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PRAYER FOR THE WEEK
Jesus, help me worry less about money and more about being a good person! Amen.

Some people were trying to trap Jesus into saying they could break the law, so He'd get in trouble. "Teacher," they asked, "should we pay taxes to Caesar?" Jesus looked at a coin and said, "Whose picture is on this?" "Caesar's," they said. "Then give Caesar what's his, and give God what belongs to God," Jesus told them.

Money is weird, if you think about it: We use pieces of paper and metal, which we say are worth different amounts, to trade for things we need and want: food, clothes, a trip to the movies.

Jesus must have thought money was weird, too. In this week's Gospel (Matthew 22:15-21), He's asked about money, and He barely gives it a glance before He says to go ahead and give it to someone else!

It's hard for a kid not to care about money. Sometimes you want something and your parents say no, and you wish you could just buy it for yourself. Sometimes they tell you to save up your allowance or wait for a holiday like your birthday, when you might be given some money to spend. Sometimes you have money and want to spend it, but your parents tell you to save it!

In the Gospel story, people tried to get Jesus to talk about money. If He told them to ignore the laws that said they had to pay taxes, He'd go to jail.

Jesus basically said He didn't care much about money. He said to go ahead and pay the taxes - that what God cares about more than money is the way people act. To Jesus, having money should be about making good decisions (like helping other people with it), not being greedy and worrying about how much you have.

Save some money. Spend a little - but not just on yourself. Jesus taught us to focus on being good people, not buying and saving and spending![[In-content Ad]]

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