Letting Go Of Our Rights

After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma temple tax came to Peter and asked, ‘Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?’ ‘Yes, he does,’ he replied. When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. ‘What do you think, Simon?’ he asked. ‘From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes – from their own children or from others?’ ‘From others,’ Peter answered. ‘Then the children are exempt,’ Jesus said to him. ‘But so that we may not cause offence, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.’ (Matthew 17:24-27)

Jesus clearly didn't have a problem offending people. He was in near-constant conflict with Jewish religious leaders (that he often deliberately offended), so why did Jesus care about not causing offence to those collecting a tax to support the temple and its services? If it's true that Jesus is the Son of God, and the sons of rulers were exempt from taxes, why didn't he exert his right to exempt himself from an offering commanded in the Jewish law in Exodus 30:13? Jesus was demonstrating obedience to the law, but there is more to learn from this.

We continue to follow Jesus on the road to the cross, where we are commanded to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow him, because it is through losing our lives for Jesus that we find them (Matthew 16:24-25). One way we can do this is giving up our rights in order to love others.

• When we are right: We may feel that our perspective about a political or social issue is better than someone else’s, but are we showing love in the way we disagree with them? Have we listened well enough to restate their point of view in a way they would agree with?

• When we have a right: We may have the right to receive a service offered by the NHS, a government agency, or a local charity, but even if we need to be assertive in asking for these services for ourselves or others, are we doing this in a loving way?

• When we’re in the right: If we’re having an argument with our spouse or our friend, we may think we have a better perspective, but what do we gain by continuing to demand they recognize that we’re in the right?

Jesus was right in all he did and yet he gave up his rights by dying on a cross to save us. He shows us that it’s better to be wrong than to be unloving. It’s better to lose our rights than to get what we want through unloving methods. And it’s better to lose an argument than to inflict increasing damage on people we love.