Dai­ly Reflec­tion
August 12, 2013

In exam­in­ing today’s Gospel read­ing, two major themes emerge. The first is the announce­ment by Jesus of his impend­ing death and res­ur­rec­tion. This is the sec­ond time that Jesus men­tions his death and res­ur­rec­tion; the first being met with a strong reac­tion and even denial from Peter (Mt 16:21-22), this sec­ond announce­ment being met more by grief than any­thing else. I am remind­ed of Kubler-Ross and how she dis­cussed the human reac­tion to a life-alter­ing or threat­en­ing event. Her five stages of reac­tion include: denial, anger, bar­gain­ing, depres­sion, and accep­tance. Grant­ed, not every­one expe­ri­ences all of these or in this order, but I see Peter’s reac­tion in this light. In Matthew 16:21-22, he actu­al­ly denies this pos­si­bil­i­ty and rebukes Jesus for say­ing that he would suf­fer and be killed. As time pass­es and Peter gets clos­er to Jesus, I won­der whether Peter and the oth­er dis­ci­ples have pro­gressed toward a bet­ter under­stand­ing of Jesus’ path toward res­ur­rec­tion. I don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly think that Peter has accept­ed Jesus’ fate, but won­der whether he has resigned him­self to its even­tu­al hap­pen­ing. Thus, we see Matthew high­light­ing Peter’s “grief” asso­ci­at­ed with the announce­ment.

Life throws a lot at us – most good, but some not so. As frus­trat­ing as these events may be at times, I think we can take a les­son from Peter. We must remind our­selves that God has a rea­son. We may not under­stand and we may get dis­tressed and even angry about these events or the cur­rent path, but we have to remind our­selves that it is part of God’s plan. Pos­si­bly as we begin to accept his plan, we find solace in it.

The sec­ond theme from today’s read­ing relates to the pay­ing of the tem­ple tax. Although “sim­ple” at one lev­el, I ini­tial­ly strug­gled to take mean­ing from Jesus’ actions and mes­sage. The sim­ple:  When asked about who should pay the tem­ple tax to the king, Jesus not­ed that the “for­eign­ers” should pay with the sub­jects being exempt. Jesus did not see him­self as being a sub­ject of any earth­ly king and, thus, was nei­ther for­eign­er nor sub­ject. Despite this, Jesus believes he and Peter should pay the tax in order to sup­port the tem­ple and its func­tions, and to avoid con­tro­ver­sy or scan­dal. I believe that Jesus is rec­om­mend­ing that we fol­low the law as well as long as it does not con­flict with God’s teach­ings. Jesus then has Peter drop a hook and take a coin from the first fish that comes up, and to then pay the tax for both of them.  This mir­a­cle, often cit­ed as the only mir­a­cle he per­formed that “ben­e­fit­ed” him, was a sub­tle or not-so-sub­tle way to demon­strate that despite pay­ing the tax that he did rule the earth and all of cre­ation.

So what does this mean? Jesus knew his mis­sion and he did not let triv­ial mat­ters such as pay­ing the tem­ple tax dis­tract him or oth­ers from it. It is a reminder to all of us to stay focused on God and his teach­ings. Yes, we will be dis­tract­ed by the triv­ial - even though at the time it may not seem so triv­ial; how­ev­er, we must not let these dis­trac­tions keep us from our mis­sion to abide by the teach­ings of Jesus as he points our way to ever­last­ing life.