February 4th, 2007 Romans 13:1-7 (Part 3 of 3) "Submission to God, Submission to State"

I think we don't see it as particularly important or relevant, we see other things as more important or relevant than Scripture. We wouldn't admit it, but that's how we order our lives. (How much time spent studying the Word vs. watching TV or football, memorize songs on the radio vs. memorizing Scripture)

We’ve been talking for the last two weeks about this passage here in Romans 13. Two weeks ago, we put this scripture that is so often quoted out of context back into the context it belongs, the context of the letter, Paul’s life, the early church’s life, and Jesus’ life. We looked at Scriptural evidence to show us that what states do is not ALWAYS good, and can be evil, and so Paul was contrasting the way of the world with the way that Christians are called to. Last week, we talked about the fact that when Paul says “For there is not authority except which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God,” that included ALL AUTHORITIES. So when we read that today, we are meant to think: all governments in the world fall under this definition. God is sovereign over them all. God chooses to use civil governments to provide a foundational level of order in the world. They’re imperfect, they’re often more reflective of prejudices, hatred, and fear than they are of justice, and they’re fallen. ALL OF THEM. We looked at Scripture evidence for this as well, and found the scandalous truth that in the history of Israel, God in fact worked most directly through the mortal enemy of Israel, Babylon, to carry out his purposes, even going to the point of calling King Nebuchadnezzar his SERVANT. And the reality that follows that is that when the Israelites ignored the prophets and chose to fight against the Babylonians, they were fighting AGAINST GOD!! And when Jerusalem was taken to the ground and the temple destroyed, and the people led off into chains, they were called to submit to the Babylonian government as an act of faithfulness.

And what we’re going to talk about today is the importance of one word in verse 1: “Submit,” because it’s the word that the entire batch of Scripture here hinges on. The more we invest our lives in understanding, in being deeply rooted in the Bible, the more we’re able as Jesus’ followers to connect the dots between Scripture and figure out what the heck certain verses mean in the bigger picture. That’s part of why Scripture is quoted out of context so much these days without anyone standing up to say, “WHOA WHOA WHOA. Hold up here. WHAT YOU’RE SUGGESTING doesn’t line up with the bigger picture we’re given here in Scripture.” Why do you think people these days allow themselves to be led down paths by leaders who twist Scripture to fit their goals?

So if this word submission indeed is important, what is it important for? What are you suggesting, Nate? Quite simply, what I am suggesting is that the imperative command, “SUBMIT!!!!” is not the same as “OBEY!!!!” The Greek language has good words to speak of obedience, which means completely bending one’s will and actions to the desire of another. Somebody tells you to do something, you do it; no questions asked. You’re obedient. But this is NOT what Paul is calling the people to do! What Paul is calling the people to is SUBMISSION, which means to offer oneself of one's free will [to submit oneself to an ordeal]; to cease to offer resistance.

The direct translation of Romans 1, knowing this, then, would be “Let everyone offer themselves of their own free will to undergo an ordeal….to the governing authorities.”

And that might not sound much different to you than obedience, but if we jump back into the Biblical story we looked at last week where the Israelite people were to submit to, literally bow their necks under the yoke of the enemy Babylonian government that God was working most directly through at the time, this scandalous truth, we might some further wisdom. So turn with me to Daniel 6. (read 1-16)

And for it he was thrown to the lions. Which he did not resist. Keep in mind that there is no explicit commandment that one must pray on one’s knees at an open window three times a day. This was Daniel’s conviction about God’s will, not an explicit command in the Bible.

There are at least three features of Daniel’s disobedience that stand out to me: First, the law he broke did not require an evil act on his part. Second, there was no guarantee that his disobedience would be successful. It might have only resulted in his death with no change in the king’s decree, and third, his act of disobedience to the state is one of the main points of the book, which shouts to the world in verse 26 here that “God is the living God and he endures forever, his kingdom will not be destroyed, his dominion will never end.”

So here we have a clear case where a faithful follower of God submits himself to the Babylonian government, yet where they demand that he act in such a manner that is not consistent with his commitment to God, he refuses to be OBEDIENT to them.

(And this can be shown today most clearly in our obedience to the instruction here where in a situation, we refuse to do what the government demands, but still remain under the sovereignty of the government and accept the penalties that it imposes, and if we look at the stories of the early church, that INCLUDES death)

And what drives this submission is not fear, but a commitment as a follower of Jesus to a higher allegiance. When the governmental power asks of me something that doesn’t run counter to what God asks of me, they can expect my full submission AND obedience. When the governmental power asks of me something that DOES run counter to what God expects from me, they can expect my full DISOBEDIENCE as well as my submission to the penalties that will result from that.

And that may seem pretty straightforward, but living as God’s people in America presents a different animal in some ways than being completely powerless subjects of the Roman Empire, the American government gives us the ability, even though we seem to be more and more powerless, to make change happen if enough of us as the people of God get together.

So the important question, then, is what that should look like. We could take for a decade about this issue, but I intend this time together to be more of a springboard for us to think deeper later about these issues, not a time to exhaustively talk through everything that that means. And even WITH figuring out how our identity as Christians affects our relationship with the state, we need to keep in mind our PRIMARY citizenship and our GUIDING vision is that we are a community of people who have said “Yes” to God, who are committed to being a model society for the world of what God deeply cares about.

