Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Iconography, a unique art form, paints—writes—a person into being. Though it is a painting, the painter prays the icon into being. Icons, then, are precious for they are the thought and love of the person expressing their deepest, mystical thoughts. If this is true of a human artist how much more so with the Divine Artist.
God creates out of his sheer goodness. His love defuses itself into our world, revealing something greater exists than just me and my vision of the world. Each creative act of God, from the grains of sand on the shore to the myriads of stars in the heaven, make up the whole picture. The whole universe is God’s icon, God’s artistry at work and every piece has its place, its purpose completing the Divine Design.
Not only does God create, but He is also constantly creating and sustaining everything He created. He is not a deist who merely creates and lets it unwind, actually unravel. He is not just an intelligent designer who creates and lets it evolve, intervening randomly. No, God is the Artist constantly painting, reworking, redesigning correcting the crooked lines drawing new lines. He, as Revelation tells us, makes all things new (Rev. 21:5).
Every second of every day, God breathes forth life. His breath sustains his icon, as a singer singing the song. The wonders of the universe reflect the glory and goodness of the Divine Artisan. As an Artist who displays his masterpiece, each element within the universe proclaims the glory of the Lord reflecting something of the Creator’s inmost being. In this sense, all of creation is an icon reflecting God’s glory, goodness, and love. Without God’s Spirit breathing forth, everything would evaporate; yet God’s love wants to defuse his goodness into every aspect of his creation, every second.
We are not merely painted or written but loved into being. God the Father prays us into being, detailing every aspect of our lives. Everything about us, from the color of our hair to the passions of our soul, are all detailed exquisitely because we are wonderfully and beautifully made. We, as the Psalmist says, are knitted together stitch by stitch, cell by cell, in our mother’s womb. Because God knits us into a marvelous image, we too proclaim with the Psalmist, “I am wondrously made. Wonderful are your works,” Oh God (Ps 139.14).
As human persons, made in the image and likeness of God, we have an identity, a divine identity that gives us a dignity unequalled. Made greater than an angel, we mirror the Father for He “stamps” us with his identity. Our identity gives us our destiny. We have our why. We are created to love, serve, and give glory to God, Our Father Who made us to look, act, and be like Him. We are created as the Catechism tells us “for the glory of God . . . not to increase his glory, but to show it forth and to communicate it, for God has no other reason for creating than (expressing) his love and goodness” (CCC, #293).
Made to live lives of divine goodness, we have a wholeness, an integrity that dignifies. First, it dignifies our bodies by making them temples of the Holy Spirit (I Cor 6:19). Literally, God’s persona, the Holy Spirit dwells within our being, forming and reforming us every moment of our lives. Second, God’s Spirit sanctifies our souls allowing God’s grace to imprint and infuse his divinity and glory within us. Accepting God’s imprint, an infusion of his dignity and glory, unites us to the Father so that where I am, He is there. He is always there.
Belonging to God, a deep powerful wanting within the soul, tells me Who I am. I am the icon of the Father who imprinted his divine glory and dignity upon me, binding and making me one with Him. Bounded to the Father through the Spirit of adoption, I am one with my Father and He is one with me. Again, we with the Psalmist sing:
Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way of everlasting (Ps. 139: 23-24).
Belonging, however, becomes the battle ground. Our hearts are easily torn between our true identity and a false one. Our true identity comes from God, Our Creator. He calls us by our name because He wants me to know his name, for there is no other name in heaven or earth by which we are saved (Is 45:4; Acts 4:12).
God not only calls us by name but in that calling He identifies us as his chosen one, beloved as a first-born son. But as Scripture reveals, rebellion exists. We wrestle with our identity. Like hardened clay, we refused to be molded. We rather mold ourselves imprinting our own image and likeness upon ourselves. We become wicked for our thoughts are not God’s, nor our ways his ways. Our ways are my ways.
In the Gospel narrative concerning Caesar’s coin, Jesus asks: Whose image (icon) is this? Whose inscription? Caesar’s image is upon the coin, declaring Caesar to be the “Son of the Divine Augustus, the High Priest!” Now the dilemma begins. Who is truly the Son of God and High Priest? Caesar? Jesus? Even myself? Now we understand the importance of the question who am I? Am I God? Do I demand worship and adoration?
Knowing who imprinted his image upon me making me into an icon becomes the critical question we all must answer. Am I of God, the Father of Jesus or am I of god, the father of Caesar? Or worse, am I a god unto myself?
Jesus answers distinctly yet marvelously. Give Caesar his due, but more importantly give to God what belongs to Him. What belongs to Caesar? We owe Caesar, the political rulers of the world, respect. St. Paul tells us, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities” (Rom 13:1). He tells Timothy,
I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way (1 Ti 2:1–2).
It is right and just to pray for our civil leaders. It is an act of justice. We owe them, and the best way to pay them is to be good citizens. To complete St. Paul’s thought, he warns us,
Those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment (Rom 13:1–2).
We cannot resist lawful authority. We subject ourselves to our political leaders, even paying the taxes they demand as Jesus paid the temple tax (Matt 17:27; Rom 13:16).
Yet, we are not good citizens because of their leadership. In fact Jesus warns us, “Practice and observe whatever they (leaders) tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice” (Mt 23:3). We are good because we want to be good. We choose to do what is just. This is integrity. We image the actions of Jesus because it is right and just. Even more so, we are right and just because we love and are not merely just. We owe God even more than our civil leaders. We owe God religion, that is we owe Him honor, glory, and praise for He binds us to Himself through his Son.
Religion, an act of justice gives God honor. He made us, we belong to Him. We owe Him reverence because He gave us his image and likeness. He created us to be his icons, masterpieces of the universe.
Through the virtue of religion we bind ourselves to God because He desires “All men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth” (I Tim 2:3). What is the truth? We are not God, nor is Caesar. Jesus Christ is Truth. He made us, His we are. He loved us into being, making us into his image and likeness. We are not made of political persons. We are not self-made gods. We are icons of the Father stamped with the image and likeness of the Son Who became one like us so we could become one like Him.