We "Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God:” the closing words of today’s Gospel, my friends, and how timely they are as we close in on our national election day, and look forward to being relieved of all the political ads we are subjected to every time around, aren’t we?

For our purposes, we should read those closing words of today’s Gospel as: “Render to the government what is rightfully the government’s, and to God what is God’s.” That puts it into a more applicable perspective for us Americans.

Just as Jesus was trying to make the point that government does have a proper place in human living, whether it be on the national, state, or local level, we acknowledge that same need for the agencies and offices of government on any level are needed to protect and progress the common good.

But let’s look at the bi-play that was also going on in that Gospel closing today.

The Pharisees were trying to trick Jesus. They were trying to trap Him into making a political statement that would point Him either as a treasonous revolutionary or as a pawn of the established Roman Empire.

Either way they would have evidence enough to discount Jesus as any kind of significant figure. They were asking Jesus to choose God over government or government over God.

In very many real ways, we are being challenged in just the same way today.

Are we going to support government’s ways or God’s ways when it comes to the life issues: abortion, capital punishment, euthanasia, end-of-life issues such as continuing life by artificial means,  the social justice issues: age, race, and gender discrimination, environmental sustainability, a fair and living wage, economic bail-outs without cost or penalty to those who put us in this mess?

The list goes on and on.

Last Tuesday at our Inter-Church Ministries annual meeting, the keynote speaker was Dr. Lee Wishing from Grove City College’s Center for Vision and Values.

He cited a recent book entitled: “Is God red or blue?” Meaning would God be more comfortable in a red state or blue state as we see the American political map flashed before us every night on the TV news.

Dr. Wishing’s point was that what’s happened for too many in our country is that we have put political party allegiance ahead of our allegiance to God’s ways, and thereby we break the 1st Commandment by not keeping God #1 in our lives.

That’s really a good point worth pondering.

Curiously, I’ve had a number of people comment to me that they have switched their registration to “Independent” just so they can be free to keep God #1 in their voting choices.

We can all readily agree that “what belongs to God” is our hearts.

But what about “giving unto Caesar, or the government?” Does this mean simply resigning ourselves to pay taxes? Probably not.

Somehow, “giving unto God should influence the way we are citizens of this great country.

That’s how we transform our culture.

When we look at all that’s going on: the good, the bad, and the ugly, we should see it all through the lens of Jesus’ teaching on justice and mercy.

Our service to the poor, our fight for adequate social programs, and our pursuit of justice for the victims of crime, even and especially right here in Erie, with no witnesses still coming forward to identify the killer of one recently murdered on the lower east side,

All these persistent efforts really can change our world, or at least our own corners of it.

So rendering to the government for us disciples should mean an active involvement in advancing God’s ways so that society can be transformed.

As people of God, we have access to heavenly wisdom, which we can apply to every earthly situation. This means we can inject the “yeast” of God into our surroundings, allowing His justice to become the leaven that raises our culture to a more Godly perspective.

The presence of Godly and committed citizens can do nothing less!

       Thank you.