Look at the Pharisees and the Herodians in this Gospel…how devious! They first try to flatter Jesus by saying He is a truthful man. But Jesus knows they mean that in a sarcastic way and that they’re trying to trap Him. They pose a false dilemma to Him. It’s “either/or.” Either Jesus must accept Caesar totally or rebel against Rome.

That is so often how our world still sees things. We are either on one extreme or the other. We have seen that so much in the last few years especially in the rhetoric that has emerged around certain political and ideological debates in our country and around the world. But things are more complicated than that. Reality isn’t based on extremes. Life is not always so black and white. It’s lived in the middle.

It has been said that we, as Catholics, have a faith that is often “both/and.” For example: we believe in Scripture and Sacred Tradition; we believe in faith and reason. Jesus shows us what that looks like in the practical sense in our Gospel: we give to Caesar and God what belongs to each. But how do we decide what belongs to whom? How do we discern what to honor and what not to honor? How do we know for certain that we’re applying that standard correctly?

I think that’s where a lot of Catholics make mistakes in judgments and it’s why we have some who have embraced positions that are not always in line with Church teaching. They mean well, but they miss the mark. That is why we are called as Catholic Christians to deepen our understanding of what our faith teaches – to study the Catechism, to read various documents of the Church on certain issues. We are called to develop our gifts and prayer life, asking the Holy Spirit to guide us in our decision making. We are called to be knowledgeable on Sacred Scripture and to have a deeply personal relationship with the Lord. We need all those things to make the right decisions.

Our faith is not a religion for robots. It demands that we responsibly use our freedom and the gifts God has given us to do His will, to strive to follow Him in everything. May we ask the Lord to help us do that today so that we can go out and engage the culture and show others that there is another path than what the world so often has to offer. We don’t have to fit into the extremes that our culture pushes. We are called to be countercultural. Let’s go out and show the world what it means to follow Jesus.

Photo: Holy Worship by Jacob Bentzinger. Used under Unsplash license.