Radio Leicester Thought for the Day
© John Denney, 22 March 2000
So. No more secrets. The Chancellor has spoken. The budget has been announced. And depending on our circumstances and whether we smoke or drink or drive, we might be a little better off, or a little worse off.
As they say,
there’s only two things in life that are certain: death and
taxes. Although income tax has only been around for a
couple of centuries, before that there were all sorts of taxes
that people had to pay. There used to be a window tax, that
led to people living in dark and gloomy rooms because they
couldn’t afford to pay up. There was a poll tax in the 14th
Century that led to the peasants’ revolt led by Wat Tyler
and Jack Straw. No, not him! Even the famous
Domesday Book was compiled so that William the Conqueror could
tax the kingdom he had acquired.
One of
England’s great historical figures, John Wyclif, who was
Rector of Lutterworth in the 1380s, preached against the taxes
demanded by the Pope. Every hearth had to pay a penny
– and that’s when a penny would feed a family for a
week and still have something left over. Those
“Peter’s Pence” (as they were called) were sent to
support the corrupt Roman churchmen, who lived in luxury at the
expense of the poor and needy.
Jesus taught us
something about paying our taxes. In His time, the Romans
had conquered Israel and demanded heavy taxes from the
Israelites. There was a spirit of rebellion against paying
the tax, and someone asked Jesus whether it was right to pay.
This was a trick question. If Jesus said, “don’t
pay”, Roman spies would have him arrested for stirring up
rebellion. If Jesus said, “Pay the tax”, then
Jesus would be branded a collaborator with the enemy and
therefore an enemy of God and the Jews. But Jesus was
cleverer than them. He borrowed a coin, and, showing the
head of Caesar on one side of the coin said, “Give to Caesar
what belongs to Caesar”. And then he flipped the coin
over and showed the other side, where there was a picture of an
olive branch, which the Jews knew as a symbol of God’s love
for them. And Jesus said “And give to God what belongs
to God.”
And what Jesus is
telling us is to pay our fair whack. No buying
under-the-counter cigarettes or off-the-back-of-a-lorry booze.
Because that way, we’re stealing from everyone else. And
one of God’s rules for a healthy community is: “Thou
shalt not steal”.