This week's gospel text presents one of the five head-on collisions Jesus had with the religious authorities. The first was in Matthew 21:23, where the chief priests and elders challenged Jesus' authority to teach and heal. There are also confrontations over the rising of the dead (22:23-33), the most important commandment (22:34-40), and the identity of the Messiah (22:41-46). But Matthew 22:15-22 isn't about anything as peripheral as the possibility of resurrection or the coming of the Lord. This confrontation is about something really serious: taxes.

The Pharisees are very premeditated in setting up this meeting with Jesus. Verse 15 suggests that they met together beforehand to anticipate all the courses the conversation with Jesus might take, toward the end of using Jesus' own words to…