First Reading
Isaiah 45:1, 4-6
1. Cyrus was a Gentile, yet he permitted the Israelites to return from captivity in Babylon to their homeland. Which people in the last hundred and fifty years have broken down the walls of prejudice and freed oppressed peoples? Were they all Christian? Do you think God chose them? Has God ever chosen you? If so, were you aware of it?
2. Could God be “grasping the right hand” of scientists “though they know him not,” who are trying to find cures for the pandemic and solutions for the global warming crisis, and of activists trying to stop racial injustice?
Second Reading
1 Thessalonians 1:1-5b
1. Do the following help in your reception of the word:
• presence of the Holy Spirit;
• people living the gospel with conviction?
Compare and contrast these:
• receiving the word as way of life
• receiving the word as a code of conduct.
2. St. Paul says, “For our Gospel did not come to you in word alone, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with much conviction.” What is more important: thinking about the word or acting upon it? Where does the power to act come from?
Gospel
Matthew 22:15-21
1. In this Gospel reading, are the Pharisees more interested in taxes or in undermining Jesus’ influence? Do God’s and Caesar’s worlds have to be separated? “Can we divorce spiritual obligation from political policies … or social issues?”*
* Joan Chittister The Time Is Now, p. 57
2. Pope Francis says Caesar’s image is on the coin, but we are all created in the image and likeness of God. To whom do we all ultimately belong? How would a Christian illuminate the world’s human and social problems with the Light of the Holy Spirit?
Christians are called to commit themselves concretely in the human and social spheres without comparing “God” and “Caesar”; comparing God and Caesar would be a fundamentalist approach. Christians are called to commit themselves concretely in earthly realities, but illuminating them with the light that comes from God. The primary entrustment to God and hope in him do not imply an escape from reality, but rather the diligent rendering to God that which belongs to him. … to live earthly life to the fullest, and to meet its challenges with courage.
