Misunderstandings, Wonderment, and Back Taxes
Psalm 78:1-39 • Psalm 78:40-72
Num. 11:1-23 • Rom. 1:16-25 • Matt. 17:22-27
There are many sentences to wonder over in St. Matthew's gospel for today. When Jesus says, “The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men, and they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised again,” Matthew reports that his disciples “were greatly distressed.” I wonder why they are only “greatly distressed.” Why aren't they hopeful, too?” Is the gospel writer poking gentle fun at their habit of repeatedly missing the point?
Next, when tribute collectors ask Peter, “Does your master pay tribute?” Peter answers with the very short form: “Yes.” Oh, Peter, how funny that you thought you could get away with that bare-faced lie! Matthew, the former tax collector, could have warned you against lying about taxes.
Jesus won't even let Peter in the door when he comes back to tell what happened. Instead, he asks him “From whom do the kings of the world take tribute . . . , from their own children or from others?” Peter knows that parents love their children too much to exact tribute from them, so this time he answers correctly: “From others.”
“Therefore,” concludes Jesus, “The children are free.” Jesus doesn't have to ask Peter whose child he is. Certainly not of the kings of this world. Nor are we. We are children of God, who expects no tribute from us. How blessed we are, through all the trials that the world lays on us, to be the free children of God.
I wonder whether the apostles have time to let this lesson sink in before Jesus returns to the problem imposed by worldly King Caesar; he solves it in a strange, folkloric and I think funny way. He sends Peter out to fish and to open the mouth of the first fish he catches and pay the tribute collectors “for me and for you” with the gold coin he finds inside—which Peter does.
These five verses renew my faith that Jesus and the gospel writers have a sense of humor and that God takes pleasure in laughing at and with his children.
Written by John DuVal
John remembers only one sentence from his sophomore Introduction to Religion course at Franklin and Marshall College: “The Bible contains the full range of human emotions—except for humor.” Ha ha.