1|“Unveiling Evil NOT Unquestioned Obedience ”

Romans 13
Grace & Hillsboro Presbyterian Church June 17, 2018

Based on Romans 13.

I’m just going to jump right to it. This week, current U.S. Attorney General Jeff Session
addressed a group of Church Leaders who were critical of the new “Zero Tolerance”
immigration policy Sessions began enforcing back on May 7th. In his statement, Session stated:

“Under the laws of this country, illegal entry is a misdemeanor. Re-entry after having
been deported is a felony. Under the law, we are supposed to prosecute these
crimes. Accordingly, I have ordered our prosecutors to pursue 100 percent of the illegal
entries on the Southwest border that DHS refers to us… If you cross the Southwest
border unlawfully, then the Department of Homeland Security will arrest you and the
Department of Justice will prosecute you. That is what the law calls for—and that is
what we are going to do… However, we are not sending children to jail with their
parents. The law requires that children who cannot be with their parents be placed in
custody of the Department of Health and Human Services within 72 hours.” (U.S.
Department of Justice Website)

In addressing their criticism, specifically about the breaking up of families, Sessions cited
Romans 13:1, saying, “I would cite the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans
13, ‘to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of
order.’” (DOJ Website) Session’s statement was later followed by a press meeting with Press
Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders who stated, “It is very biblical to enforce the law.”

Now I openly admit that the whole situation has me deeply disturbed on two levels – 1)
that families are being separated because they are seen as entering the country illegally, even
though the majority parents are seeking asylum to escape violence in their own countries, and 2)
that a politician would proof-text the Bible as a means of justifying the decision he made to
prosecute immigrants to the fullest extent of the law, causing the breaking up of families. So I
am disturbed as both parent and pastor. I’m upset at the thought of how I would feel if any of my
boys were taken from me when I finally arrived in a land where I believed my family would
finally be safe. I’m am also upset that a person in a position of political power would use the
scripture in such a reckless, unpastoral, and self-righteous way.
I was quite upset as I read about the speech throughout various news outlets on all ends
of the spectrum Thursday night. I even read the entire transcript of Session’s speech from the
Department of Justice’s website – just in case I missed something about the context of the
comments – something Sessions should have done himself before quoting Romans 13. And even
though I already had another sermon completed, I awoke Friday morning, shaking with the
revelation that the Spirit was calling me to speak about. And that if I didn’t, I would violate my
ordination vows, specifically, my vow to: “fulfill my ministry in obedience to Jesus Christ, under
the authority of Scripture, and continually guided by the confessions.”(W-4.0404d)
Now, before anyone gets upset, my intention is NOT to address the immigration issue
because that’s a whole other sermon – although that will upset a whole other group of people.
My pastor colleagues here today know very well that you can’t make everyone in the church
happy, and I don’t intend even to try. Instead, I simply want to address the careless proof-texting
of Romans 13 for political gain – because that’s what the Attorney General’s comments did –
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Romans 13
Grace & Hillsboro Presbyterian Church June 17, 2018

