Clash

“They said, Caesar’s. Then He said to them, pay therefore to Caesar the things that are due to Caesar, and pay to God the things that are due to God.” (Matthew 22:21). 

Holy Trinity (Luca Rossetti da Orta)

When I was a young school girl in my year 9 science class, I remember my science teacher explaining to us the immune response in human beings.  She explained that we have red blood cells to distribute oxygen throughout the body and white blood cells to travel to foreign matter in the body and attack it.  This is why we can develop pus in a wound, because this substance is created when the immune response to foreign material in the body acts to kill and remove this matter from our body.  At the time, I remember asking my science teacher if the immune response of pus – or seeing pus on the body – was a bad thing.  And she made a big deal about the fact that she was not going to make things black and white.  There was no clash between good and evil in the immune response.  Those sorts of assumptions were too basic for an understanding of the system.  At the time I remember thinking that my teacher was complicating a very simple matter so that she would feel important.  However, with hindsight, I discovered that there was a great deal of merit in what my teacher was teaching me.

And I have been reflecting on this today as I have been reflecting on the clash between Church and State.  You see, the Pharisees wanted Christ to make a decision – support Caesar or support God.  And instead, Christ responded in much the same way that my year 9 science teacher had responded all those years ago, when he basically said, there is no black and white here and there is no clash between the Church and State…

“They said, Caesar’s. Then He said to them, pay therefore to Caesar the things that are due to Caesar, and pay to God the things that are due to God.” (Matthew 22:21). 

And how interesting it is to me that Saint Matthew records this in his account of the Gospel.  After all, Matthew was the tax collector.  I wonder how it affected him to hear that the State and God should not be in conflict.  After all, he had been a tax collector and as such he would have collected money for Caesar.  The fault in what he did was that he collected more than he should have collected and used the additional funds for his own advancement, even at the expense of his neighbours…

And this comes to another point, which is that if there is no clash between Church and State, then that means that I must be honest in my dealings in the world – as honest there as I am with God.  And this means that I must be responsible for the decisions that are made in the world.  I must have respect for people of faith and allow them open discussion and interaction in the community.  And I must live by the values that I am taught by my God through His Church.

And when I think about that today and about the fact that nothing is really black and white, I am quite overcome.  For it seems that God is asking for harmony, when I have been thinking that He needs me to clash with the powers that be…

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.