Death and Taxes

In 1789, Benjamin Franklin wrote to his friend, Jean-Baptiste Le Roy, a French inventor, “Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Nearly 70 years earlier, Christopher Bullock wrote, “You lye, you are not sure; for I say, Woman, ‘tis impossible to be sure of anything but Death and Taxes” (in The Cobbler of Preston).

Everyone dreads taxes. Ancient people were no exception, especially when those collecting taxes were crocked and unjust. The tax collectors in Judea had something else going against them: in the people’s minds, they were lawbreakers. Moses’s Ten Commandments instructed them not to have any graven images before them. Roman coins (denarii) had the image of Caesar, whereas the Hebrew coins (shekels) didn’t.

When the Hebrews paid their taxes to Rome, they brought shekels to the tax collectors, who converted them to Roman denarii and paid their taxes. They were like the modern-day money changers in the airports. They were considered idolaters since they touched coins with images of emperors and icons.

Many of those tax collectors were crooked and unjust as well. They charged exorbitant fees for such exchange. For example, if 10 shekels were equivalent to 5 denarii, they would charge 15 or 20 shekels for 5 denarii. Zacchaeus admitted that he might have cheated some people four times (instead of charging 10 shekels for 5 denarii, he would have charged 40 shekels for 5 denarii). Whereas the religious leaders considered tax collectors idolaters, the common people considered them cheaters, swindlers, and thieves who robbed them of all they had!

In his mission to gather his ambassadors, Jesus decided to include a tax collector along with fishermen and people of other professions. His name was Levi. Jesus saw him in a tax booth, asked him to follow him, and Levi followed him, leaving everything (Luke 5:27–28). He was overjoyed that Jesus, a saint, invited him to be his disciple, that he threw a party. His friends were fellow tax collectors. He invited them (perhaps wanting them to see Jesus and change their ways) along with Jesus and his disciples (5:29).

The Pharisees and scribes saw Jesus eating with tax collectors and said to the disciples,

“Why do you all eat with the tax collectors?” (5:30)

Jesus answered them (instead of his disciples) and said,

“The healthy ones do not need a physician, but the sickly do.” (5:31)

This was a common-sense argument. None among those Pharisees or scribes would have visited a physician when they were healthy. Instead, when they became ill, they would have sought a physician. Similarly,

Jesus didn’t come to call the righteous but the non-reverential people to repentance. (5:32)

Jesus was with the tax collectors to call them to repentance. They needed repentance or return to God more than the Pharisees. That was why he celebrated, dined, partied, and mingled with them to bring them to repentance.

The Pharisees and scribes, the teachers of Moses’s law, should have been doing this all along. They should have mingled with those sinners to bring them to YHWH. But they failed; Jesus didn’t.

Like the Pharisees and scribes, we often isolate ourselves from sinners. We must intermingle with them to bring them to YHWH, not to participate in their sins.