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Stranger’s No Longer
When visiting someone’s home, we are often invited in, offered a place to sit, a refreshment, and when the purpose of the visit is complete, we are thanked and escorted to the door. There is something wonderfully different in being welcomed into someone’s home; truly welcomed. The kind of welcome where someone says, “Make yourself at home.” A place where you know everyone’s “usual seats” and you might even be comfortable totally slouching in your place.
In a way, that is St. Paul’s message to the gentiles in today’s first reading. He reminds them that there was a time when they were outsiders. They were not part of the family of the covenant, not “at home” in the household of God. But then Christ came. And through his death and resurrection, Christ broke down the walls that had separated people from one another and brought them together into one family. “So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God.”
Perhaps we take for granted Paul’s message, especially we cradle Catholics. We’ve always been “fellow citizens.” We regularly attend Mass in the “house of God,” our local parish church. So we might not consider that we don’t simply attend God’s house. We belong to God’s household.
A visitor might be welcomed for an afternoon. A member of the household belongs there even when things are messy, life is difficult, and even when everyone isn’t getting along. That’s what Christ has made possible. But today’s Gospel tells us something even more remarkable about the household to which we belong.
The gospel story seems unremarkable: servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding celebration. Everything is ready for his arrival so that when he knocks, they can immediately open the door. Nothing surprising or out of place there. I mean, afterall, that’s their job. But this is no ordinary household.
When the master arrives and finds his servants ready, what does he do? “Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself, have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them.” The master becomes the servant, invites them to sit, whereupon he serves them. Clearly, that’s not how households ordinarily worked in Jesus’ day – which is precisely the point: God’s household is unlike any other household.
We belong to a household where the Master doesn’t simply demand service. He gives himself in service. Think of the scene at the Last Supper when At the Last Supper, he kneels before his disciples and washes their feet. The question He asks of them then still echoes for us today: “Do you know what I have done for you? (John 13:7) It is a question we should remember and attempt to answer each and every day.
It is a question that should echo in our being as we come forward to receive the Eucharist, because we come as members of God’s household. We bring our prayers, our gratitude, our worries, our struggles, and our desire to serve God faithfully. We arrive at the Lord’s table, and the Master serves us his servants. He gives us his own Body and Blood. The One we have come to worship becomes the One who feeds us.
Usually we hear Jesus’ command to be vigilant, to keep our lamps burning, and be at the ready for our master’s return as a warning: don’t be unprepared. But today we are called to hear the words with an additional nuance. We are not waiting for a stranger.
We are waiting for the One who has already welcomed us into his household, already given his life for us. The one who already knows us, loves us and welcomes us to his table. This changes the character of our waiting. We don’t keep our lamps burning simply because we’re afraid of being caught unprepared. We keep them burning because we are waiting for the One we love.
And while we wait, we live as members of his household, to welcome others as Christ has welcomed us. To serve as we have been served and to overcome the divisions that keep us from being one household.
In a way, I think today’s homily should come with a “spoiler alert.” So often we are encouraged and admonished to “prepare a place for Jesus”, “be ready to serve Him when he comes,” and spend our lives preparing to welcome Christ.
Spoiler alert: when He comes, we will discover that Christ has been preparing to welcome us.
Image credit: created using Dalle-3 based on the text of this post’s use of Jesus washing the disciple’s feet. Downloaded 10-19-2026
Something new
This coming Sunday is the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The gospel this week condenses the teaching of Jesus into its most simple form. And it is not a new topic in this Gospel. Jesus has already taught the centrality of love in the life of the disciples and that love for “neighbor” includes the “enemy” (Sermon on the Mount; 5:21–48, esp. 23–48). It is also not a radical topic for Judaism. Jewish teachers of Jesus’ day offered the same response adding that the rest of the scriptures are but commentary on these two things. In Deut 6:4–5, the command to love God is part of the Shema, which begins with the confession of the oneness of God, the closest thing to a universal creed in Judaism. In the Gospel of Mark, this same account is told as a friendly scribe making a sincere inquiry in which Jesus commends the scribe for his answer, declaring that the scribe is not far from the kingdom of God (Mk 12:28–34). Here in Matthew’s account, why would this become a controversy?
