Coming to entrap Jesus, the Pharisees did not hesitate to become friends with their opponents, the collaborators of their time with the Roman power, the Herodians. They plot consciously, looking for a way to entrap Jesus. There is a willingness to do harm. To destroy a person, to go to the end of their so-called “righteousness”. And they wanted to trap Jesus with a word. But Jesus is the Word of God, offering God’s love and asking for our faith. The Pharisees and the Herodians today do not come to know Jesus, to listen to him or to believe, only to satisfy their desire for power. Their attitude is the opposite of our call to chastity, made of respect, humility and willingness to live relationships of integrity, accepting to be challenged by the other person who works as a mirror for us. The Pharisees and the Herodians are not looking for relations of truth, but only to secure their positions of “masters in Israel” in a narrow way that binds up others, not them.
Jesus is relation. He knows their malice, their malignity, their stubbornness, their narrowness of mind for keeping theirtradition. Jesus is all relation, sensitive to any just relationship, to any true relationship. He searches the heart of each one and as usually answers them with a question: a question that sends them back to their plot: “Whose image is this?” Their answer is ironic: “Caesar”! the impure word in the mouth of any Jewish leader! Just when they wanted to entrap Jesus, they entrap themselves and show their intention, finding themselves accomplices with the occupant.
Jesus’ answer is more than a direct answer to them; Jesus talks about image and this word triggers something in the ears and hearts of these Jewish leaders. They know that they are made in the image of God.
William of Saint Thierry could have explained to them what Jesus was saying:
Purify yourself, train yourself in godliness, and you shall find the kingdom of God within you. O image of God, recognize your dignity; let the effigy of your Creator shine forth in you. To yourself you seem of little worth, but in reality, you are precious. …
“Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God”.
It is not repay to Caesar OR to God. It is repay to Caesar AND to God. Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and it is enough. Then you are free from him.
To God, enter into the mystery of relationship, lived to the extreme in the self-giving of Jesus in the Eucharist.
The next verse is not in our today’s Gospel: they heard him and left; the same verb as for the young rich man who has many riches. We do not know what they did: if they left forever or if they came back. The gospel told us that they came back to kill Jesus and they succeeded. But I like to think that some came back, touched by the divine sweetness of Jesus and moved by the memory of being created in the image of God. Like Nicodemus, the true leader whose search was of integrity.
Let us be open to the possibility of returning and for this, let us live in “godliness”, with pure intentions and willingness to receive Jesus’ presence and love.
Sr. Claire Bouttin, Superior
October 18, 2026
Sunday the 29th OT A,
- Isaiah 45:1, 4-6
- Responsorail Psalm 95 ((^): 1, 3, 4-5, 7-8, 9-10
- 1 Thessalonians 1: 1-5b
- Matthiew 22: 15-21
