NOTES for Mat 17:24-27; Mat 18:1-4
The didrachma was the tax Jews paid for the upkeep of the Jerusalem Temple, comparable to the money we give to support our churches and clergy. But now the collectors of this tax come to Jesus himself, who is, in fact, the owner of this Temple. In what Jesus says and does at this moment, two points seem important to me.
First, he says that an earthly state collects taxes from outsiders, not from its own citizens. A remark, as it were, about the tax police... Jesus is thereby telling Peter that the Son of God and his disciples, whom he brings into adoptive sonship with the heavenly Father, are not outsiders but members of God's household, as the apostle Paul will later write, and that the demand for tax therefore does not apply to them. In this way the Lord reveals his unity with the Father.
But here is the second important point. If any of us were in Jesus' place—what a strange thought, really!—we would simply tell these collectors to go away. The Lord himself, however, says: ‘...so as not to offend them.’ The Greek text reads: ‘...ina de mi skandalizomen autos.’ ‘Not to offend’ means not to hurt their feelings, not to quarrel with them. For Christ came to people, not to kingdoms, and not quarrelling with these particular collectors is more important than insisting on a particular idea. For them, the refusal of two Jews—Jesus of Nazareth and Peter of Capernaum—to pay the didrachma would have offended their religious sensibilities. Avoiding this is so important that a miracle is performed for its sake. For me, this is a model for our attitude, for example, towards the Slavonic language in the Orthodox Church. There are people for whom a change of language would be precisely ‘skandalizomen,’ an offence. Well, perhaps others should ask God for the gift of understanding languages.
And one more thing: suddenly, quite unexpectedly, we see that Jesus possesses the full power of God's omniscience and omnipotence. Go and catch a fish... After all, that fish had to pick up this stater from the bottom and bring it to the Creator...