Suggested Emphasis
“Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s; render to God what is God’s.”
Salesian Perspective
Living a God-centered life is not a simple, cut-and-dry proposition. While we are indeed created to live forever with God in heaven, we must also, on any given day, tend to any number of duties and responsibilities here on earth.
We must give both heaven and earth their respective dues.
How does this work?
To use the phrase, are we supposed to rob from Peter to pay Paul? No, we don’t need to deprive anything from one so as to pay tribute to another! Are we supposed to give to God from one hand and give to the world from the other? No, we are challenged to use both our hands in a way that gives justice to both the things of earth as well as the things of heaven.
While not overstating the obvious lesson in today’s Gospel, service to heaven and service to earth are, in fact, two sides of the same coin! We are ultimately faithful to both ‘Caesar” and to ‘God’ by treating our brothers and sisters with justice…by giving them their due.
Francis de Sales wrote: “Be just and equitable in all your actions. Always put yourself in your neighbor's place and your neighbor in yours, and then you will judge rightly. Imagine yourself the seller when you buy and the buyer when you sell and you will sell and buy justly…you lose nothing by living generously, nobly, courteously and with a royal, just and reasonable heart. Resolve to examine your heart often to see if it is such toward your neighbor, as you would want your neighbor to be toward you if you were in your neighbor's place. This is the touchstone of true reason.” (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part III, Chapter 36)
Giving others their due is not only about being faithful to the debt of love we owe to one another. It can also have very practical ramifications. Francis de Sales penned these words in 1604: "I see that you have a debt…repay this as soon as you possibly can, and be as careful as you can never to withhold from others anything that belongs to them.” (Stopp, Selected Letters, p. 69)
Whether the obligations are great or small, we must strive to always give what is due to our brothers and sisters. We must strive to treat one another reasonably, fairly, humbly, honestly and justly. In so doing we render to “Caesar” what is “Caesar’s,” and we also render to God what is God's.
In the Salesian tradition, we never really have to choose between tending to the things of heaven or the things of earth. By meeting the needs of our brothers and sisters, we tend to both the things of earth and to the things of heaven at the same time, in the process “proving our faith, laboring in love, and showing constancy in our hope in Jesus Christ.”
