Jesus challenges and changes people in ways that we may never truly understand. This seems on the surface, at least, to be one of the strangest stories in the entire Bible. Why has Matthew told this story (17:22-27) we might well ask? The point of the story, isn’t that Jesus had the power to perform a miracle and make a coin appear in the mouth of a fish – although that is certainly implied. Nor is it that Jesus is simply a good moral citizen, finding ways of paying the necessary taxes in such an order-based society – although he certainly does wish to avoid offence too. The point is perhaps that he was a master strategist. Just as he told his disciples to be: “as wise as a serpent, while remaining as innocent as a dove” (Matthew 10.16). While also making an important point along the way, hinting at how God’s children might also be set free of such chains of the world in the process. But now was not that time, Galilee was not the place, and a minor tax-collector not the person – for Jesus’ major protest to be made. Before too long he would be in the Temple itself, turning over tables – spilling coins. There is perhaps, a lesson, and a model here for all his followers as we pray and wait and plan how to confront the powers of this world with the subversive message of the Kingdom of God, while still living in the world and living by its rules.
Mark
Focus Questions:
*In what ways are you aware of being ‘free’ as a child of God?
*How do we see the Church as being in the world, yet living in a very different way – by a different world view?
