AI Summary
5 min readIn today's Gospel, the Pharisees try to trap Jesus with a question about taxes. But Jesus turns the trap into a revelation about identity and belonging. Father Mike Schmitz uses this moment to explore a much deeper question: whose are we, really? The answer, he argues, is written into the very structure of creation and redemption.
The joke that explains the Gospel
Father Mike opens with an unlikely source: comedian Mitch Hedberg, who died of an overdose in 2005. Hedberg had a bit about the Reese's candy bar. "If you read the name Reese's, there's an apostrophe S," Hedberg said. "That means the candy bar is his." The joke is that if you're eating a Reese's and a guy named Reese walks up and demands it, you have to hand it over. "Apostrophe S," Hedberg concluded. "That means it's his."
Father Mike returns to this joke every time he reads today's Gospel. When the Pharisees hand Jesus a Roman coin, he asks whose image and inscription are on it. They answer: Caesar's. Jesus says, "Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God." The logic is the same as Hedberg's joke. Caesar's image is on the coin, so the coin is Caesar's. But the deeper point is that every human being bears God's image. "In whose image have you all been made?" Father Mike asks. "In God's. That's God apostrophe S. That means it's his."
Three claims on a life
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:01) **Opening & Gospel Reading** - Fr. Mike begins the homily and reads Matthew 22:15-21, where the Pharisees try to trap Jesus with the question about paying taxes to Caesar.
- 2 (01:42) **The Story of Bakhita** - Fr. Mike introduces the life of Saint Josephine Bakhita, a Sudanese slave who forgot her own name after being kidnapped at age seven.
- 3 (03:51) **Mitch Hedberg's "Apostrophe S" Joke** - Fr. Mike shares a joke from comedian Mitch Hedberg about the Reese's candy bar label to frame the homily's core insight.
- 4 (06:41) **Jesus Is Not Trapped** - Fr. Mike contrasts his own desire for Jesus to denounce taxes with Jesus' actual response, which reveals a deeper principle of ownership.
- 5 (08:51) **Who Has the Right to Label You?** - Fr. Mike references a talk by pastor Kernham about labels on a t-shirt, identifying three entities that can claim ownership.
- 6 (10:08) **God as Creator, Not Entertainer** - Fr. Mike recounts a conversation with an evolutionary biologist who suggested God created the universe to be surprised and delighted.
- 7 (13:12) **King Cyrus: Belonging Before Knowing** - Fr. Mike points to Isaiah 45, where King Cyrus is named 150 years before his birth, showing he belonged to God before he knew it.
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Show Notes
Homily from the Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time.
That means that it belongs to Him.
Jesus tells us to give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to give to God what belongs to God. But if a coin bears Caesar's image, whose image do we bear? We were created in God's image and purchased at a price. Before we ever knew Him, we already belonged to Him. We are not our own, and we are not on our own.
Mass Readings from October 18, 2026: Isaiah 45:1, 4-6 Psalm 96:1, 3-5, 7-101 Thessalonians 1:1-5bMatthew 22:15-21
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