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29 th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Isaiah speaks directly to Cyrus, King of Persia. He is the new King on the throne. He is the one who continues to keep the Jews in exile. It is time for Cyrus to learn that the God Yahweh is the supreme God. “I am the Lord and there is no other.” However Cyrus received the message of Isaiah the result was that he let the Jews go free to return to their homeland. Isaiah got a result. The Pharisees continue with the sniping against Jesus in the Gospel. They acknowledge that Jesus is not concerned with anyone’s opinion and is not impressed with a person’s status. The truth is the Pharisees are. They truth is so are we. We are always concerned with people’s opinion of us and we are always dazzled by people’s status. Identify a celebrity in the street and we drop what we are doing to run and get an autograph. I guess today a selfie would be nice as well. Our new thing. The Pharisees try their new attack. Should devout Jews pay taxes to Caesar? Are you for or against the government? Jesus responds by snapping back, “Why are you testing me, you hypocrites?” They are hypocrites because when the political winds blow they will go with another just as easily. They don’t care about Caesar and his taxes. It is expedient right now for them to play the game. Jesus responds with his famous give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God. How are we doing with that? I am interested in Jesus asking the Pharisees why they are always testing Him? I’m interested because we test Him all the time. In our prayers we implicitly hint at the possibility. If Jesus doesn’t answer our prayers we are going to give our allegiance elsewhere. If participation in Church doesn’t satisfy then we are walking. If the homily and the music and the worship are not up to our expectations then we will definitely become Protestants. Isn’t that how we are? Why are we always testing God? Why are we always testing Jesus? Why are we always testing the community of St. Catherine? You drop your bags and you get on with it. There are good days and bad. People are wonderful and they are terrible. Worship is great and worship is mundane. We can’t be on a spiritual high all the time. Life is a roller coaster of flying up to the heavens and crashing to the earth. Somewhere in there we turn to God and we ask Him to be with us. That is it. Can we drop our bags and give God a break?
With love, Fr. Pat