Shortly after we had returned to Capharnaum, there was a knock on Peter's door. Tax collectors had come to collect taxes. In particular, they were concerned with Peter and the payment of his taxes. None of us were immune to their scrutiny. Amazingly, Matthew had chosen this moment not to be with us. Had he been, perhaps these emissaries of Rome would not have bothered us. Where was Matthew? This was his city, his world. Could he have known these men would come? Then they inquired of Peter, "Has your teacher paid his taxes?"

Peter replied "I wouldn't really know."

"Fetch him," ordered his visitors. Peter closed the door, leaving the tax collectors outside.

When he came back into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. "What do you think, Simon?" he asked. "From whom do the authorities collect taxes--from their own sons and family, or from others?"

Peter laughed scornfully, "From others," he answered.

"Then their sons are exempt," said Jesus with some disquietude. He thought for a moment before saying anything further. Under the Romans, paying taxes was a hard reality. You either paid or were incarcerated--or worse. The Jews they conscripted to collect taxes were the result of a particularly insidious practice. The Romans knew that collecting revenue from the Jewish population could be best effected by the Jews themselves, exploiting their quaint societal structure of rabbis, synagogues, legalists, etc. Those they "suborned," were not exactly unwilling victims, either. In order to provide incentive, the Romans did not concern themselves with collectors who added a percentage on top of the actual tax owed and kept it for themselves. As long as the government received what it required, they considered it an acceptable incentive that their collectors made themselves obscenely rich.

"Walk down to the lake, Simon, and throw out a fishing line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and inside you will find a gold coin. Take it and give it to the collectors for my tax and yours."

Peter stared at Jesus in some bemused amazement. "Jesus," he said quietly, "this is no time for jokes. The greedy pigs are standing at the door."

Jesus looked at Peter with a tolerant but annoyed expression, "I know that Simon. Please, go and do as I have said."

Peter backed out of the room and left through the front entrance. "Wait here," he said to the collectors. "I will return in a moment."

"If you keep us waiting, your taxes will increase. We do not spend our time doing this for nothing."

Peter smiled, "Yes. How well I know. Don't go away, I'll be right back." With that, he strode toward the dock, several hundred feet from his house. Like any good fisherman, Peter kept a container of bait in his boat. He was a commercial fisherman, but on occasion, he enjoyed wetting a hook on a line as much as anyone else. He searched for the worms, extracted a long night crawler from the container and then paused. This is silly, he thought for a moment. If Jesus wants me to make an ass of myself, I may as well be a total ass. He dropped the squirming creature back into the container. He whistled his line and empty hook over his head out into the water. No sooner had the bare hook submerged than there was a strong tug on the line. He was excited now. Added to the thrill of a fish striking his baitless line was the thrill of knowing that this is really happening! He almost couldn't wait until the finny creature lay flopping on the dock.

The fish was about eighteen inches long. When Peter grasped the thrashing, slippery creature, Abishag, who had followed him down to the water, yapped and danced happily. He took the fish carefully in his hand and pried its mouth open with his fingers. In its gullet there lodged a bright, polished gold coin. Wondering for a moment how it got there, or how Jesus knew about it, the amazed fisherman extracted it, tossed the fish back into the water, and walked quickly to the men waiting at his door. When he handed them the coin, their eyes widened.

"This should take care of it," Peter laughed. "Got it out of a fish's mouth!"

It was more than enough for Peter and Jesus. It was enough for all of us and then some. The tax collectors were stunned. However, despite Peter's unlikely tale, they were careful not to reveal that the amount of the payment was excessive.

As soon as they recovered from the initial shock, one of them cleared his throat and said "Well, ah, yes, this should be sufficient, I suppose." They quickly stuffed the coin away, nodded their heads in stiff acceptance and left.

Moments later Matthew appeared at the front door. "Did I miss something?" he said with a grin. He crooked his neck to take another glance at the men as they quickly walked away.

What all of this taught us about our responsibility to our government I am not certain. There is one thing, however, that was quite clear. Jesus had access to financial stores the like of which the rest of us could only imagine. People gave of their generosity to support our ministry, yet the needs of the ministry were already certified. It seems as though any time Jesus needed funds he could make a withdrawal from . . . well, the oddest places.

How do I find the words to speak of God? Yet each day I was with Jesus, it is self-evident that I was with God. How many fish are there in the waters of Galilee? Thousands? Millions? What were the chances of that one fish swallowing Peter's line? It is not so hard, perhaps, to conceive of how a shiny, gold coin came to be in its mouth. If the fish had seen it fall into the water or watched the sunlight dance on its turning, twisting sides as it made its way towards the bottom, that would certainly have provided a sufficient lure. But how could Jesus have known . . . of that particular fish in all the Sea of Galilee . . . that it would swim near where Peter dropped his denuded hook or that it would seek out the hook? It staggers the mind.

Further, it seemed a rather blase' way to approach the payment of one's taxes. Does this reflect a bias in Jesus' thinking of the whole concept of a government's collection of revenue? Is it possible that by this act he was scorning the government's right to take a person's livelihood? I know not. But that we walked with someone special, there could be no doubt.