Gospel Meditation: What Belongs To God

I offer a guided Ignatian meditation on today's Gospel. This is an invitation to let the scripture enter into your heart and mind and speak personally to you. Ignatius said that meditation specifically engages our memory, thoughts, and will. We hear the word of God, and we ponder it, noticing any words, images, or ideas that speak to our hearts. And we speak to God about all of this.

If this way of praying is new – simply relax and try to become engaged in the text. Try not to worry about what you are “supposed to” be doing. If you find yourself distracted during your prayer, very gently bring yourself back to the scripture text.

If at any point during the guided meditation the scripture comes to life in such a way that God invites to you stay with a particular moment, follow the invitation that you sense, rather than move on to where the written meditation is going. In that case you might want to stop reading and continue on your own.

• Choose a position where you can be relaxed but alert.
• Breathe deeply several times and let your body relax
• Breathe out any worries or stressful thoughts and put them in God’s hands
• Become aware of God’s presence here with you now, looking at you with love.

• Ask God for the grace of deeply felt knowledge that you belong to God.

Read the passage slowly twice, savoring the words. The first time, just listen to get a sense of it, to hear what is being said. The second time, notice any word or phrase, image, or idea that speaks to your heart or “shimmers” for you. Stay with that word, image, or idea and ponder its meaning. Notice how it makes you feel. Savor the experience. 

In this passage, Jesus encounters religious hypocrites who are trying to trap him into making a statement that will get him into trouble. Is there anything about this scene which feels familiar to you from your own life? Do you identify with Jesus’ situation, or perhaps even with the Pharisees?

Jesus’ response to the Pharisees is deceptively simple; it might look like he is saying that there are some things which belong to Caesar and some things which belong to God. However, Caesar’s image is stamped on the coin, but is not God’s image stamped even more profoundly on each one of us?

Everything we own, everything we are, everyone we love, everything we see, the natural world, the planet, the universe, everything created by human beings, including governments, cultures, the arts, money, financial systems – and our very selves – all belong to God and are under God’s dominion. What does it mean to you that you belong to God?

And given that you belong to God, what does it mean to give yourself back to God?

And what might God’s dominion over all mean for your experience of our current pandemic, political division, and approaching election?

Take some time to talk with Jesus about what you have felt and experienced. Talk with him as with a friend, sharing and listening.

And when you are ready, close with a favorite prayer.