Everything we have comes from God. Our partial repayment is a work in faith and a labor of love.
Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God (Matt 22:21). This phrase from our gospel today is one that gets thrown around a little bit. I have often heard it used to justify a complete separation between faith life and business life, or between faith life and political life. I am pretty sure the Church doesn’t see it that way. There are certain things that are clearly belong to Caesar – like taxes – but I think we would all be better served by considering what we owe to God first. What, then, do we owe to God? How do we pay it? Can we even pay it at all?
Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God
Matthew 22:21
What we owe to God…
What belongs to God? I’ll ask an even harder question. What doesn’t?
What is it that we really do on our own? Everything starts with something God has provided to us, doesn’t it? What we consider hard work and “our own effort” is really how well we apply the gifts we’ve been given by God (like a strong back, or powerful brain) to the material gifts we’ve been given by God. I don’t want to underrate hard work. When we faithfully apply ourselves to use God’s gifts we give glory to God and to ourselves. Each of us started with something that we didn’t create. God loves us so much that he gives each one of us a “starter kit” so to speak.
We owe everything to God. How, then, do we repay God what belongs to him?
St. Paul, in his letter to the Thessalonians, gives us an idea when he speaks of faith, hope, and love. Specifically, he speaks of a work of faith – that act by which we begin to set aside our doubts and embrace Christ. Better still, we begin to conform our will to the will of Christ. St. Paul commends endurance in hope, constantly looking forward to the end for which we are all created. Looking forward to our union with Christ.
We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ
1 Thessalonians 1:2–3.
Most significantly, St. Paul speaks of a labor of love. The love that we return to God looks a lot like what we are doing right now, worship. It also looks a lot like obedience, which I know is not a terribly popular concept, but think of it as God pointing the way for us. This is one of the ways we experience God’s love.
A labor of love…
In our language today, we use the expression “labor of love” for a task so pleasant that we would do it just because we enjoy doing it so much. When I hear that expression my first thought is a sport, or better still a hobby. For me it was like refinishing furniture and watching the wood grain come to life as I sanded and stained it. The labor was its own reward.
But that understanding doesn’t really capture the meaning in our reading today. St. John Chrysostom, in a homily he delivered around the early fifth century, captured the real meaning when he said, “What labor is it to love? Merely to love is no labor at all. But to love genuinely is great labor.” How true even today! To merely love and go along with the wonderful feelings, even to even endure a few hardships so that more good feelings come along is not work at all!
“What labor is it to love? Merely to love is no labor at all. But to love genuinely is great labor.”
St. John Chrysostom: I Homily on thessalonians
Genuine love, though, that is real work. Let’s put is this way. The honeymoon is easy. Childbirth and child raising, now those are labors of love. Love, after all, is not a feeling. Love is an act. Love is taking that step to work for the good of another. The one question that love never asks is, “What is in it for me?” Love doesn’t ask if the person is worthy of our love. Love simply acts. Love doesn’t ask if it will be returned or even appreciated. Love simply acts.
This is a tall order, isn’t it? It would be a fair question to ask how God can ask so much of us. That answer is simple. God loved us first. God gives us the love we need to show our love to him and to everyone else. God only asks that we return what we have already been given. Out of love, God created us. He has guided us throughout salvation history. He made of us a great kingdom and a blessing to all the nations. When we were slaves in Egypt he freed us. When we wondered through the desert, he fed us. He protected us and taught us. In an insignificant town in Palestine he became one of us. He went willingly to the cross for us and has redeemed us. He sent his Holy Spirit to us and the Holy Spirit is with us right now in this Mass.
We can rely on these blessings and in turn be blessings to others. We can labor at love.
Labor for the good of others. Labor at love. This is the meaning of a genuine labor of love