Daily Lesson for June 19, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Matthew chapter 17 verses 24 through 27:

24 When they reached Capernaum, the collectors of the temple tax came to Peter and said, ‘Does your teacher not pay the temple tax?’25He said, ‘Yes, he does.’ And when he came home, Jesus spoke of it first, asking, ‘What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tribute? From their children or from others?’ 26When Peter said, ‘From others’, Jesus said to him, ‘Then the children are free.27However, so that we do not give offence to them, go to the lake and cast a hook; take the first fish that comes up; and when you open its mouth, you will find a coin; take that and give it to them for you and me.’

“Does your teacher not pay the Temple tax?”

You can sense the anxiety in Peter surrounding the question. “Surely he does!  Yes, sure, he does. Oh yes; any good teacher would. All good and faithful Jews do. And of course Jesus does . . . I think.”

There is something strange in the negative phrasing of the collectors’ question.  “Does your teacher NOT pay the Temple Tax.” There is also something strange in the writer Matthew’s noting that Peter did not mention the incident with Jesus.  Implied is this idea that maybe Peter suspects what the collectors suspect — that Jesus doesn’t have to pay his tax to support the Temple.

And when Jesus’ finally has to take the initiative to talk with Peter about the incident with the collectors, Jesus says he doesn’t have to pay his tax to the Temple because a king doesn’t make his own children pay for his own house. “The children are free,” Jesus says. 

The children are free. 

That word should have done away with all guilt-based fundraisers in the church once and for all. That should have put an end to all the anxiety-enduring, negatively phrased fundraising tactics. That should have told us right then and there that all God’s children get to enjoy the house of the LORD — whether they give a dime or not. The children are free. They belong. They belong, not by due, but by birthright. 

Yes, Jesus does goes on. “But so we give no offense . . . take this and give it.”  Yet; that is a secondary matter. The first matter is to know that we are children and we belong. And, by extended logic, if we are children and we belong then no offense ought to be taken if we don’t pay our dues because we don’t have dues. We belong by birthright and not by tribute.

You will not hear me using this text, to justify my not giving. I will give and I will give enough to help others who can’t give anything — just as Jesus helped pay Peter’s way. 

But still, no matter how much we give, the children are free. There is no guilting or shaming or anxiety-inducing negative fundraiser campaigns. They belong by grace.

And when they give back — and they always do — they do so by grace and through grace and in grace also.  

And somehow by the miracle of God’s grace two coins are pulled from the fish’s mouth . . .