Not Every Alarm Is for Your Good

Remember that time that TV changed from the analog signal to the digital signal? We had to get those converter boxes so that we could continue to watch the TV. My wife and I ended up with one of those converter boxes, but it was broken or something, and then we just gave up the TV after that. So it’s been a while since I’ve had the experience of watching TV. But it still happens, because the TV seems to be everywhere. A few days ago, I was in a hotel enjoying the breakfast they had there. I love those hot waffles that we get to cook ourselves. But as I’m there trying to enjoy my food, I realized that I was getting all wound up, all angsty. I eventually concluded it was the TV. There was this newscast that was talking about a story that was coming up — something about people getting scammed by people using AI to mimic the voice of family members. For a long time, this story was coming up, and the newscasters were talking about how scary it was, how awful it was, but they have a solution that you won’t want to miss. The story is coming up real soon.

Well, as luck had it, I had to wait there in the breakfast room for about an hour, all the while listening to one scary thing after another. But I did finally get to hear this news story about the scammers and the solution to the problem. That was only after lots and lots of hype, all this time spent talking about how you don’t want to miss their amazing solution. In the end, their idea was this: have a family code word, something that only the family knows about. That way, strangers can’t pretend to be a family member and get away with it. The scammers don’t know the code word.

Mercifully, the time finally came when I was able to move on with my day and get away from that TV. Such a relief. But the thought came to me about that whole episode. Did the news people really care if others learned about their solution to this scammer problem? Did they care?

I don’t think so. They could have said, “Here’s an idea — avoid scams with a family secret code.” That would have been fast. Much less time than all the hype they put into their upcoming story. Now, for me, as I was sitting there, there was a part of me feeling like I was in a double bind. On the one hand, I wanted to get out of there and all the doom, gloom, and more doom. But I was curious to hear their upcoming story, this amazing solution.

In Matthew chapter 22, in the story of the coin and Caesar’s image, the Pharisees wanted to put Jesus into an impossible double bind as well. They wanted to create a circumstance where Jesus would have no way out and he’d ultimately be crushed by the weight of their spectacular wit. The question of Jesus paying or not paying the tax was an impossible question. If Jesus said, “No, don’t pay the tax,” then the Herodians would have an issue with Jesus opposing them. A big issue, really. They didn’t take that lightly when people opposed their rule, and they may have punished him for treason if he openly opposed the tax. So Jesus could not say, “Don’t pay the tax.” However, he also couldn’t say, “Yes, pay the tax,” because the Jewish nationalists would have been very upset by that idea and they would have opposed him fiercely. It would have been a huge issue.

With that setup, that’s why the Pharisees spent all this time talking about how Jesus would just teach the truth, he didn’t care about the opinion of others, he didn’t care about the status of others, he just spoke the honest truth. They really wanted to force Jesus into a place of answering the impossible question. Because if he were to avoid the question, then it would have to be the case that he really didn’t speak the truth, that he really did care about the status of others.

So after that careful setup, they sprang the trap on Jesus, and I suspect that they were eagerly waiting to receive their reward for such an excellent setup. What could Jesus possibly do to get out of this double bind?

He says, “Show me the coin that pays the tax.” So they hand him a coin. They had the coin on them. They were carrying the coin. If you were Jewish at the time and in that place, you’d know it was a serious problem to have that coin on your person. The reason is that the coin has an image of Caesar on it. One of the oddities of the Roman Empire is that the leaders were all supposedly gods. Caesar was the main god, and then all of the lesser leaders were lesser gods. That is why Jesus makes a point to ask about the image on the coin. It is a major problem for Jews to carry around an engraved image of a bogus god.

Very quickly, Jesus is able to use their question about the tax to show how they were hypocrites. They started their question by saying, “Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.” Did they care that Jesus teaches the way of God? Did they care about the truth? I don’t think so. It seems that they were simply focused on finding a way to do as much damage as they could. And it would have seemed like they had Jesus backed into a corner with no way out. Instead, this ironclad trap that they had sprung on Jesus ended up snapping on them instead. “Whose image is on this coin that you’re carrying around?” “Uh, well, Caesar’s.”

It seems that they didn’t even see this coming. They had a habit of doing something that they knew was problematic. Eventually they stop thinking about the problem and just go on down the road with their bad habit. But eventually the truth comes to light. This happens just as much today as it did for the Pharisees when they tried to ensnare Jesus. But there is something that will protect us from repeating the Pharisees’ mistake. And that something is humility. Had the Pharisees focused on being humble, they might have spent their energy on addressing their own sinfulness. Instead, they spent their energy on trying to take down Jesus.

Humility can be a frustrating virtue to pursue. Because when you conclude that you have humility, that is the surest sign that you don’t. One of the best ways that I know to grow in humility is to go to confession. Speaking one’s worst faults out loud to someone else is intensely humbling. I think that is why too many people avoid confession — for them, it’s just too painful. And that’s too bad, because people miss out on all the graces that come to them through the sacrament.

We are all going through this life, and it can be a wonderful thing. Unfortunately, mixed in with the good things in our journey there are people that want to scare us, give us angst, that frustrate us, that try to ensnare us, people that may want to use us in some way, people that are not so invested in our well-being. It can seem like the bad people are always winning. The question is, how do we respond? Well, I think the answer is counterintuitive. Rather than trying to battle every bad thing happening around us and to us, happiness and joy come instead from focusing on the good things that life is offering us. I’m not saying that you should just stand there and take the punches. If you’re in a direct confrontation, you need to deal with that. What I am saying is that when we go through life with humility, it becomes so much easier to focus on those good things, to recognize our bad habits and fix them, and in the end we experience joy going through life being ourselves, the person that God made us to be.

If you cannot get through breakfast without the next threat, start by asking the question I asked about the newscast. Do they care if I learn the thing, or do they care that I stay through the scare? Some alarms are real. A direct confrontation still has to be dealt with. A teaser that withholds the simple sentence until you have sat in the fear for an hour is not that. You can leave the room. The code word was one sentence. It did not require the hour.

Then look at the coin already in your pocket. The Pharisees built a trap and were carrying the thing the trap was about. Humility, in this Gospel, is spending the energy on your own habit instead of on the next threat. Name one habit you have stopped thinking about. Say it out loud, in confession if it is a sin, or to one safe person if it is only a pattern. The alarm can wait. The coin cannot.

You do not have to battle every scary item on the screen. Pick the one that is actually in front of you. Leave the rest in the breakfast room.

This is a pastoral reflection, not clinical care and not a substitute for it. If you or someone you love is in immediate danger, call 988 or local emergency services.

Drawn from a homily first preached in 2023.