Matthew 17:24

“Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?”

Word must have spread that Jesus and his disciples may not have paid the annual Temple tax that amounted to two day’s labor.  I think this is the first and only time that the Jewish tax collectors confronted Jesus.  In a way, it was a pleassant exchange.

Matthew was himself a tax collector, as we well know, but for the Roman government not for the Temple. What tax collectors did interested him, no doubt. Matthew was kind to them.  They did the wise thing, instead of spreading the false rumor that neither Jesus nor his disciples paid the Temple tax, they went straight to Jesus and found the truth. Jesus was up to date with his taxes.  That satisfied them.

Jesus took the occasion, however, to bring an entirely new and unexpected thought. In short, Jesus based his views on the fact that he, as Son of God, should have been excused from paying taxes because children of earthly kings do not pay taxes.  So Jesus shifted the discussion to the new reality, the appearance of the Kingdom of God among them. How should the children of God in the new Kingdom behave?  They are exempt from paying the Temple tax but they pay it, nevertheless.

Jesus’ simple solution as to how to get money to pay the taxes has an edge of humor to it, quite hilarious in fact. He told Peter to go the the nearby lake, throw in a line, not a net, and when he catches a fish, only one, open its mouth where he will find a coin that is the exact amount of tax for both men!

Matthew found delight in telling this story, I do believe.  In summary, Jesus is King, the disciples are in his household, therefore they are exempt.  But they did not cling to that privilege. In a way, even nature rewarded them for their humility by enabling them to meet their tax obligations by finding the exact amount in the mouth of a common lake fish.

Once again, Jesus used another occasion to announce the in-break of the Kingdom of God on the earth. He is the King.