{"id":13278,"date":"2020-10-18T00:00:12","date_gmt":"2020-10-17T23:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/turski.blog\/?p=13278"},"modified":"2020-10-18T00:00:12","modified_gmt":"2020-10-17T23:00:12","slug":"29th-sunday-in-ordinary-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/?p=13278","title":{"rendered":"29th Sunday in Ordinary time"},"content":{"rendered":"

In less than a month\u2019s time, on 11th<\/sup> November, the country will commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts. This tradition was born out of the national trauma of the Great War. The Remembrance Day is a sombre, solemn celebration, inevitably focused at the staggeringly enormous human cost of war. However, there are countries where the end of the Great War is celebrated in a cheerful manner because it resulted in them regaining their political independence. In my home country the very same day, 11th<\/sup> November, is Independence Day, a national holiday when Poland celebrates recovering their own country after 120 years of subjugation. All three empires that had partitioned the Kingdom of Poland by the end of the 18th<\/sup> century lost the Great War. Such a highly improbable and unexpected outcome was and still is perceived by many of my compatriots as a miracle, a divine intervention.<\/p>\n

I mention this because today\u2019s first reading has a similar ring to it. The prophet, speaking in the name of the God of Israel, calls Cyrus \u2018his anointed\u2019<\/em> which is astonishing when we read it in a wider context. Firstly, \u2018his anointed\u2019<\/em> translates as a messiah. In the Old Testamental tradition, anointment was an appointment to a special role, namely of a king or a high priest. However, what is unusual about Cyrus is that he wasn\u2019t a Jew, he wasn\u2019t a follower of the Jewish religion and he wasn\u2019t a believer in the God of Israel, as the first reading clearly states: \u2018I have called you by your name, conferring a title though you do not know me<\/strong>. […] Though you do not know me, I arm you\u2026\u2019<\/em>. Who was the Cyrus of the first reading? Common history knows him as Cyrus the Great. At the start of his reign, he had to recognize Median overlordship. To cut a long story short, eventually he created the largest empire the world had yet seen, by conquering the existing empires of Media, Lydia and Babylon. The latter had massive implications for the people of Israel, who had been exiled and barred from their homeland after the Babylonian conquest of Judea. King Cyrus allowed the Jews to return to their homeland, rebuilt the Temple and the Holy City of Jerusalem, effectively restoring the Jewish religious and political identity. However, Cyrus the Great never became a Jewish convert and yet, astonishingly, he\u2019s called \u2018God\u2019s messiah\u2019<\/em> in Jewish sacred scripture.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s gospel, on the face of it, can be read as a story of Jesus\u2019 clever way of dealing with a seemingly unavoidable defeat; he would be damned whatever answer he gave. But there\u2019s much more to this and again, we need to know the situation\u2019s wider context. At that time Judea was a province of the Roman Empire. Many Jews weren\u2019t happy about it – to put it mildly – and there was strong resentment among them; occasionally it surfaced in the form of violent clashes between the Jews and the Roman authorities. Paying taxes to the Roman Empire was perceived by many Jews as a de facto unwelcome acceptance of the Roman rule. So, the question Jesus faced in today\u2019s gospel put him in a position of giving a highly charged political answer. There seemingly were only two possible ones and each would alienate a great chunk of his followers or even land him in jail. In a much wider sense, it\u2019s the question of the relationship between religion and politics. In that sense, the separation of both is the default position: \u2018Give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

Those two narratives, of Cyrus the improbable messiah and of Caesar the tax collector, are two sides of the same coin (excuse the pun). They try to tackle the perennial problem of mixing religion and politics. When the former gain political power and influence we face a direct theocracy (like Saudi Arabia) or indirect theocracy (like Ireland of the not so distant past). On the other hand, politicians need ideas to attract followers; when they run out of ideas – or don\u2019t have any in the first place – they replace them with ideology; a religious one can be as useful as any other. But that leads to the instrumentalization of religion which turns into ideology itself. We see that with militant Islamism, as well as with militant Christianity – the latter quite popular in the USA, Russia and some European countries. There\u2019s one common factor of theocracies and militant branches of religion – both try to make their subjects happy, whether they buy into the vision or not. The answer is a friendly, mutually respectful separation of state and religion. That’s what Jesus effectively says in today\u2019s gospel: \u2018Give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

