Rendering Unto Caesar
With our blessed Lord commanding us in today’s Gospel to “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s” it’s a good time to take a look at who Caesar is in our case, and what we should give him.
Back in our Lord’s day, there was, of course, no doubt as to who Caesar was. He was literally Caesar, a name that has come to mean “Emperor” in many languages. Think of Kaiser in German and Tsar in Russian. And it was this image of Caesar that was imprinted on the Pharisees’ coin. But how can we apply this in a country where emperors and kings, and in fact, all titles of aristocracy and authority have been banished? Can we simply replace Caesar with “President”? What is a president? According to our Constitution, the President is nothing more than a member of “We the People” whom we elect to preside over the administration of authority and government. He may be the Head of State, but it’s We the People who put him there. And as soon as We the People don’t want him there anymore, we elect someone else. At least, that’s the idea of what should happen, although we’ve all become experienced enough to know better.
Nevertheless, it was the unique and novel invention of the Founding Fathers that this nation should be governed by “We The People.” Who is Caesar then? In a sense, we are Caesar! Or rather, We the People are the ones having the ultimate authority, an authority we use to elect our own Caesar. The authority of a US president is no longer delegated by God, from whom all good things come, but from 350 million individual citizens, each with a mere 350 millionth fraction of the power the Constitution gives them. That’s not much, and trust me, if you try wielding even that much power, you’ll soon be put in your place! However, there’s one element of that authority that we’re still at liberty to use, and that is our vote. We still get to choose who will be that presiding fellow in the White House. We get to choose our Caesar. It happens only once every four years, and that itsy bitsy power we have as citizens can and should be wielded as our only (natural) weapon against the forces of darkness represented chiefly by the Democratic Party.
Yes, once every four years, we get the chance to render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, to give ourselves the dubious pleasure of making our voice heard and electing a President. It’s a rare opportunity to fulfill our moral and civic duty to use our 1/350,000,000th bit of power to determine which of two imperfect candidates should be given the authority to administer our country. While this determination should normally be made by God, from whom all authority comes, the United States has decided to do it differently and we have no choice but to take advantage of complying with our Constitution by voting. There are only two choices and neither, certainly, is or ever will be perfect. No man is perfect. The original Caesar on the coin was far from perfect, and no Kaiser or Tsar or King or President since then has been perfect either. But we are commanded by our Lord to render unto Caesar, so we must do our part by voting wisely. This year, not much wisdom is required to see the difference between good and evil, even if you think the good candidate is only “fairly good. Let’s not forget that the policies of the other one are undisputedly evil. So render your little penny of tribute money and do your tiny part to prevent that undisputed evil from ever setting foot in the White House.