I offered
this meditation on Romans 13:1-7 on July 21, 2019. It is undoubtedly the most personal sermon I
have ever shared. It started when my younger sister reminded me that when we
were children our father would often ask us, “What have you done today for God
and Country?” What he meant was, “What have you done today to make the world a
better place?” In our childhood minds we hyphenated God and Country. The two
words went together like love and marriage and a horse and carriage.
God-N-Country, the words belonged together.

It was much
later that I read Paul’s letter to the Romans, and I discovered what seemed to
be biblical injunction that justified the combining of these words. In the 13th
chapter of this letter, Paul urges Christians, “be subject to the governing
authorities,” because “all authority is from God.” To rebel against the
authorities, the Paul says in this letter, is to rebel against God.
I grew up in
a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant family, and we lived in a white Anglo-Saxon
culture, and we were very comfortable in our own skin. My father was a judge. I
can’t say that I was always obedient, but I was subject to the governing
authorities. The text did not require interpretation.



Other
scholars suggest that Paul was addressing a particular situation. Rather than
interpreting these verses in Chapter 13 as Paul's theory of the state, these
scholars remind us that Emperor Claudius had recently imposed a tax on Jews in
Rome. When they resisted and refused to pay it, he simply sent them into exile
and confiscated all of their property. When Nero became emperor, after his
mother engineered the murder of Claudius and before he arranged for the murder of
his own mother, Nero allowed Jews to re-enter the city. Nero used the presence
of Jews and Christians, religious minorities, as scapegoats. It was useful to
have such groups around every time anything went awry, or he needed to appeal
to his base. Perhaps, these scholars suggest, Paul was simply telling his
readers to go along in order to get along.
There is a
third way to understand this passage. In Romans Chapter 12, Paul encourages his
readers to make their bodies a living sacrifice. He tells them to resist the
authorities. He tells them, “Do not let the world press you into its mold, but
be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” He tells them to have the mind of
Christ. Maybe he is remembering Jesus’ admonition to be “wise as serpents and
as innocent as doves.” Do not underestimate the power of the state to create
internment camps on the southern border, or institute a policy of perpetual
war, or enact legislation that benefits the very rich at the expense of
everyone else. People in positions of authority can and will and do use violent
language to create a social and political landscape of fear. We are witness to
this.

I think,
therefore, that there is common ground to be found in these words of Paul and
Dr. King’s last speech as President of the Southern Leadership Conference. He
told those gathered: “There is no time for romantic illusions and empty
philosophical debates about freedom. This is a time for action.” Rejecting
calls for violence, he said, “I’ve decided to stick to love . . . . And I’m
going to talk about it everywhere I go” (from: “Where Do We Go from Here.”)
In the name
of love Dr. King asked radical questions about our society and the economy. He
asked: Who owns the oil? Who owns the ore? Who owns the water? Why do some people
have so much, and others have so little? And he laid out a plan of action. He
said we need four things: communities that will stick together, leaders who
will not sell out, churches that are militant, and people who are trained in
nonviolence.

Let the
people say, “Amen,” and “So be it.”
David Hansen
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