Since Matthew 21 Jesus has been involved in controversy with the leading people of Jerusalem (Sadducees, Pharisees, scholars, scribes, Herodians, etc.) about the issue of authority: “When he had come into the temple area, the chief priests and the elders of the people approached him as he was teaching and said, ‘By what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority?’” (Mt 21:23). The three parables (Man who had two sons, the vintner and tenants, and the great wedding banquet of the King’s son) have been followed by three controversies (taxes to Caesar, resurrection, and now the question of the greatest commandment).
This shift from a scholastic inquiry to a controversy over authority is important for Matthew’s community (in the last part of the 1st century) which is finding its way in the world after the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple (70 AD). With the center of praxis of Jewish life lost, there was a regrounding in the practice of faith that was beginning to take shape in the form of rabbi-led Judaism (as opposed to the priest-led practice when the Temple was still present). It is believed that the Pharisees, scribes and scholars of the law formed the tone and sense of post-70 AD Judaism. The tide of this movement will ultimately lead to an expulsion from synagogue of all Jews who held Jesus to be the Messiah. This will be the final break in ranks between Judaism and early Christianity.
In this final controversy, it is perhaps why a professional theologian from their ranks becomes their spokesman (the only occurrence of “lawyer” (nomikos) in Matthew). His question is no longer sincere or collegial, as in Mark, but is to “test” Jesus (peirazō, as in 4:1, 3; 16:1; 19:3; 22:18; only the devil and the Pharisees are the subject of this verb in Matthew). The address, “teacher,” is insincere and stands in contrast to the believers’ address, “Lord.” Jesus has just defended the Pharisees’ point of view, as he does throughout this section (cf. 23:1–2), yet their response is to test him as did Satan. In Matthew’s understanding, this is more than a religious debate; once again, the two kingdoms confront each other.
Eugene Boring (424) notes: “The nature of the test is not clear. The clue may be given by Matthew’s addition “in the Law.” The rabbis had counted 613 commands (248 positive commands, corresponding to the number of parts of the body; 365 negative commands, corresponding to the days of the year). Although rabbinical teachers could also indulge in giving summaries of the Law, there was also the view that all commandments were equal, with any ranking of them being mere human presumption in evaluating the divine law, all of which was equally binding. The lawyer may be attempting to draw Jesus into this debate and get him to make some statement that could be interpreted as disparaging toward (some part of) the Law, such as declaring the “moral law” more important than the “ceremonial law.” This is a charge to which the Markan version of this story is very amenable, since not only Jesus but also the scribe subscribes to it.”
Unlike Mark, Matthew focuses on the polemical aspect of the scene, he does not develop the theological issues that interest the contemporary interpreter (cf. Luke, who relocates the passage, 10:25–28): (1) the meaning of “love,” (2) the meaning of “neighbor,” and (3) the meaning of Jesus’ responding with two commands.
Image credit: The Pharisees Question Jesus (Les pharisiens questionnent Jésus), James Tissot, 1886-1894, Brooklyn Museum, PD-US
In the flow of Matthew’s Gospel
This coming Sunday is the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Lectionary Cycle A.
34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35 and one of them (a scholar of the law) tested him by asking, 36 “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37 He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the greatest and the first commandment. 39 The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”
From the 26th through the 28th Sundays, we considered three tightly connected Matthean parables: the two sons 21:28-32; the tenants in the vineyard 21:33-46; and the wedding banquet 22:1-14. They are parables about doing (or not doing) what God (father/landowner/king) wanted (or submitting one’s self to their authority): sons working in the vineyard, tenants giving the owner the fruit, and invitees accepting the king’s invitation to his son’s wedding feast and wearing the proper garb.
On the 29th Sunday, we moved into a section of Matthew’s gospel that comprises a series of controversies between Jesus and the religious authorities of Jerusalem.
