To Whom Do You Belong?

A reflection for the 29th Sunday, Ordinary Time, Year A. The readings are Isaiah 45:1, 4-6, Psalm 96; 1 Thessalonians 1:1-5 and Matthew 22:15-21

After reading today’s Gospel I pulled out a Canadian one-dollar coin. The image on that coin is a loon.  Well, that doesn’t help much.  So I pulled out a twonie, the two-dollar coin. The image on that coin is a polar bear. That didn’t help much either.

But it did make me think of that story about a family of bears whose home is broken into. Remember? someone sits in their chairs – baby bear says, “someone sat in my chair and they broke it. My chair!” Someone eats their porridge. Baby bear says, “someone at my porridge!” and “someone is sleeping in my bed. My bed!” We hate it when someone takes “my stuff”.

Once, I was going through security at the airport and I forgot I had my treasured Swiss Army knife in my pocket. There was no way around it, so they confiscated it. I was so mad! It was my knife! And they’re not cheap. A friend of a friend had bought a TV in Panama to take it home to Ecuador – electronics are much cheaper in Panama than Ecuador. At the airport, arriving in Ecuador the customs guy said he couldn’t bring it in. But they weren’t asking him to pay duties. They were going to just confiscate it. So, guy said, “if I can’t have it, you can’t have it either!” and he dropped the tv and smashed it. We don’t like it when someone takes our stuff! We also don’t like it when we have to give our stuff to someone else – especially if they don’t deserve it. I guess that’s part of our human nature, I mean, one of the first words a toddler learns is “mine.” And we spend the rest of our lives trying to learn how to share.

Today’s Gospel is not about sharing what’s ours. It’s about giving to everyone what belongs to them. Jesus sorts out the issue about paying Roman taxes fairly cleverly, but his point has nothing to do with paying taxes to Caesar. His point is about what belongs to God. And that’s the question for us today: What belongs to God? Everything. We know what the image is on the coin; but what is the image in your heart? It’s the image of God and so, “render to God what belongs to God”.

What does it mean to give our whole selves to God? Do you live your life, trying at every moment to give everything to God? How much of your time do you give to God? An hour a week? What do you give to God? Your relationships, your marriage, your family? Your employment, your finances, your health, your sexuality, your fertility? Do we give to God our leisure time, all our activities, that book you’re reading or what you watch on TV? Do we trust God with every major decision? With every minor decision? Do we trust that no matter what happens tomorrow, God will be there? Do we try to live that way?

I was speaking with a Grade 8 student the other day and most of her classmates had already made their Confirmations in Grade 7 and she asked me what Confirmation was and what it meant.  I didn’t say it at the time, but afterwards I thought: Confirmation means to live our lives (or at least try to live our lives) so that we are giving everything to God. Everything. No conditions, no backup plans – everything. That’s how we “give the Lord glory and honour” (Psalm 96). It means trying to live in the words of today’s Opening Prayer (Collect for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A). It says that we may “conform our will to the will of God.” Can we live that way? Giving everything to God?

And giving to God what belongs to God also means giving everyone else what belongs to them. Everyone is a child of God, made in the image of God. To everyone belongs dignity and respect. Do we treat everyone with dignity and respect? Especially the annoying people; the ones you don’t agree with; the ones who are different, the ones who are aggressive with you. Do we treat them with dignity and respect? That belongs to them.

Giving to God what belongs to God also means living with the attitude that our wealth does not belong to us. They are gifts that we’ve been given. We are blessed. So, do we give to the poor what belongs to them? Our wealth is not ours. We are stewards of the wealth that has been given to us by God. Giving to God what belongs to God means supporting charities and supporting the work of the Church. St. Paul tells the Thessalonians in today’s second reading that he is thankful that they live their lives with faith, hope and love. That is, they give to God what belongs to God and they give to others what belongs to them. Do we live that way?

Giving to God what belongs to God also also means being responsible citizens. It means being responsible with everything that we do. It means taking care of our homes, taking care of our communities and our country. It also means taking care of the environment; taking care of God’s creation. Taking care of the natural ecology literally means giving to the loon and the bear what belongs to the loon and the bear!

We can start this week. Just give one thing to God. Maybe that one thing that’s in your mind right now. Give it God. Each morning, give it to God, ask him to take it and then try to let it go. And then next week, try adding something else.

Ultimately, it’s good to not be so attached to the things of this world. When we get to Heaven, nothing else will matter, except God. So maybe we can start giving to God what belongs to God and not worry so much about “what’s mine!”

An older gentleman I knew had cancer and also some rare blood disorder. He was dying. He had already lost his wife and they’d sold the house. He proceeded to get rid of everything else. He sold the car, got rid of furniture, gave stuff away; paid his last month rent just before moving into the hospice. Everything he owned fit in a suitcase.  He died a few weeks later.

That’s how I want to go because when we get to Heaven nothing else will matter. So, I might as well start now. Give to God what belongs to God and trust that God, the God who’s already given you everything; he’s given himself totally to you at the Cross and in the Eucharist, will take care of you and give you what you need. Trust that whatever happens tomorrow, no matter what, God will be there.