politicize the biblical text. Instead, I seek to de-politicize Romans 13, and approach the text from
a theological and historical point of view. To understand just how this text has been interpreted
throughout the history of the Church, and how its theological understanding has been debated
over time. And so, being the theology and history nerd that I am, I spent nearly ALL DAY
FRIDAY, researching the history, reading into the context, and translating from Greek the
Romans text.
And as I looked into the history of the interpretation of this text – all I found over and
over again were historical accounts of governing authorities and politicians using Romans 13 to
reinforce their total, unquestioned authority and to justify their unjust actions. In just America
alone, Romans 13 has a disturbing history of interpretation.
Throughout the history of slavery in America – from 1501 to 1865 – slave owners
regularly used Romans 13 as a way to reinforce their God-given right to power and authority
over their slaves – thereby oppressing them not only physically and emotionally, but even
spiritually.
During the American Revolution, the Loyalists who supported the King of England, used
Romans 13 against the American Patriots, arguing that their refusal to submit to the King’s laws
and taxes – regardless of whether the Patriots believed they were just or not – was disobedience
to God’s authority and therefore sin. King George ruled by the “divine right of kings” and was
the “head of the Church of England” so what God-given right do these uncivilized colonists have
to question the orders of the King that God appointed over them?
And no other time in U.S. history was Romans 13 more strongly invoked than with the
passing of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850. The act required “all good citizens” to return escaped
slaves back to their owner, even if the slave accomplished the difficult and dangerous trip to
cross the border into the free states of the Northern U.S. Even if the person who discovered a
“fugitive slave” held within their Christian beliefs that slavery was morally and theologically
wrong – because of Romans 13, these Christians were still required, by law and obedience to
God, to return slaves to their taskmasters.
But in those same periods of history, just as many had the opposite interpretation of
Romans 13. During the American Revolution, Patriot Pastors preached from Romans 13 in such
a way that they actually denied “that Paul gave kings the right to be tyrants.” One Anglican
Priest even stated, “Paul never meant…to give sanction to the crimes of wicked and despotic
men.” Other Protestants – especially Presbyterian Patriots – used Calvin’s interpretation of
Romans 13, which argued, “all the powers that be were ordained by God”…that ... “those lower
ranked officials were expected to resist kings ‘when they tyrannize and insult over the humble
people.’” Adding that “only just authorities were to be obeyed.”
The vitriol that broke out among Christians over the Fugitive Slave Act and Romans 13
grew as lawmakers tried to enforce the law. In the slave state of North Carolina, a newspaper
stated, “these Christians in the free states set up their judgments against that of the Almighty,
and blindly strike against all law, order, and right!” Meanwhile, Christian abolitionists, those
opposed to slavery, argued that God’s moral law took precedence over the government leaders
that God ordained, and so they would rather “suffer the penalty” for their civil disobedience than
allow another person to be a victim of the immoral, unjust, and unchristian institution of slavery.
(The Atlantic). But after the period of the Fugitive Slave Act, the public declaration of Romans
13 declined dramatically in America.
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Romans 13
Grace & Hillsboro Presbyterian Church June 17, 2018

But in the 1930s, Germany would establish the Reich National Church – Hitler’s official
state church to reinforce his ideals by uniting Christianity, nationalism, and militarism – and
equate German patriotism with Christian truth. And of course, the Reich Church used Romans 13
to equate total obedience to the Nazi government with total obedience to God. The founding
resolution of the German Reich Church stated: “God has created me a German. Germanism is a
gift from God. God wants me to fight for my Germany. The believer possesses the right of
revolution … [even] in the face of a Church board that does not unreservedly acknowledge the
exaltation of the nation.” Not exaltation of God, exaltation of the nation. (qtd. in Jack Rogers
Presbyterian Creeds).
However, one group of Christian theologians and pastors spoke up against what they saw
as a gross bastardization of the Church and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And so, some of the
greatest theological minds of the 20th century – including Martin Niemoller and Karl Barth –
formed the “Confessing Church” and composed The Theological Declaration of Barmen – a
document that is a part of the Presbyterian Church’s Book of Confessions today. Using the
theology of our Reformed Tradition, the Barmen Declaration argues that the primary sin of the
Reich Church, and of all humanity, is that of idolatry – because an idol is “any humanly created
thing to which people give their ultimate allegiance.” (Small, Presbyterian Creeds) In particular,
they identified four specific forms of idolatry in the Reich Church, 1) the church abandoning its
Gospel message to “prevailing ideological and political convictions,” 2) the church giving itself
to “special leaders vested with ruling powers” 3) the State becoming “the single and totalitarian
order of human life…fulfilling the Church’s vocation as well” and 4) “the Church, in human
arrogance”… placing… “the Word and work of the Lord in the service of any arbitrarily chosen
desires, purposes, and plans.” (“Theological Declaration of Barmen”, Book of Order)
The German theologian Ernst Kasemann, earned his PhD in theology during the time the
Nazis came to power. And he would later write in his Romans commentary that the idea that the
13th chapter reinforces earthly governments as “God appointed” and that “every person be
subject to the governing authorities” is “absurd, as one may see most clearly when it attempts to
combine the theology of the cross with submission to the authorities.” (Kasemann, Romans)
In other words, Kasemann argues that if Romans 13 is about unquestioned
submission to earthly authorities, if not following the law of the land is sinful even when
you believe the law to be morally wrong, if to resist an unjust government is to resist God,
then Jesus did NOT die for your sins, and NONE OF US are saved.
Because Jesus’ death on the cross was the direct result of his questioning, his resistance,
and his protest against unjust actions of BOTH the religious AND the “governing authorities” of
his day. Jesus questioned and opposed the religious authorities who tried to cherry-pick God’s
word in order to turn broken, desperate, and different people into sinners and deviants that they
could reject as outsiders. And Jesus questioned and protested against the governing authorities of
the Roman Empire by assuming the title of “King of the Jews” and “Savior” – titles that were
reserved only for Caesar. And Jesus upset the law and order of Jerusalem that Pilate so ruthlessly
tried to maintain. As Episcopal priest and author Barbara Brown Taylor once wrote, “Jesus was
not killed by atheism and anarchy. He was brought down by law and order allied with religion,
which is always a deadly mix. Beware those who claim to know the mind of God and who are
prepared to use force, if necessary, to make others conform. Beware those who cannot tell God’s
will from their own.” (Barbara Brown Taylor, A Deadly Mix)
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Romans 13
Grace & Hillsboro Presbyterian Church June 17, 2018

