Will Willimon on the Temple Tax

From William Willimon, Why Jesus?, on the Temple Tax in Matthew 17:24-27:

Once, when Peter asked Jesus for a coin to pay the requisite temple tax, Jesus rather flippantly told the big fisherman to go catch a fish and pull the tax money out of the fish’s mouth. There is no record that Peter actually and went and did so, which makes me wonder if Jesus was serious. Perhaps Jesus was saying that we owe the governing authorities not much more than can be expectorated out of the mouth of a fish. I take this story as yet another indication of the shockingly nonchalant way that Jesus dealt with affairs of the state.

What say you? An event or a mockery of Rome?

²⁴ After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma temple tax came to Peter and asked, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?”²⁵ “Yes, he does,” he replied.

When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. “What do you think, Simon?” he asked. “From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes—from their own children or from others?”

²⁶ “From others,” Peter answered.

“Then the children are exempt,” Jesus said to him. ²⁷ “But so that we may not cause offense, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.”