NOTES for Mar 12:13-17

Today’s passage is very popular with tax inspectors: it is usually cited as proof that taxes must be paid, because the Savior Himself requires this of us. Yet the text of the passage says nothing about the necessity of paying taxes. The question is not whether they must be paid, but whether it is permissible to pay them. This way of posing the question may seem strange, but in Judea in the Gospel era there were people who regarded as an apostate anyone who cooperated in any way with the Roman authorities, whom they viewed as an occupying power. From their point of view, paying taxes was naturally a form of such cooperation. These were, of course, representatives of marginal and essentially extremist movements, supporters of holy war, although there were quite a few of them in Judea at the time. The question was undoubtedly provocative: to answer it affirmatively meant appearing to the radicals as a collaborator; to answer it negatively was tantamount to a call for rebellion, with all the consequences that followed. With “their own people” they acted according to the principle “you do not ask, we do not answer,” but Jesus was evidently not “one of their own” to those who questioned Him. He answers the question in a wholly unexpected way, confounding those who wanted to confound and entangle Him. The meaning of the parable of the denarius, for it is indeed a parable, is quite transparent: the Kingdom is not defined by social realities and is not attained through political struggle. If the imperial authorities receive their taxes, that fact changes nothing for the Kingdom. Paying taxes is immaterial to the Kingdom, because the Kingdom can be purchased neither with money nor by submission to earthly authorities and human laws. Nor, for that matter, by refusing to submit to those authorities and laws.