Homily originally presented on October 18, 2020
Monsignor Michael Deering
God will always be ... Number One!
In the world of Sports, there are many different Individuals and
many different Teams ...
all competing to be ... #1.
From Individual Sports like Tennis and Golf ...
to Team Sports like Football and Baseball and Basketball ...
they’re all looking to be declared #1 at the end of the Season.
As they compete through the season their status continues to change which is why leagues publish standings of where they are week to week.
Who’s your favorite Professional Football Team?
Is it the Packers ... the Steelers ... or ... the Saints? There’s 32 Teams to pick from.
Who’s your favorite College Football Team?
Is it the Tigers ... the Tide ... or ... the Blazers? There’s 150 Teams to pick from.
Who’s your favorite NASCAR Driver?
Is it Kevin Harvick ... Chase Elliott ... or ... Kyle Busch? There’s 36 to pick from.
As you know from following Sports ... the #1 Individual or Team
will likely change from week to week ... and from year to year.
While who's #1 in Sports is often determined by objective data
like a final score or final position.
There are many other areas where who's #1 is determined by subjective feelings
like product taste or customer satisfaction.
Best Barbeque, Best Burger, Best Beer, Best Music Station, Best TV Show, and many other things ... are determined by the preference of the people ...
and so who’s #1 ... is certain to change over time.
What all this goes to show is that there’s no universal agreement about anything!
When there are multiple choices in a category by performance or by preference
the one who is #1 is sure to change over time.
Well, I got to wondering what the standings would look like for the category:
#1 God
What do you think the Standings would show?
Candidates for “#1 God” would probably include:
The God of Heaven and Earth and of all created things (by Christians)
The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (by Jews),
Allah (by Muslims)
The Holy Cow (by Hindus)
The Buddha (by Buddhists)
The God of Fire or Rain or Sun or Earth (by Indians and Pantheists)
No God (by Atheists)
And given how the very existence of God has faded from many people’s awareness, I’m sure that some votes for #1 God would be for: money or fame or power or
drugs or sex or gambling or shopping or hunting or fishing or football!
You see, many people would think that this category was just like any other category ... in that there were multiple choices available to pick from!
But the truth is … there’s really only one choice in this category!
And the reason there’s only one choice, is because, there’s really only one God!
Yes, there’s only one true God ... and everything else is a false god.
And it’s this truth that God has been trying to get humanity to understand ...
from the beginning of Salvation History.
When God called Abraham (1800 BC) to gather a tribe & travel to the Promised Land,
He revealed Himself as ... the God of the Israelites ... which made it look like He was just one more god of the many gods that the people worshipped at that time.
People acknowledged a god of: the sun, the moon, the mountains and many others.
And 600 yrs. later ... when God revealed Himself to Moses as ...
“The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob”, it gave great continuity to His presence,
but, people still believed that the God of Moses was just one of many other gods.
This was strikingly portrayed in the great movie classic, “The Ten Commandments”
with Charlton Heston as Moses and Yul Brenner as the Pharaoh of Egypt.
The movie showed how the God of Moses sent 9 plagues upon the Egyptians to move Pharaoh to release the Israelites from bondage, but he remained obstinate.
With the 10th Plague, the Angel of Death struck down the firstborn of all the Egyptians, including Pharaoh’s firstborn son, so Pharaoh finally lets the Israelites go free, and we see this pitiful picture of Pharaoh holding his dead son in front of this huge statue of a man-beast, that the people had hand-made as their god,
and begging this supposed god for three days to bring his son back to life.
When this doesn’t happen, Pharaoh decides to go after the Israelites and bring them back into slavery. But when he finally catches up to Moses, Moses and all the Israelites have safely crossed over the Red Sea on dry land. When Pharaoh’s Charioteers then enter the channel, the sea closes on them and they’re all killed!
We see an exasperated Pharaoh return to his palace
and slink down in his royal throne defeated.
Whereupon his wife chides him asking, “So the God of Moses is better than your God?”
And Pharaoh admits, “The God of Moses … is God!”
The Egyptians, like many other cultures thought there were many different gods, with varying degrees of power, and so each country and each people chose a god and tried to please their god to be assured of their god’s protection.
But now here comes the leader of the Egyptian people, having just witnessed the total annihilation of his army in the supernatural event of the parting of the Red Sea and he has no other choice but to admit that “The God of Moses … is God!”
What a powerful declaration!
What a profound truth ... from the Pharaoh of Egypt ... seated on his throne!
That’s what God was trying to tell the people all along … ever since Abraham …
that there is no other God … that there’s only one God!
Yet then, like now, plenty of people continue to believe there is a choice in gods.
Writing around the year 1000 BC, the Psalmist expressed this understanding
in Psalm 96 that we prayed today,
“For great is the Lord and highly to be praised; awesome is he, beyond all gods.”
