Matthew 17:24-27
This passage is nestled in between the second prediction of Jesus’s death and resurrection and the passage where the disciples ask who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. As such, it probably isn’t a passage that we’re exceptionally familiar with, which is part of why Wils picked it. (The fishing may also play a role.)
There is a temple tax for each adult Jewish male to support the temple. Think Per Capita if you’re a Presbyterian, apportionment if you’re a Methodist, or if you’re really old, you can think about pew rent. Peter is asked about this tax when Jesus and the disciples return to Capernaum, and then Jesus brings the tax up when they get “home.”
Jesus wants to know who gets taxed when earthly kings tax people. There is a setup here for language we are familiar with, but perhaps we don’t think about it in this setting. Jesus asks who gets taxed – family or strangers. Peter answers “strangers.” Jesus then tells him that the children don’t have to pay.
And Jesus clearly wants us to think about being called children of God. The kids (children) of God don’t pay because the fund is to support them – their home, their house, their kingdom – as the family of God. Then, to avoid offending, Jesus sends Peter out fishing to catch a fish that will pay both their temple tax. (Again, Jesus pays a price for more than just himself.) Creation provides the fee. God’s creation provides the fee.
As children of God, we don’t pay to access the house of God. God chooses to make the presence, the power, the reality of God available to us, and to make that clear by calling us children of God.