- “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” (asked by Pharisees and Herodians: v.17);
- “In the resurrection, whose wife of the seven will she be?” (asked by Sadducees; v. 27);
- “which commandment in the law is the greatest” (asked by a lawyer; v.34)
It is the third controversy which is the context of our gospel this week. Where the lectionary draws the boundaries of a reading and where scholars mark the boundaries can be different. For purposes of studying Scripture, the boundaries of our gospel narrative is usually taken to continue and includes vv.41-46, where at the end of the questioning by the leaders of Jerusalem
Jesus asks them a question:
41 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus questioned them, 42 saying, “What is your opinion about the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They replied, “David’s.” 43 He said to them, “How, then, does David, inspired by the Spirit, call him ‘lord,’ saying: 44 ‘The Lord said to my lord, “Sit at my right hand until I place your enemies under your feet”’? 45 If David calls him ‘lord,’ how can he be his son?” 46 No one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare to ask him any more questions. (Matthew 22:41–46)
There are really two parts in play: the end of the controversy questions put to Jesus and the beginning of them being put on final notice that something greater than King David and Prophets is here before them.
Image credit: The Pharisees Question Jesus (Les pharisiens questionnent Jésus), James Tissot, 1886-1894, Brooklyn Museum, PD-US
In Whose Image…
If you are old enough you will remember the 1990s-television ad campaign for Canon cameras featuring the then very young Andre Agassi. He was a brash young tennis pro sporting long hair, a head band, and was ready to take on the world. He was flashy, a media star, a great tennis player. He was hot, happening, the icon of cool. At the end of the commercial he looks into the camera – into your soul and simply says, “Image is everything.”
And it seemed like that when we were teenagers. Back then – sure we were alone – all us spent some time inspecting our image, gazing into mirrors, creating the face we want the world to see. Practicing a smile, a frown, a smirk, seeing what we would look like with spiked hair or getting our hair just so. I can’t speak for the ladies present, but if we guys are honest, there was some time spent flexing not-yet developed muscles and convincing ourselves we were ripped. Time did not erode the inclination. In our middle years, we check the mirror to make sure we project confidence, competence, and all the market place and business requires. In our later years, we gaze into the mirror to wonder where the lines on our faces came from and where our hair is going. Image is indeed something.
At first blush it all seems terribly vain and shallow, but…we must value something about images… between our cell phones, our camera, and all the other devices that are photo-capable, we capture, post, share, and print tons of images – to share, decorate, and ultimately to remember. I know that I can review my life in the series of images I have stuffed in albums, boxes, desk drawers, cases and a hundred places I have set aside and cannot recall. The oldest ones are polaroid and Kodak black and white images, eventually evolving into the first Kodachrome color images. Then came the digital age. Now my photographed-life is on a hard drive and occasionally posted on-line somewhere.
Images of a lifetime. Images that tell a story – the story of our lives. And they whisper to us… remember what you look like – what you have been, what you are and what you are becoming. Maybe image is everything – at least in the story they can tell…. If we would listen to the whispers. In those whispers are reflections of the mirrors of our soul; reminders of a time when we glanced in a real mirror.
Caesar would have understood. “Show me the coin that pays the census tax.” Then they handed him the Roman coin. He said to them, “Whose image is this and whose inscription?” They replied, “Caesar’s.” The Roman Emperor looked into his mirror and wanted to see a reflection of power, stability and prosperity. And he wanted that image on every coin. Each Roman coin told a story… and they sold an image. Pax Romana – the peace of Rome. For an Emperor, image was everything. He wanted to remind you that everything belonged to him. That you belonged to him.
“Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”
What is it that belongs to God? Surprisingly enough, Jesus is trying to answer that question for the Pharisees by telling them that Image is important. If you only look at the coin you can be seduced into believing Caesar. If you look into the mirror of your life and only see your own face staring back, you can also be deceived.
