Romans 4.13–25, Matthew 9.9-13,18-26
The First Sunday after Trinity, 7 June 2026, Eldroth, Clapham
Today the mood music in my head comes from the Beatles, because yesterday – now there’s a Paul McCartney song for starters – yesterday was my birthday, and so the question for me now and for the next twelve months is: ‘Will you still need me, will you still feed me…. now I’m sixty-four?’ And today’s gospel reading suggests a George Harrison song, released almost exactly sixty years ago today: “If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street, If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat, If you get too cold, I’ll tax the heat, If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet. Cause I’m the Taxman. Yeah, I’m the taxman”
Keeping up the Liverpudlian theme, you may remember that back in 1989 Ken Dodd was tried for tax evasion. During the case, held in Liverpool, Dodd’s representative George Carman QC, quipped, “Some accountants are comedians, but comedians are never accountants”. The trial revealed that Doddy had very little money in his bank account, but did have £336,000 in cash stashed in suitcases in his attic. When asked by the judge, “What does a hundred thousand pounds in a suitcase feel like?”, Doddy replied, “The notes are very light, M’Lord.” [1]
While this court case rumbled on I was working in an office block which overlooked Liverpool’s Queen Elizabeth II Law Courts. I worked for the Department of Trade and Industry but the two floors above us housed the Inland Revenue – and the officers who had put together the case against Ken Dodd.
Every day of the trial Doddy left the court building with a large crowd of well-wishers cheering him through the square, while above them, lines of tax officers hung out of open windows booing and jeering him. On the day that Dodd was acquitted of all charges the boos from the tax officers were louder and bitter; but the enormous crowd on the square was jubilant. Beneath the Queen Victoria monument an impromptu street party broke out around the vindicated comedian. As I watched this astonishing scene through our office windows I thought, it shows just how much ordinary people love seeing someone turn the tables on the taxman.
Interestingly, in the gospels, over and over again, we find Jesus turning the tables on the taxman. He famously did it in the Temple, angrily sending the money-changers packing. He did it to the Pharisees by twisting their trick question about paying taxes to the emperor into an irresistible challenge to them to put God before politics or money; he did it in his observation about the widow who out of her poverty, donated all she had, in contrast to the wealthy whose gifts were meagre by comparison. The Widow’s Mite shows how the Temple tax most hurt the people on the lowest incomes, the people who Jesus most openly loved.
Jesus turned the tables on the scribes, those pious types who liked to be noticed in the market-places, and loved having the best seats in the synagogues and places of honour at banquets, who made a show of their lavish Temple sacrifices. Jesus saw how they gained their wealth and status through playing the Temple tax system to their benefit, a game which – they knew full well – kept the poorest people in poverty.
Jesus condemned those who acted devoutly, but whose wealth was derived from the sacrifices they forced the poorest people to make. [2] No wonder they began looking for ways to silence him.
His opposition to the Temple tax system got him crucified in the end. Those who profited from these tax laws set out to destroy the One who in his very body represented the laws of God – the laws of love for God and for neighbour. But they didn’t have the last word. “Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up”, Jesus said to them, speaking of the Temple of his body. [3]
The resurrection of Jesus was his ultimate table-turning act against these taxmen. For the sacrifice he made of himself on the cross condemned to death the old sacrificial system in all its corruption; it brought to life the ways of the God of mercy available to all those who embrace his law of love.
The story of the call of Matthew, a tax-collector, reveals that others caught up in the Temple tax system got damaged too. Tax-collectors were reviled in Jewish society because their daily work involved them in the practice of tax-farming, that is, they paid the Roman State the taxes for a certain area of the country, and then attempted to cover their outlay by collecting money or saleable goods from the people within that area. [4]
Tax collectors made their money by demanding tax payments in excess of what Rome levied and keeping the difference. It was a murky business, just like the buying and reselling of debt is a murky business today. Whilst some tax-collectors would relish the potential lucrative rewards, they all had to sacrifice some sense of self-worth, and live with being detested by their peers because of their perceived greed and collaboration with the Roman occupiers. It’s likely that for many, tax-collecting was a last resort: they’d accepted the shame of it for the sake of their family’s financial survival.
Matthew collected taxes in the village of Capernaum in the province of Galilee. Like all the other tax-collectors he would have been despised, treated with contempt by his neighbours. So imagine how Matthew’s heart must have melted when Jesus turned and said to him, “follow me”.
This was Jesus turning the tables on the tax-collector Matthew – but in a good way. While everyone else mistrusted Matthew, Jesus showed him trust. While everyone else shamed Matthew, Jesus lifted from Matthew the veil of shame which shrouded him and enabled him to hold his head up again, to know himself affirmed and loved. In being merciful towards Matthew Jesus also turned the tables on the culture which sacrificed tax-collectors on the altar of shame for the sake of the Temple.
In the eyes of the self-righteous, tax-collectors and sinners were all contaminated people. People unworthy to enter the Temple to make their sacrifices. This is why the Pharisees criticised Jesus for eating with them. But Jesus turned the tables on the Pharisees by suggesting that it was their attitude that was toxic, saying, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” For I came to call not the upright, but sinners.’ [5]
We can relate to people who can admit their faults and failings. Like Doddy, who in the years following his court case would come onstage and introduce himself as a “failed accountant” [6]
When it comes to turning the tables on the taxman, God knows that we’re all just people trying to get along financially, caught up in the system, making sacrifices sometimes in trying to do the right thing by the state, by our family, and by our charitable donations.
What Matthew joyfully discovered is that above every other consideration in life, we are unconditionally loved by Jesus, and called to join him in the joyful work of practicing mercy towards ourselves and others, putting God’s law of love above every other concern.
Notes
This s a rewrite of my talk Turning the tables on the taxman, preached in Devon, 2012 and Somerset, 2018.
[1] Wikipedia: Ken Dodd: Tax evasion court case.
[2] Mark 12.40.
[3] John 2.17-22.
[4] Wikipedia: Tax collector: Christian Bible; Tax farming.
[5] Matthew 9.10-13.
[6] Wikipedia: Ken Dodd: Tax evasion court case.