As a man who grew up under an oppressive communist regime with virtually no civil or personal liberties, in my late teenage years I found the gospel a very attractive vision offering room for individual, personal choices, regardless of whether they were being upheld or outlawed by the law of the land. The gospel offered internal freedom that nothing and nobody could take away from me. It\u2019s a kind of freedom that leaves room for others to make their own choices, even if I personally dislike them.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s conclude with a liturgical prayer the Church says on Good Friday: \u2018Almighty ever-living God, in whose hands lies every human heart and the rights of peoples, look with favour, we pray, on those who govern with authority over us, that throughout the whole world, the prosperity of people, the assurances of peace and freedom of religion may through your gift be made secure.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Image by luxstorm<\/a> from Pixabay<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In less than a month\u2019s time, on 11th November, the country will commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts. This tradition was born out of the national trauma of the Great War. The Remembrance Day is a sombre, solemn celebration, inevitably focused at the staggeringly enormous human cost of war. However, there are countries where the end of the Great War is celebrated in a cheerful manner because it resulted in them regaining their political independence. In my home country the very same day, 11th November, is Independence Day, a national holiday when Poland celebrates recovering their own country after 120 years of subjugation. All three empires that had partitioned the Kingdom of Poland by the end of the 18th century lost the Great War. Such a highly improbable and unexpected outcome was and still is perceived by many of my compatriots as a miracle, a divine intervention. I mention this because today\u2019s first reading has a similar ring to it. The prophet, speaking in the name of the God of Israel, calls Cyrus \u2018his anointed\u2019 which is astonishing when we read it in a wider context. Firstly, \u2018his anointed\u2019 translates as a messiah. In the Old Testamental tradition, anointment was an appointment to a special role, namely of a king or a high priest. However, what is unusual about Cyrus is that he wasn\u2019t a Jew, he wasn\u2019t a follower of the Jewish religion and he wasn\u2019t a believer in the God of Israel, as the first reading clearly states: \u2018I have called you by your name, conferring a title though you do not know me. […] Though you do not know me, I arm you\u2026\u2019. Who was the Cyrus of the first reading? Common history knows him as Cyrus the Great. At the start of his reign, he had to recognize Median overlordship. To cut a long story short, eventually he created the largest empire the world had yet seen, by conquering the existing empires of Media, Lydia and Babylon. The latter had massive implications for the people of Israel, who had been exiled and barred from their homeland after the Babylonian conquest of Judea. King Cyrus allowed the Jews to return to their homeland, rebuilt the Temple and the Holy City of Jerusalem, effectively restoring the Jewish religious and political identity. However, Cyrus the Great never became a Jewish convert and yet, astonishingly, he\u2019s called \u2018God\u2019s messiah\u2019 in Jewish sacred scripture. Today\u2019s gospel, on the face of it, can be read as a story of Jesus\u2019 clever way of dealing with a seemingly unavoidable defeat; he would be damned whatever answer he gave. But there\u2019s much more to this and again, we need to know the situation\u2019s wider context. At that time Judea was a province of the Roman Empire. Many Jews weren\u2019t happy about it – to put it mildly – and there was strong resentment among them; occasionally it surfaced in the form of violent clashes between the Jews and the Roman authorities. Paying taxes to the Roman Empire was perceived by many Jews as a de facto unwelcome acceptance of the Roman rule. So, the question Jesus faced in today\u2019s gospel put him in a position of giving a highly charged political answer. There seemingly were only two possible ones and each would alienate a great chunk of his followers or even land him in jail. In a much wider sense, it\u2019s the question of the relationship between religion and politics. In that sense, the separation of both is the default position: \u2018Give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.\u2019 Those two narratives, of Cyrus the improbable messiah and of Caesar the tax collector, are two sides of the same coin (excuse the pun). They try to tackle the perennial problem of mixing religion and politics. When the former gain political power and influence we face a direct theocracy (like Saudi Arabia) or indirect theocracy (like Ireland of the not so distant past). On the other hand, politicians need ideas to attract followers; when they run out of ideas – or don\u2019t have any in the first place – they replace them with ideology; a religious one can be as useful as any other. But that leads to the instrumentalization of religion which turns into ideology itself. We see that with militant Islamism, as well as with militant Christianity – the latter quite popular in the USA, Russia and some European countries. There\u2019s one common factor of theocracies and militant branches of religion – both try to make their subjects happy, whether they buy into the vision or not. The answer is a friendly, mutually respectful separation of state and religion. That’s what Jesus effectively says in today\u2019s gospel: \u2018Give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.\u2019 As a man who grew up under an oppressive communist regime with virtually no civil or personal liberties, in my late teenage years I found the gospel a very attractive vision offering room for individual, personal choices, regardless of whether they were being upheld or outlawed by the law of the land. The gospel offered internal freedom that nothing and nobody could take away from me. It\u2019s a kind of freedom that leaves room for others to make their own choices, even if I personally dislike them. Let\u2019s conclude with a liturgical prayer the Church says on Good Friday: \u2018Almighty ever-living God, in whose hands lies every human heart and the rights of peoples, look with favour, we pray, on those who govern with authority over us, that throughout the whole world, the prosperity of people, the assurances of peace and freedom of religion may through your gift be made secure.\u2019 Image by luxstorm from Pixabay<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermon","category-year-a"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13278\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}