Two swords

 A recording of today's gospel and reflection will be uploaded later.

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Today’s gospel (Mark 12: 13-17) contains two stories in one: the storm of how Jesus’ enemies tried once more to trap him in His words and failed – failed calamitously and humiliatingly. Their attempt to ensnare him, inspired no doubt by the devil himself, backfired spectacularly as Jesus delivered one of His most memorable teachings.

And there is the second story: that we should render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s. What a teaching to be echoed down the history of the Church, from the first days of the Christians in Roman-occupied Palestine to the days of the Roman empire, from the initiation of Christendom under Constantine to the development of the doctrine concerning the power of the two swords by Pope St Gelasius, and throughout all the subsequent relations between Church and State down to our present day, where the State often continues to bully the Church when it can, and when corrupt churchmen sometimes mistake their duty to evangelise with worldly entanglements in the powers of this world.

Sometimes Christians mistake this doctrine as a contempt for worldly power, but that is not so. Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s: Caesar does have a proper sphere of power, and we honour God in honouring that power, for God is the source of all authority, as St Paul teaches.

And yet, that power has its limits in two ways. First, it does not extend to all the resources of human fulfilment. In the end, the powers of this world do not render us whole, even if good government and stable societies can be hugely valuable in bringing about our happiness. It is easy to scorn our corrupt and calamitous western powers, but I thank God very often that I do not live in a tin-pot dictatorship, a communist enclave, or some unruly state where one is never sure whether the water will run in the morning. I don’t mind tax in principle, even if I believe I am overtaxed! Yet, my point here is a spiritual one. Politics and even the goods of society do not complete us; even the wonders of a harmonious community do not define us. Deep down, we are called to something greater and more sublime for we have no here no abiding city. Do we think about what that means to us as often as we should? Or do we find ourselves troubled by the instability of this troubled world? Too many of us break our hearts over outcomes we should have expected: the eternal disappointments of the all too human powers that rule us.

Yet the second way that the power of Caesar has its limits lies in the boundaries that it ought to respect and often does not. Justice must be done insofar as it can be. Caesar in this sense must do two things: render to men the thing that are men’s, and also render to God the things that are God’s. We have come to think of the religious domain as something totally estranged from the spiritual. And yet what does it mean for England to be Our Lady’s Dowry if not some kind of recognition, captured beautifully in the famous Wilton Diptych, that a State can recognise the legitimate claims of Christ; that a State can undo the ignorance and scepticism of Pontius Pilate, and when Christ declares Himself to be the truth, reply not What is truth? but rather, To whom else would we go Lord? You have the words of eternal life. This is the foundation on which St Thomas More's final words will rest: I die the king's good servant but God's first. Why? Precisely because St Thomas heard this teaching: this is not a teaching somehow removed from our spiritual lives but runs right through the war of powers that can tear through our flesh and our spirits: the war of the individual with the collective. We must seeks peace with all, but in the end, God's cause comes first, even if it makes us criminals... In that too, we must be ready to follow the Lord who died a criminal, an outlaw, a rebel against legitimate authority. 

Political theology is not some special brand of the sacred sciences for people who like the broadsheet newspapers. It is how Christians have tried to see the reality and consequences of the gospel in the public square, not locking up the seeds of the good news in some private, comfortable space where we are all cosy members of a close-knit club, but taking it into the open so that it can help reshape laws such as those that concern respect for life or economic justice. In this sense, the domains of Caesar and of God overlap each other not as contrary powers but as elements that unite two crucial dimensions of our souls. For man is a social being, and the privatisation of religion only lays a path towards its increasing irrelevance.

When we render to God the things that are God’s and when Caesar does likewise, we are all a step closer to that kingdom to which He calls us all.