What should we look into so that we are not deceived? There is an adage that says to read the newspaper in one hand with the gospel in the other. Perhaps our parallel wisdom for today is to glance into the images of our lives with one hand while holding the gospel in the other. We need to take St. Paul’s suggestion from the 2nd reading and peer into the gospel that came in power and in the Holy Spirit. We need to look to the image that Isaiah would have us consider and remember – when we peer into the mirror that we know:
- We are created in the image of One who chooses us in love and calls us by name.
- We are created in the image of One who anoints us and gives us a title.
- We are created in the image of One who unbars all the gates, opens all the doors, and grasps us by the hand.
- We are created in the image of One who is always with us – who loved us so much he became one of us
In the exchange with leaders of Jerusalem, Jesus isn’t asking us “How much do we owe?” He is asking them to shake off the amnesia, for they have forgotten who they are, in whose likeness they were made.
We are a people who are called to look into the mirror of our lives, into the mirror of this day, into the mirror of the gospel, and see in ourselves the Image of Christ – an image we are called to reflect into the world. To be people in the world that if Christianity were a crime, we would surely be charged and convicted. We are called to be the imago Dei in the world and point to the Reign of God.
Like Agassi at the end of the commercial, Jesus looks into our souls and in the final judgment will simply say, “Image is everything.”
Giving Back
This coming Sunday is the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The word “give” in Jesus’ answer, can mean “give back” (apodidomi). The word was used in the sense of “paying back” a debt in the parable of the unforgiving servant (18:25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 34). It is the word used of the new tenants who will “give (back)” the owner the fruit at the proper time (21:41). The word carries the sense of giving (back) that which already belongs to the other person. How do we know what things belong to Caesar? They have his image on them! How do we know what things belong to God? They have God’s image on them!
The word for “image” (eikon) is used in the LXX in Gen 1:26-27: “Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; . . . . So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” And in Gen 5:1: “This is the list of the descendants of Adam. When God created humankind, he made them in the likeness of God.” And in Gen 9:6: “. . . for in his own image God made humankind.” What are we to give to God? The things stamped with God’s image. That would be us! We are to give God ourselves, our whole selves, not just some part.
When they heard this they were amazed, and leaving him they went away. As Keener (526) notes: “Here people marvel at Jesus’ response (22:22); elsewhere people marvel at his teaching (7:28), his nature miracles (8:27), his healing (9:8), his exorcism (12:23), and in the Passion Narrative Pilate marvels at Jesus’ silence (27:14). In all these cases, Jesus confounds others’ expectations.”
Still there is much to consider. While Matthew is clear that loyalty to God is a different and higher category than loyalty to Caesar, this text is not instruction on how people who live in a complex world of competing loyalties may determine what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God. It simply declares that the distinction between what belongs to Caesar (as some things do) and what belongs to God (the ultimate loyalty) must be made, and he leaves it to readers in their own situations to discern, in the light of our own life to ponder the distinction (cf. 5:21–48).
A final thought; as Patricia Datchuck Sánchez notes: “Perhaps it is tempting to be amused at the picayune bickering of the Pharisees and Herodians; but they were intelligent enough to realize that Jesus had given them cause to reflect. Rather than be entertained by Jesus’ one-upsmanship it might be better to join the Pharisees and Herodians in considering his challenge, “give to God what is God’s.”
Image credit: The Tribute Money, Peter Paul Rubens (1610–1615), Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, Public Domain PD-US
An Underlying Thought
This coming Sunday is the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time. Jesus’ answer calls into question the basic presupposition behind their question, that there is an essential incompatibility between loyalty to the governing authority and loyalty to God. This was precisely Judas the Galilean’s position as explained by Josephus (War 2.118 and Ant. 18.23): to pay the tax was to tolerate a mortal sovereign in place of God. It was loyalty to God which was the basis for Zealots’ objections to Roman taxation, but Jesus, without reducing the demands of loyalty to God, indicates that political allegiance even to a pagan state is not incompatible with it. This is not a rigid division of life into the ‘sacred’ and the ‘secular’, but rather a recognition that the ‘secular’ finds its proper place within the overriding claim of the ‘sacred’.
