I’m going to say a few words today about the best way to polish your shoes, and to use this as an example of how we can ‘render unto God’ while doing some of the things that at first glance seem to be all about ‘rendering unto caesar’. And I’ve been thinking about shoe polish because since Thursday I’ve been seeing Fr Neville’s shoes, and they are polished to an AMAZING degree!
In that Gospel text we heard the Lord Jesus say, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's"(Mt 22:21). Let me note something: the Lord introduced the matter of our duties to God in response to a question that was apparently nothing to do with God, a question that asked about mere human realities: They asked Him about tax and Caesar, He replied by telling them to render GOD what is His due.
So this might be like you asking a simple human question about whether to watch Eastenders or Strictly tonight, and Jesus answering by saying, “Either. But YOU remember to say your night prayers”. Or, you might be asking one of those long and prolonged parental discussions: “Should young Jimmy join scouts or the rugby club?” Only to hear the answer: “YOU remember to put God FIRST in your priorities, and render God His due by keeping the Lord's Day holy by getting Jimmy to Sunday Mass each and EVERY Sunday.”
(And this week's newsletter insert sheet gives 4 explicitly religious duties we need to 'render unto God.)
So, when we are over-immersed in our human concerns the Lord cuts across them by pointing us to our duties to God.
Let me point even deeper, however, and note that it can be precisely IN the world of Caesar, the realm of human activities, that we can find God and render Him His due. As St Teresa of Avila (whose feast day was this past week) famously said, about working in the kitchen, we must find God “amidst the pots and pans”.
Let us return to the example of Fr Neville polishing his shoes. How can he find God while doing such a small mundane thing?
First, by doing the task well in itself. We live in God’s creation. He wants His creation treated with dignity and care. He wants the material realities He has made to be perfected and done well. This is the first and basic thing: polish the shoes well.
Second, that natural reality can be “supernaturalised”, as St Josemaria used to say. We can not only do the task well but OFFER it to God. Offering an activity to God transforms it:
it acknowledges that the things of creation come from God, and not just from ourselves;
it implicitly calls on God’s grace to help us do those things well, and with His help;
it becomes something I can offer as a sacrifice for others to prayer for them -so I can offer the drudgery and boredom of a task to Him.
and, by changing the act on the inside it also changes it on the outside. It becomes not a selfish ‘me’ thing, but a ‘love’ thing.
Its because this ‘offering’ can change so much that the spiritual tradition of the Church has put such emphasis on the value of making a ‘morning offering’ prayer such as the one on the reverse side of the insert sheet in your newsletter this week.
If that is how Fr Neville polishes his shoes, then not only are the shoes a wonder to behold (which they are!), but the act of polishing them become a place where he meets God.
and similarly: your washing the dishes, your cleaning the floor, your job of work, and also, the pleasures and enjoyments of life -all offered to God, all places where we can meet Him.
And if we do that, then we will not just no longer have the Lord need to cut across our queries about how to do our human matters by reminding us of our duties to God, but rather, we can find IN those human realities the place where we BOTH ‘render unto Caesar’ AND ‘render unto God.
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