Most people want to be liked. We want to get along. We’d like to be popular, to be included, to not be too different from the rest of the world. Arby’s is wrong. Different is not good. Just ask anybody in Jr. High school. When you’re in Jr. High, most people would rather die than be different. We can all remember this. And if you are in Jr. High right now, you certainly know what I’m talking about. This when we learn to wear the same clothes. And listen to the same music. And how to act and talk just like everybody else. Some people, never grow out of that Jr. High mentality. When I was in Jr. High, the big hangout in Logansport, Indiana, was the roller rink. It is where everybody and anybody who was cool, hung out on Friday and Saturday nights. Or at least, that was the rumor. I’d never know that, because my parents didn’t let my brothers and I hang there. Now, first of all, I am not a graceful roller skater. I was more like an out-of-control Mack truck going around the skating rink. It wasn’t my favorite thing to do. So when I would beg and plead with my parents, to let me go to the roller rink with my friends, they pretty much knew that it was not to roller-skate. Plus there were lots of older kids and young adults who also hung out at the skating rink. It was probably not the safest place, even in Logansport, Indiana. But I would get so angry with my parents. Everybody else got to go the skating rink. Everybody else got to be popular. Everybody else got to be “cool”. Sometimes, it hurts to not be able to the popular thing. I think that it hurts more in Jr. High, but in one way or another, we all face peer pressure and we all face the challenge of popularity every day.

I am sure that Jesus wanted to be liked, too. I mean, He was fully human. Jesus wasn’t trying to be different or unpopular, but Jesus never ignored what was right and true, just to be popular, or to fit in. Our Gospel today gives us an excellent example of this. The Pharisees and Herodians come to Jesus with a question. And from the beginning, we are told that they are trying to trick Jesus up. It is question about paying taxes to Caesar. Now, two thousand years ago, paying taxes to Caesar was even more unpopular than our paying taxes today. Everybody hated it, especially among the Jews. If you wanted to get people riled up, all you had to do was bring up paying taxes to Caesar. It was a very emotional issue. The crowd was very clearly NOT in favor of paying taxes to Caesar. If Jesus wants to not make a whole of people angry, He was going to have to come out against paying taxes to Caesar. However, if He says that the Jewish people should NOT pay taxes to Caesar, than the Romans would take what He was saying as a treasonous statement, and He would be arrested. Ultimately, this is what the Pharisees had most hoped for. They wanted to get Jesus in trouble with the Romans, so that the Romans would do their dirty work, and take care of Jesus for them. They didn’t think that Jesus would ever say anything so unpopular as to tell the Jewish people that they should pay the tax to the Romans. They didn’t count on Jesus being so strong.

Jesus’ answer is brilliant. He successfully eludes the situation. He is not in trouble with the Romans. But He is also clearly not saying what was popular among the Jews. Did this cost Jesus some of His popularity? Absolutely! Was this hard for Jesus? Probably not. He’s speaking the truth. For Jesus, this is simple the reality of the situation. Jesus is reminding everybody that money is symbolic and temporary. This is a lesson that all of us need to hear, even more in 2005. Money can be gained and accumulated for any given number of reasons, but it is almost always with the notion that money will last as long as it is tended to properly. Anyone who has watched stock portfolios change in the past ten years certainly have learned that this is not the case. Still, people hoard and manage money as if it were a permanent fixture on this earth. Jesus is reminding us that this is simply not true. Today, God asks us to differentiate between those passing things of this world, and those things that belong to God that last forever. Those “God things” are what we need to be standing up for, no matter what. Our Faith, our souls, our living the Christian life, those are what we can’t back down from ever. Even what we do with our money while we’re in this world matters. It is not enough to just do the “popular” things. As Catholic Christians, we have to have a bigger vision.

We too need to have the courage to do what is right. Anybody can go along with the flow, and do what everybody else is doing. We do not belong to this world. A real Catholic Christian will never feel truly at home in this world. We don’t belong. We aren’t cool. Popularity in this world is not what matters, when this world is passing away.

We pray to have the right values, especially while we’re in this world. May God give all of us the courage to speak the truth and to stand up for the truth, even when it’s not popular.

May God bless us, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit… AMEN !!!

St. Maria Goretti … Pray for us !!!