It is possible to pay one’s dues both to the emperor and to God, to be both a dutiful citizen and a loyal servant of God. This principle, more fully expounded in Rom 13:1–7 and 1 Peter 2:13–17, has now been so widely recognized for so long that it causes no surprise to many of us in many parts of the world, but in first-century Palestine under Roman rule it was not at all so obvious. The theocratic basis of OT Israel, even if it had not been able to prevent periods of tyranny under unscrupulous rulers, had at least in theory held its rulers accountable to God. But the Roman emperor was not under Israel’s God, or indeed under any god—according to imperial propaganda he was a god. But Jesus’ response here puts him in his place: it is possible to be subject to the emperor as ruler, but at the same time to honor God as God
Jesus’ answer may also raise another, more subtle issue: “repay…to God what belongs to God.” The people of Jerusalem did not allow the Romans to carry Caesar’s image on a flag standard, but seemed to acquiesce to the coinage to a point. Some things are worth fighting for, some not. Why make an exception for money? Was it that important? By contrast, surrendering to God “what belongs to God” implied the surrender of all one was and possessed. In Jesus’ teaching elsewhere, possessions have zero value, and those who seek them are not ones who trust in God (6:19–34). Jesus is known as a poor, itinerant preacher carrying no coin – trusting solely on God. The Pharisees carry the emperor’s coin. It is clear in whom they place at least part of their trust. And trust was something that did belong to Caesar.
Image credit: The Tribute Money, Peter Paul Rubens (1610–1615), Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, Public Domain PD-US
The Response
This coming Sunday is the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time. “Why are you testing me?” is the response, using the same word as in Mt 4:3 where the interlocutor is Satan. Here the Pharisee plays the role. The narrator’s comment to the reader in Mark’s gospel becomes Jesus’ direct address to the Pharisees in Matthew, “hypocrites” and will become the keynote of 23:1–36 (“…The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice…Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites…”).
But Jesus, as always, knows their thoughts (9:4; 26:10), and responds accordingly. Jesus’ answer famously avoids either of the dangerous alternatives – as with response to the authorities in 21:23–27 (“By what authority…”). He asks them questions that are more probing and revealing. “Show me the coin that pays the census tax.” Then they handed him the Roman coin. He said to them, “Whose image is this and whose inscription?” “ In two ways it undercuts his questioners’ position, and in so doing provides an answer in principle which has much wider application than simply to their trick question.
In the first place, Jesus’ request for a denarius was more than just the provision of a visual aid. Pious Jews objected to the “idolatrous” coin (described above) which contravened the first and second commandments (Ex 20:3-4) of graven images and other gods. Roman imperial policy, aware of this sensitivity, allowed the Jews to coin their own non-idolatrous copper money, which sufficed for normal everyday business. Although the census tax required the official Roman coin, on a daily basis there was no need for them to carry the silver denarius with the image of the Emperor. Jesus apparently did not have one—but they did, and in the holy precincts of the temple at that! The moment is revelatory in many ways. It reveals them as hypocrites and makes it clear to the on-looker, if these Pharisees are using and carrying the emperor’s (idolatrous) coinage they could hardly object to paying his tax.
The verb in v. 21, “give back to the emperor”, neatly presses the point, and underlines Jesus’ description of them as “hypocrites” (v. 18). When Jesus pronounces that what is already the emperor’s should be given to him, while avoiding either a direct yes or no, he in fact gives an indirect yes. It is not against the Torah (this was the form of the question in v. 17, “Is it lawful?) to pay taxes to the emperor. The Pharisees acknowledge this by participating in the economic system made possible by Rome, even by having Roman coins in the Temple area. Although unconvinced, the Pharisees are silenced and depart from this encounter “amazed.”