See, God first had to get the people to see that He... was the best God,
And then He had to get them to see that He... was the only God.
Writing 400 years later in 600 BC, the Prophet Isaiah points this out ...
as he did in today’s First Reading ... giving God’s proclamation:
“I am the Lord and there is no other; there is no God besides me.”
So how many choices do you have for #1 God? One!
There’s only one choice ... because there is only one true God!
It’s the same God who has been with us all along.
Our God is the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and David too.
I have a Certificate hanging in my room that reads,
“He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Michael.”
It was a gift to me from my sister … and I love reading it.
It says it all … doesn’t it? If there’s only one god …
Then the God of Abraham, and Isaac and Jacob is my God too … and yours too!
Who is He? … the God of Heaven and Earth and of all created things.
And how are we to reverence and relate to this one true God?
Our Responsorial Psalm today tells us:
“Give to the Lord glory and praise; give to the Lord the glory due his name!”
Are we doing this? And if so, how often are we doing this?
Once a week … when we come here? Or a few days a week or once a day or more?
There’s a beautiful prayer we Priests pray each Sunday morning ... it goes,
“Lord, may our lips praise you, our lives proclaim your goodness,
our work give you honor and our voices celebrate you forever.”
Wow! What a great prayer and intention that is … to praise the one true God in every way we can … with our lips … our lives … our work … our voices … forever!
You see, if we do that, then others will notice and they’ll be drawn to do the same thing and then person by person the whole world will come to glorify God.
In our Gospel today, the Pharisees are questioning Jesus ...
regarding the rank of Caesar in the grand scheme of things …
and they ask if it’s lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar.
Jesus simply says:
“Pay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”
Notice how He brought God into their question!
He says yes, it is lawful to pay taxes to the government, that’s how the society works, but he adds … you must also give to God what belongs to God!
And what belongs to God? Everything! He’s the creator and governor of all.
That’s the very definition of what a god is …
A supernatural power that brings into being and governs all creation.
God has clearly revealed Himself to us as this throughout history
and his title and role will never change.
God has always been #1 … He remains #1 today … and He’ll be #1 for all eternity!
This is very different from all other things.
Right now Clemson is ranked the #1 College Football Team in the country …
but that can change ... and we hope it does.
But God’s ranking does not change with time ...
because His ranking is not dependent on His performance or our polls.
No, God will always be #1, because there is no other God ... as He said in Isaiah,
“I am the Lord and there is no other; there is no God besides me.”
The God that we know and love and serve is the #1 God.
He’s #1 because He’s ... the only one!
And just as the Roman coin bore the image of Caesar making us indebted to Caesar
... the fact that we bear the image of God, makes us indebted to God.
This is way more than just paying our tithe on Sunday.
This means offering our very lives to God ... whose image we bear.
So, let’s offer God our thoughts, words, deeds and actions every day.
And let’s turn away from sin ... because every time we sin ...
we’re choosing something other than God ...
making God less than #1.
Rather, let’s live good lives that draw people to acknowledge ...
that God is #1 ... and that places us ... on the winning Team!
Additional
You know many of those categories in the Birmingham News poll will have new winners next year. Some new names will appear for best TV personality, best BBQ, best Hamburger and best College.
That’s because there are multiple choices for each category and that’s because the winner is based on people’s opinions, opinions that change with time.
This is way different from the category of Best God. For in this category there is only one choice and His position is unchanging for it is not the result of opinion but rather unchanging eternal truth.
Who’s the Best God of 2017? The God of Heaven & Earth and of all created things.
the Pharisees, who resented Roman rule and the Herodians who supported it, team up to ask Jesus the question: ‘Is it lawful to pay tax to Caesar or not?”
Jesus amazes them by referring to something very important … image.
When they hand Him a coin, He asks them, “Whose image … is this?”
The Greek word for image is “Eikon”, which is where we get the word “Icon”
that describes a form of Eastern Religious Art … that include Holy images of Jesus ... Mary and the Saints are called Icons … Holy Images.
When Jesus speaks of image, He’s making a claim on every human being …
because we all bear an image … the image of our Creator … God.
When Jesus says to render unto Caesar those things that bear Caesar’s image,
He makes a case for them to also render unto God the things that bear God’s image ...which would of course be … our very selves … for we all bear the image of God! In Genesis we hear, “in the Divine Image He made them.”
So,Jesus moves the argument out of the material and into the realm of the spirit.
Jesus relates the tribute paid to Caesar in the form of taxes ...
to the tribute paid to God in the form of devotion, obedience, love and service.
Just as the Roman coin bore the image of Caesar making us indebted to Caesar ...
the fact that we bear the image of God, makes us indebted to God.
This is way more than just paying our tithe on Sunday.
This means offering our very lives to God ... whose image we bear.
So, let’s offer God our thoughts, words deeds and actions every day …
happily acknowledging that He’s #1 and we... belong to Him!
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