Paying Taxes For Offensive Tofu

Suggested Reading: Matthew 17:24-27

While I was in college, the patriarch of a Vietnamese family that lived two doors down died, and I was invited to a series of memorial meals in the weeks following his death. At the final, most elaborate meal, the matriarch prepared her famous tofu. Now let me say clearly, I despise tofu. I can't stand it. Thinking about eating tofu makes me almost as sick as thinking about eating bananas (another long story). But she had made it especially for this occasion and would have been offended if I hadn't eaten a heaping portion. So I took some, ate it with a smile, and when I started to feel sick I left the table discreetly and came back a few minutes later. I could have simply turned her down. In America, grown adults do normally have the right to not eat foods we don't like. But in order to maintain a fledgling relationship with this lady and her family I chose not to offend them and I ate the food I couldn't stand.

In Matthew 17, the local temple tax collector came to Peter to ask if Jesus intended to pay the temple tax that all Jewish men were required to pay to maintain the temple. Jesus asked Peter a question to remind Peter that, as the Son of God, he should have been exempt from paying such a tax. But then Jesus added, "But, so we won’t offend them, go to the sea, cast in a fishhook, and take the first fish that you catch. When you open its mouth you’ll find a coin. Take it and give it to them for Me and you” (Matthew 17:27, HCSB). Jesus didn't have to pay the temple tax but he chose not to offend these people who wouldn't understand.

Now, Jesus had no problem offending people when he felt it was necessary. Repeatedly, his disciples asked him if he knew he had offended the Pharisees or the Sadducees with a parable or a teaching he had just offered. On several occasions Jesus called those two groups broods of vipers or some other name they would have found offensive because of their exalted positions in the community. But the only reason Jesus would have had for being offensive in this situation would have been insisting on his own right as God not to pay for his own temple. Jesus decided that insisting on his own rights wasn't something that was worth offending others.

If we live Christ-like lives we will have plenty of opportunities to offend people, when it will, in fact, be necessary to offend people. But we should never offend people for the sake of offending them or if there are other ways to accomplish what has to be done. If we follow Jesus' example, we must remember that maintaining our own rights is not a good enough reason to risk damaging our relationship with someone. Our reasons for offending people should always center around what is best for them, never around what is best for us.

Abandoning Your Rights As a Klingon

Suggested Reading: Nehemiah 5:14-19

Worf was one of the most memorable characters from Star Trek: the Next Generation. A Klingon with giant ridges on his skull, Worf was from a race of warriors who prized honor above all else. But Klingons also believed in punishing children for the sins of their fathers. When Worf discovered proof that his father had been falsely branded a traitor, he brought that proof to the Klingon High Council to clear his family name. As a result, the Council offered Worf the son of the man responsible for framing his father and a chance for his family to avenge the wrong done. Worf was given the right to kill the young boy but he refused to punish a boy who had not personally committed a crime against him.  As far as Worf was concerned, he had the right to kill the boy, but killing him would not have been right.

At the end of Nehemiah chapter 5, after Nehemiah had dealt with the nobles and officials who had been exploiting the poor, Nehemiah made an official notation that almost seems like he was tooting his own horn. Nehemiah wrote, "Moreover, from the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, until his thirty-second year-- twelve years-- neither I nor my brothers ate the food allotted to the governor." (Nehemiah 5;14, NIV) Nehemiah went on to say that the previous governors collected a very hefty salary from the people he governed but that he  himself refused to take it, even though it meant feeding 150 officials on a daily basis as well as the occasional visiting dignitaries out of his own pocket. Nehemiah specifically stated that he refused to demand what he was due as governor because it would have hurt the people of the land. Nehemiah could have demanded a salary and reimbursement for all of his expenses because they were his right, but he chose to make the people more important than his rights.

There are many things that we believe are our rights, things that we think people owe us. Sometimes, we have a right to an apology, to an explanation, to compensation. People may owe us credit or thanks. And often, we would be well within our rights to demand those things. But sometimes, demanding our rights simply isn't right. Sometimes, we need to put people and relationships above our rights. That person who hurt you may owe you an apology, but is the apology worth more than the friendship? Jesus set aside his rights as creator of the universe and ruler of eternity in order to save the very people who had taken his gifts of life and freedom and thrown them back in his face.

Jesus refused to cling to the rights he was due as God because we were more important to him. Shouldn't we be willing to forgo some of our rights because people are more important to us?