Image credit: The Tribute Money, Peter Paul Rubens (1610–1615), Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, Public Domain PD-US
Coach Jon Gruden Visit USNA
Something a little different. Jon Gruden gets a great tour of the Naval Academy. The second half of the video is focused on his presence at the USNA-Tulsa Football game. Enjoy.
Even More
“Woe to you Pharisees!” Today’s gospel gets right to it! In our 21st century experience, we understand the phrase as one of condemnation, or at least as a warning of the coming condemnation. The phrase calls to mind the evangelical preacher admonishing the backsliding, church-skipping, no-good, no-count, reprobates who are sweating like sinners in church. Before pressing on, I would like to let you know that the expression “woe to you” appears in Greek as “ouai soi.” It arises from a Semitic expression used in the Old Testament and it took another route to the English language which captures the original sense. The expression is the Yiddish “oy vey” – a Jewish way to react when you find out how much your son’s root canal will cost. It is primarily a lament or expression of disappointment.
Is Jesus condemning the Pharisees? Possibly. He could also be expressing disappointment in how little these leaders of the faith actually understand about the God of the Covenant. Here is the cause of Jesus’ disappointment: they block the way of others to God, “locking the kingdom of God.” They are supposed to be leading people to an encounter with God. Spiritual leaders are meant to be the one who open the doors to show to the way. A reminder that our words, actions, and attitudes can either open the way to Christ for others or discourage them. Think of gossip or harsh judgment – just two of the ways love and mercy can be lost.
The scribes and Pharisees are called hypocrites because they don’t practice what they preach. Or consider yesterday’s post: “For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.” As the post ended: “Paul begins with freedom and ends with love because, for the Christian, love is what freedom is for. Christ did not set us free so that we would have nothing more to do. He set us free so that what we do might finally be done in love.”
The leaders obsess over the externals forgetting what truly matters: faith, mercy, justice, love. As they obsess on the minor things they are missing God’s presence, the source of all holiness that makes things holy. The Gospel invites us to examine our hearts and ask: “Am I a door-opener or a gatekeeper?” “Do I focus on appearances or on God’s presence? Do my words and actions lead others toward Christ—or away from Him? Do our lives reflect the mercy and truth of Christ, so that by our example others may not find the Kingdom closed, but wide open?”
The Pharisees and scribes had so much and they did nothing…Oy vey!
We have even more..
Image credit: FrG in Canva, CC-0
The Question
The coming Sunday is the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The question comes only after some false praise. The opening address to Jesus “Teacher” (didaskalos) uses a secular term rather than the religious connotation of Rabbi. Nonetheless the opening lines note that Jesus is a “truthful man” and teach “the way of God in accordance with the truth.” It is not clear who the words are intended for. It is easy to imagine these words are intended for the listening crowds. The opening contains the sort of complimentary words with which a rhetorician might seek an audience’s favor at the same time seeking to have their opponent lower his guard.
Tell us, then, what is your opinion: Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?” The question had a superficial innocence about it, since Jesus, as a Galilean under Herod’s jurisdiction, was not subject to this particular tax, and so was in a position to give an “objective” opinion without his personal political status being affected. But there is little doubt that a negative answer would have been used to denounce him to the Roman authorities (as Luke 20:20 says explicitly).
The question itself is likely an halakic question that seeks to clear up a point of law or teaching. But in reality it is just a means to the already planned ends – Jesus’ execution (Mt 12:16). They are asking a question calculated either to alienate the people of Jerusalem and the nationalists (if Jesus replied in the affirmative) or to make him subject to arrest by the Romans (if he declared against paying the tax). The people in the crowd would have been well aware that Jesus was from Galilee by either reputation or the accent of his voice. The memory of an early revolt against taxes and Roman domination by Judas the Galilean would likely have been a strong catalyst for whatever his answer might be. The Pharisees are there to fan the discontentment should he support the tax, undercutting his popular, messianic support. The Herodians are there to report him to the Romans as an insurrectionist if he denies the taxing authority.
Image credit: The Tribute Money, Peter Paul Rubens (1610–1615), Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, Public Domain PD-US
