Optional Memorial of Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, Religious
In today’s Gospel, we see Christ’s humility on display. When Jesus and his disciples arrive at the temple, they are forced to pay the temple tax – this tax was demanded of every Jewish male who entered the temple to worship. But as Jesus points out to Peter, kings take such a toll from foreigners entering their country, not from subjects who already live there. In other words, Jesus should not have to pay this toll: he is not someone foreign to God entering from the outside, but is instead the Son of the King. The temple is already his; in fact, he is the temple.
How humble of Christ, then, to pay this toll. He could have publicly proclaimed his divinity and demanded that the collectors pay him instead. But Christ has come to us not as a king demanding sacrifice; instead, he has come as a servant, paying the price of our sins, the price of our “foreign-ness” to God. Today, let’s pray for the grace to be humble as Christ was humble, so that we may be servants and not rulers.