29th Sunday 2026
Isaiah 45: 1, 4-6; 1Thessalonians 1:1-5; Matthew 22: 15-21
“The Gospel came to you, not only in word, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and with full conviction.” Thus writes St. Paul to the Christians in Thessalonica. Could he say the same to us?
Turning to the First Reading and the Gospel, it may be worth mentioning that, for the first six years of my priesthood, I spent part of my time teaching an A-level course in Ancient History entitled “Herodotus and the conflict of Greece and Persia”. Herodotus is known as the Father of History, and his “Researches” cover the invasions of Greece by the Persian Empire in the early years of the Fifth Century BC. These involved the famous battles of Marathon (Has that been renamed the Battle of Snickers, by the way?) Thermopylae, and Salamis.
For Herodotus, Cyrus was a “baddie” as he inaugurated the expansion of the Persian Empire: it was his son Darius and grandson Xerxes who were responsible for the two invasions of Greece. Yet for the Jewish prophet known as Deutero-Isaiah, he was a hero. Indeed, he was seen as more than a hero: the prophet calls him the Lord’s anointed, or Messiah, and describes God allegedly speaking to him.
Even though Cyrus was a pagan, with no knowledge of the true God, as God Himself is reported as saying—"I call you by name. I name you even though you do not know me”—yet he is seen as God’s chosen instrument. How could this be, given that he was an invader of many nations and territories?
One of those territories which Cyrus attacked and conquered, in 538BC, was Babylon, where the Jewish people were being held in exile, and one of his early acts as conqueror was to allow the Jews to return to their own land. Allegedly, he even allotted funds for the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple. Hence the high regard in which he was held by the prophets of the period of return from exile.
This fits in with Jesus’ response, centuries later, to the plotting of the Pharisees and Herodians, with their trick question about paying taxes to the Roman occupiers: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?” If Our Lord were to reply “Yes” he could be denounced as a traitor to the Jewish nation and faith, because the coinage bore the graven image of the Emperor, who was described as “divus” or divine. On the other hand, if Jesus said “No” He could be reported as a rebel.
His reply cleverly eludes the trap set for Him, but reminds His hearers that EVERYTHING belongs to God, including the Emperor. Thus, it is feasible that God used an earlier emperor in the person of Cyrus to achieve His aims for His people.
So far, so good, but there is a twist. To assert that history and events belong to God is one thing. It is something else entirely to claim that God is on the side of one nation or group. Religious nationalism is a growing and dangerous phenomenon.
It was exposed in the 1960s in the USA by the authors of protest songs such as Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan, whose compositions were popularised by the likes of Joan Baez and Peter, Paul, and Mary. The Dylan song “With God on our side” is particularly poignant, including as it does the lines “I can’t do it for you, you have to decide, if Judas Iscariot had God on his side”. Religious nationalism is pernicious.
We find it among Islamist jihadists, who justify any atrocity in the name of God whom, without any sense of irony, they call “the compassionate, the merciful”. It has been found throughout Christian history, and it is rising again among groups of self-styled Christians. Thus, Vladimir Putin claims to be re-building “holy Rus” in his invasion of Ukraine and his threats to attack other nations; and he is supported by the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church.
On the other side of the world, Donald Trump and his sidekicks, especially his Defence Secretary Peter Hegseth, seek to justify their increasingly brutal behaviour at home and abroad in terms of a Holy War in defence of Christian civilisation, though it is neither Christian nor civilised. It is particularly depressing to see the once highly regarded Bishop Robert Barron acting as cheerleader for the Trump regime.
In this country, a recent far-right demonstration, denounced by the mainstream Churches, and organised by Mr. Yaxley-Lennon (alias Tommy Robinson), involved the distribution of crosses to the participants, an act of blasphemy not on the scale of Mr. Hegseth’s use of the Holy Name of Jesus in support of a war which threatens to destroy a whole civilisation, but wicked nonetheless.
All things belong to God, but He must not be invoked in support of evil.
