Outside the Lines

Do you remember your first box of crayons and your first coloring book? There was only one rule: use any color you like, but stay inside the lines.

Staying inside the lines is a fine rule for coloring. It is a terrible rule for faith. And yet we follow it. Every Sunday we say we believe in God, in Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit among us. Then we draw a thick black line around our religion. Inside the line: prayer, Mass, the rosary. Outside the line: what we pay our workers, how we treat the stranger, how we vote. “That’s politics,” we say. “Religion should stay out of it.”

Listen to today’s Gospel. Some people try to trap Jesus with a question about taxes: “Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?” If he says no, he’s a rebel. If he says yes, he’s a collaborator. So Jesus asks for a coin. “Whose image is this?” “Caesar’s.” “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.”

It’s tempting to hear two boxes: Caesar’s box and God’s box. But notice Jesus’ question: Whose image? The coin carries Caesar’s face. And whose face do we carry? From the first page of the Bible: God created us in his own image. Every person, the worker, the immigrant, the child, the grandmother, the Muslim carries God’s face. So what belongs to God? Everything, beginning with us. There is no corner of our lives outside the lines.

There is no corner of our lives outside the lines.

That means we don’t leave God at the church door. We bring God’s image, which is us, into every place we go, including the voting booth.

The Church takes citizenship seriously. The Catechism says we are morally obliged to pay taxes and to vote. The bishops teach that responsible citizenship is a virtue and that taking part in public life is a moral duty. Taxes are not just a necessary evil. They pay for school lunches and clinics, firefighters and lifeguards, parks and libraries. When we pay them, we contribute to the common good. When we vote, we help decide whether our government serves everyone or just a few.

So how should we vote? No one can tell us. The Church does not endorse candidates or parties. What the Church gives us is principles: every human life has dignity. The common good has absolute priority over the interests of any group or individual. The poor come first. The earth is our common home. Then the Church asks us to pray, to inform ourselves, and to decide in conscience. Faithful, thoughtful Catholics may land in different places on how to apply these principles, because neither party and no candidate fully reflects the Gospel.

But the principles are not a menu where we pick one and ignore the rest. Think of the faces behind them: the unborn child. The worker who can’t live on her wages. The family running from violence. The man on death row. The sick person denied care. The bishops have called the protection of unborn life a preeminent concern, because without life nothing else is possible. And Pope Leo cautioned that to oppose abortion but support the death penalty or the inhumane treatment of immigrants is not “really pro-life” (October 1, CBS/AP).

Each of us will find one of those faces easy to love, and another that makes us squirm. Pay attention to the squirm. That is where the Gospel is working on us.

So when we vote, let’s ask not only “What is good for my pocketbook?” but “Who bears God’s image and has no voice in the room?”

Let our faith spill over the lines, into our homes, our neighborhoods, our workplaces, and yes, our politics. This morning let us pray that our obligations as citizens may be guided by the light of the Gospel, the wisdom of the Church, and the voice of our conscience.

And now let us go to the table, to receive the body and blood of Jesus and to renew our promise to be for the world what God is for us in Jesus: bread broken and wine poured out for others.