the image and likeness of God - not of Caesar, but of God! Then Jesus would say, “then give back to God what belongs to God.”
Our whole life belongs to God, our hearts, our minds, our will, our conscience, in fact our very being and existence belongs to God. Yes to some extent the state has power over us, yes to some extent the state can determine our happiness in this life, but ultimately it is God who has control. Why? Because God owns our whole being - he gives life and he takes away life no matter how sophisticated the state is. God can prod our hearts, God can enlighten our minds, God can move our will, God can exact obedience, and loyalty and faithfulness without coercion or threats because he owns our being.
When the dictator Marcos stole the elections in 1986, and when he sent out the army in full battle gear with tanks and machineguns to crush the rebellion, who stopped him, what stopped them - a tiny voice in the radio asking the people to help the rebels - and millions came, not just hundreds but millions came - people power. And who was that tiny voice - a priest by the name of Cardinal Sin, who prayed everyday in this chapel when he was a seminarian like you. He lent his voice to God, calling his people, emboldening them with nothing but an assuring voice, and thus brought down a dictator with his entire army armed to the teeth. This he did because he lent his voice to God, the God who owns us, the God who controls our destiny.
Mother Teresa was an old woman and she could not even stand erect and yet she can speak with the voice of God to the hearts of the powerful and the mighty and she would rally them to her cause for the poor. Even dictators were disarmed in her presence. And what did she have in her? Nothing but the power of God’s word.
A simple priest in the confessional, hearing the confessions of sinners and hardened criminals, and with just an assuring voice of God’s forgiveness, can manage to turn their lives 180 degrees, changing the their hearts in just one sitting, something which the state and its penal laws could not do in a life imprisonment. The power of God in his ministers, in his priests, is proof that though the state has to some extent power over our lives as citizens, only God can have absolutely mastery and ownership of the human person. The state may coerce and rule with threats tearing the individual to submit in fear, thus showing its power and hold on the people, but only God can appeal to the heart, only God can received the loyalty and obedience of a willing soul. And this he does most often in the lives of people through the ministry of priests.
As priests we will not have armies and machineguns. We will not have police powers that can imprison and exact at the very least half-hearted loyalties. We do not have money to promise so as to buy them happiness. But a priest has the word of God. A priest can touch the heart. A priest can appeal to conscience. A priest can speak to the soul. A priest has the power of God. And that power is a power greater than Caesar’s.