Museum Curating

Gospel: Matthew 17: 22-27

Jesus appears utterly indifferent to the Temple tax, something of great importance to the religious leaders of his day.  That a tax is levied on all people for the upkeep of one building suggests two things.  The first is that the Temple itself was so massive that it required massive sums of money for its upkeep.  Second, that such sums of money needed to be coerced as voluntary donations and support would not suffice for such a task.  

The argument, no doubt, for such expenditure on one building is that it is the place where God dwells on earth.  That Jesus is indifferent to such an argument is suggestive of the fact that God in fact does not dwell in buildings of stone and jewels.  God's dwelling is in the human heart, in the person of every human being.  Each person is made in God's image, as another Christ, as a temple of the Holy Spirit.  These are the true temples of God in the world.

That institutional religion forgets this fact - that its main job is the curating of buildings and not the care of souls - is suggestive.  If a religion's financial resources are taken up with the care of buildings and not the care of people, then one is not dealing with an authentic religion.  We are instead dealing with a religion that will one day conspire against Jesus all over again, this time in the person of immigrants, migrants, refugees, the poor and marginalized.