And what I’d like to talk about first is when the laws of our society specifically forbid us to act in a certain way, and because we are committed to justice as God’s people, we DISOBEY the law in the hope of change. In other words, some Christians have come to the point in history where they believed laws were so unjust and so evil, and political means of change had been frustrated so long, that peaceful, non-violent, civil disobedience seemed right.

The most pressing, and most recent example of this to think about is the civil rights struggle for blacks and other minorities to have equal status as whites under the law in America.

On December 1, 1955, a simple woman named Rosa Parks refused to obey the Jim Crow laws that required her to give up her seat to a white man. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, led by Martin Luther King, soon followed. The boycott lasted for 382 days, the situation becoming so tense that King's house was bombed during that time. King was arrested during this campaign, which ended with a United States Supreme Court decision outlawing racial segregation on all public transportation.

So already we’ve got two folks arrested, one’s home bombed, and countless others in the boycott beaten and slandered for their actions. In addition, the FBI began wiretapping King’s phones in 1961, using the details caught on tape over six years to try to force King out of his leadership position. But King refused to bow under to this, and chose to believe that organized, nonviolent protest against the system of segregation would lead to extensive media coverage of the struggle for black equality and voting rights. Newspaper and television footage of the daily beatings and indignities suffered by southern blacks, and of segregationist violence and harassment of civil rights workers and marchers, produced a wave of public opinion that made the Civil Rights Movement the single most important issue in American politics in the early 1960s and resulted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965.

But, most importantly for us today, while sitting in prison in Birmingham, AL in 1963, King said, “In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was shown most directly in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire.”

And on April 3, 1968, MLK famously said during his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech:

It really doesn't matter what happens now.... some began to... talk about the threats that were out -- what would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers.... Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place, but I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain! And I've looked over, and I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. And so I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the Glory of the coming of the Lord!”

The next day he was killed, and stands today as a modern Christian martyr.

CO: There is a long history in the Church of the Brethren of men and women refusing to take part in warfare because of their commitment to following Jesus. And while this is not as much of an issue today to claim CO status, it has not always been this way.

In the United States during World War I, conscientious objectors were permitted to serve in noncombatant military roles. About 2000 absolute conscientious objectors refused to cooperate in any way with the military.^[7] These men were imprisoned in military facilities such as Fort Lewis (Washington), Alcatraz Island (California) and Fort Leavenworth (Kansas). The government failed to take into account that some conscientious objectors viewed any cooperation with the military as contributing to the war effort. Their refusal to put on a uniform or cooperate in any way caused difficulties for both the government and the COs. The mistreatment^[8] received by these absolute COs included short rations, solitary confinement and physical abuse so severe as to cause the deaths of two Hutterite draftees.^[9]

In the Russian Civil War in 1918, hundreds of conscientious objectors were called “enemies of the people,” and were placed in concentration camps to break their resistance and encourage enlistment

We can never forget the sacrifice faithful Christians made in Nazi-occupied Europe in the 1940s to harbor Jews and others (this was explicitly against the law) being exterminated by the Nazis in their death and concentration camps.

Abortion

As followers of Jesus, we are called to value all life from conception to death, and this means standing up for the rights of those who cannot stand up for themselves; and our Biblical foundation of knowing God lovingly knits us together in our mother’s womb calls us to deeply care about the issue of abortion. And while it is not against the law, and may not get us imprisoned unless we decide to make a public witness in an area prohibited by law, we can press to get Roe vs. Wade overturned by any variety of ways.

But just like Daniel, who decided to be faithful and live according to God’s way no matter what, even if the government never declares abortion to be illegal, we will address the issue ourselves, as the church; to place a high value both on the lives of the mother and of the child. (this is why the message that has come from the church has been so hypocritical, though)

- Raise hands if remember Roe v. Wade (1973)

- Tell me if this statement is true or false

o Before Roe vs. Wade, no one ever had an abortion in America

- Look up pregnancy help center stats

o When did most help centers emerge? (after abortion was legalized)

o In fact, do this when you go home, type in google.com, put pregnancy help center into the search engine, and tell me sometime this week or next Sunday if you find one that was founded before abortion was legalized.

As I continue to grow and recognize that the gospel is SO MUCH BIGGER than I ever imagined, and deal honestly with the fact that the way of life Jesus calls his followers to is SO MUCH DIFFERENT from the lives of those around them; that all Christians are called to recognize the ideal and vision around which they are formed will result in a lifestyle that is considered HEROIC by the world’s standards, but is a basic expectation for the Christian life.

The problem exists when we value comfort, social status, and other factors above the vision of life and expectations we are given by Jesus.

When the governmental power asks of me something that doesn’t run counter to what God asks of me, they can expect my full obedience AND subordination. When the governmental power asks of me something that DOES run counter to what God expects from me, they can expect my full DISobedience as well as my subordination to the penalties that will result from that.

And we don’t do this without precedent. The reason we are driven to this example of submission is that Jesus Christ himself willingly submitted himself to humiliation for the sake of the kingdom of God (Philippians 2). The willingness to suffer is then not merely a test of our patience; it is itself a participation in the character of God’s victorious patience and love of his creation. We subject ourselves to government because it was in this system that Jesus revealed and achieved God’s ultimate victory.