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Gospel Commentary for August 11, 2025
Today’s Gospel text has two parts that seem very different and not connected at first.
In the first part, Jesus is walking with His disciples and, once again, tells them what is going to happen to Him soon. The Son of Man — meaning Himself — will be handed over to others and will be killed. The final mention of the resurrection might have been added later. Or, if Jesus truly said it at that time, it’s likely that the disciples didn’t understand what He meant. It was something too new, too unexpected to fit into their minds. That’s why they became very sad. Their future depended on Jesus’ future. And if Jesus was going to die, then maybe they had chosen the wrong leader, the wrong prophet.
The second part of the passage brings up a very different topic: the payment of taxes.
Today, in most countries, every citizen is required to pay taxes — even the king or the president. But it wasn’t like that in Jesus’ time. Back then, Roman citizens didn’t have to pay taxes. Only the people from conquered nations — colonized and controlled by the Romans — had to pay. That’s what Jesus refers to when He says that the kings of the world don’t collect taxes from their own children, only from strangers.
Jesus, who sees Himself as a citizen of the Kingdom and as the Son of God, understands that He should not have to pay. In the Kingdom of God, there are no taxes. Everyone is a son or daughter. In the Kingdom, there are no “strangers.” But Jesus also knows that the Kingdom is not yet fully here. It’s on the way — it’s already present, but not complete. That’s why He decides to pay.
In the end, these two parts are closely connected. Jesus is living — so to speak — in another dimension. He no longer belongs to this world. He is a citizen of the Kingdom of God. That is exactly why people will kill Him — because they do not want to accept this new reality that is the Kingdom.
And that’s why, even though there are no taxes in the Kingdom, for now they still have to be paid. But in the Kingdom, things will be different.
Of course, to reach the Kingdom, Jesus must go through the Passion and the Resurrection. Maybe then the disciples will understand what it means when He says: “He will rise on the third day.”