15th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Romans 13:1-7
July 5, 2009

Church and State on the Glorious Fifth

I trust you will forgive this last-minute departure from the lectionary. No doubt the Holy Spirit had plenty to say to us in the passages set for this, the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, and, truth be told, I had already prepared a sermon based on the reading from Second Corinthians.

However, as I was driving home from Montreat on Friday, I began to have misgivings about that sermon. I hate to drive on interstates. I much prefer those red roads on the map, the ones that take you past farms and churches and courthouse squares. As you can imagine, on July 3 every town I passed through was festooned with red, white, and blue bunting. The banners were strung across Main Streets advertizing Fourth of July picnics and fireworks displays. Even the roadside fruit stands, with their bushels of peaches and watermelon Matterhorns were decked out in red, white, and blue.

Now, there are a lot of churches between Montreat, North Carolina, and Tallahassee, Florida -- big ones, little ones, white clapboard meeting houses with graveyards attached, red brick bastions surrounded by meticulous landscaping, and, of course, those enormous modern structures made of iron and sheet metal – the ones that look like double-wides on steroids. In front of almost every church was a roadside marquee, and every marquee had a patriotic message.

Usually it was "God Bless America." Next in frequency was "God Bless Our Troops," but the one that left the greatest impression on me read, "Proud to be Christian. Proud to be American."

I imagine that the preachers at those churches will not be following the lectionary this morning. What they might say I will leave to your imagination. After seeing all those roadside marquees, and listening to 400 miles of radio evangelists and talk-show hosts, I decided I’d better preach my own sermon regarding church and state.

I chose Romans 13 as my text. This is Paul’s famous exhortation to new Christians to obey governing authorities because their authority comes from God. "Rulers," Paul writes, "are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad." The Emperor Nero was on the throne when Paul wrote that. It’s hard to imagine that Paul was that naïve. But that’s what he wrote, and at the very least it means that Christians should be very respectful of government.

But I could have chosen other passages that speak with equal authority and provide a rather different perspective.

Remember the prophet Nathan standing before King David, pointing a long, accusing finger at the monarch who had just committed adultery and arranged the murder of a loyal and upright man in an attempt to cover it up? Nathan tells the king a sweet little story about a pet lamb who was taken from its owner by a cruel master and served up at a party for his friends.

"Tell me who this lout is," David cries. "That man, whoever he is, surely deserves to die."

"You are that man," Nathan replies (II Samuel 12:7).

I very much doubt that Paul had forgotten that story when he was writing his letter to the Christians in Rome. And we should not forget Luke’s account of Peter before the authorities in Jerusalem. Peter and the apostles had been ordered not to preach the gospel. They preached it anyway, and when they were arrested and brought before the high priest they said, "We must obey God rather than human authorities." (Acts 5:29).

This passage from Romans is a good example of the tension that has existed from the very beginning between Christians and the state. When that tension is no longer present, you can be sure that the Church is not being faithful to Jesus Christ.

That tension began with the first Christian creed, which was, quite simply. "Jesus is Lord." Today that claim seems innocuous enough – just one among many voices in a cacophonous post modern public square – but in the Roman Empire of the first century saying "Jesus is Lord" could get you in a lot of trouble. That’s because Caesar claimed to be a god worthy of worship, and to declare "Jesus is Lord" is also to declare that Caesar is not Lord.

And that’s the problem – it always has been. In theological terms, the problem is idolatry. Idolatry is putting anyone or anything ahead of God. As Christians, our allegiance – our ultimate allegiance – is to God and God alone.

Toward the end of the 4th century, with the conversion of Emperor Constantine and the imperial edict that officially ended the persecution of Christians, the Church and the State began to get very chummy. Whereas once Christians struggled with whether or not to serve in the army, Caesar declared only Christians could serve in the army. Christians whose predecessors had hidden in catacombs began to enjoy the benefits of the state’s special favor. It wasn’t long before every citizen of the empire was expected – indeed required – to be a baptized Christian, and for all practical purposes, church and state were the same thing.

There was no Nathan left to challenge the Emperor, no Paul to face Felix, no Peter to stand before the high priest, no one to say "We must obey God rather than human authority." Jesus and Caesar had become opposite sides of a two-headed coin.

With the fall of the Roman Empire, the long night of the Middle Ages, and the changes wrought by the Protestant Reformation, the official establishment of church has ended, but in many ways, that old Constantinian coziness still haunts the church of Jesus Christ in this country.

Remember the aftermath of 9/11 when American churches rallied behind the invasion of Iraq with only a few voices raised to question the morality of that war? Remember the bumper stickers that featured a cross superimposed on the American flag? Remember the political speeches that played on fear and invoked God’s wrath against the "evil-doers?"

When Christians forget that Jesus is Lord -- not the nation, not the party, not the national agenda – we fall into the most dangerous kind of idolatry. This form of idolatry not only distorts the gospel. It also harms the nation because it robs the Church of its true calling.

Despite our dwindling numbers and our institutional malaise, we Christians still have a word to say. We still have a voice to raise. The Church can still be Nathan, standing before the throne, holding leaders accountable. We can still be a light set on a lamp stand, leaven in the lump, a voice crying in the wilderness, calling for repentance.

Where would this nation be today if Martin Luther King, Jr. had not called for social justice, echoing the biblical prophets? He stood against the idolatry of racism and exposed it for what it was – a false god. If Dr. King had not given voice to that dream of his, rooted as it was in the scriptures, and if he had not pointed the prophet’s finger at the throne of power, this nation be immeasurably poorer, and yesterday we would not have celebrated Independence Day with an African American in the White House.

Somehow, by God’s help, the Christians of America must remain in the world, but not of it, must remain active in government, but constantly critical of government -- engaged, but not bewitched by Caesar’s power and allure.

In the year 1933, a group of Christians assembled in Berlin for the first convention of what came to be called the "German Christians." These were Christians who embraced Adolph Hitler’s vision of National Socialism, racial purity, and territorial expansion by means of war. They closed their convention by passing a resolution which stated:

A year later, a group of pastors and lay people had their own meeting. It was called the Synod of Barmen, and it produced a Theological Declaration that is now part of our denomination’s Book of Confessions. Those Christians declared that Jesus is Lord of all of life, and there is no area of life that is not subject to his rule. We belong to Jesus Christ, they said, and to no other lords. They were called the "Confessing Church," and a number of them were arrested and died in prisons or concentration camps. But if it had not been for their witness, the church of Jesus Christ in Germany and the Nazi state would have become one and the same.

I’d like you to listen again to that resolution adopted in 1933 by the German Christians. Suppose I were to make a simple substitution. Then it would read:

As I was driving down the red roads of North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, I saw and heard a version of Christianity not unlike that amended declaration.

Brothers and sisters, that’s not Christianity. That’s idolatry. Over against that and every form of idolatry, you and I are called to bear witness to the one triune God revealed Jesus Christ, the Lord of all of life.

At a party celebrating the Glorious Fourth in a home of this congregation, a hymn from the "Old Red Hymnal" of 1955 was read as the blessing before the meal. I thought that was such a good idea that I will do the same to end this sermon.

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[1] Cited by Jack Rogers, Presbyterian Creeds: A Guide to the Book of Confessions (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985) 182

 

 

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