And yet there are plenty of other scriptures throughout the bible that reinforce the idea of
submitting oneself to governing authorities. Even statements by Jesus himself. And there are
plenty more where the people of God oppose those in power because of the injustice that those in
government bring upon the people. And as I looked at those texts, I discovered something
disturbing. In each of those scriptures, it appears that God put those unjust powers in place.
In the book of Exodus Moses survives a government ordered mass murder of all male
children, in order to rise up against the governing authority of Pharaoh who holds God’s chosen
people in slavery. Yet it is God who “hardens Pharaoh’s heart” – making it more difficult for
Moses to oppose Pharaoh.
In the book of Daniel – Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refuse to submit to the
authority of the Babylonian king – a king that God put into power over the Israelites during the
Babylonian exile, because of Israel’s idolatry and injustice. And when these three friends refuse
to bow down to the king’s idol, they are thrown into the fire – but saved by God. Later, when the
Persian King Darius comes to power – a king proclaimed as “God’s Messiah” by the prophet
Isaiah – Daniel refuses to worship him. And so advisors to King Darius who are jealous that a
Jew had risen to such prestige, trick the king into signing a decree that causes Daniel to be
thrown to the lions – but he is saved by God.
In 1st Samuel the people of Israel demand that God give them a king to rule over them.
And so God ordains Saul as king over the people, because God says that “they have rejected me
from being king over them.” And so God gives the people the God-ordained king that they want,
because they’ve rejected the king that they need.
When Jesus is questioned about paying taxes to Caesar, he points out the image of Caesar
on the coin and says, “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesars, and give to God the things that
are God’s.” Even Jesus seems to be saying that you must be subject to “pay taxes, for the
authorities are God’s servants.”
And so, what are we to make of these “God-ordained” authorities and the people who rise
up against them? Who is right? Who is wrong? And is it really all that simple? In Exodus, Moses
fights the hard-hearted Pharaoh to bring the people of God to freedom, so that God may unveil
for Israel that this Pharaoh, this governing authority, is simply human and NOT the god Egyptian
culture and religion believes – because only the Lord is God.
In Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are saved so that God may unveil what
happens when the masses trust in the idols of this world over God. And Daniel is saved to unveil
the evils of prejudice that underlies those in power over the people – even in those who say, “But
I’m not racist!”
In 1 Samuel God unveils that humanity can never create the governing authority that
humanity truly needs. God unveils the limitations of human authorities – especially when
exposed to the idols of power and greed – as nearly the entire monarchy of Israel would
demonstrate.
Jesus teaches about paying taxes after telling the parable of the wedding banquet where
he describes the Kingdom of Heaven as being populated not by the “chosen ones” but by those
deemed “unworthy” out in the streets. Jesus unveils those who self-righteously think they are the
only ones beloved of God for the hypocrites they truly are. Jesus unveils the hypocrisy of
religious authorities who have more faith in the idol of Caesar’s money than faith in God, to
which everything already belongs.
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Romans 13
Grace & Hillsboro Presbyterian Church June 17, 2018

And each of these moments of struggle, of protest, of fighting against the oppressive
powers-that-be that are “God-ordained” – each of these moments are examples of God’s
unveiling of evil – which in Greek is called the “apocalypse.” A biblical apocalypse isn’t some
cataclysmic, gloom and doom, end-all, be-all event. The apocalypse is an on-going process by
which God unveils the darkness and evil that underlies humanity – the ways we fail to “love our
neighbor as ourselves” and therefore fail to fulfill the law as Paul tells us in verses 8-10 of
Romans 13. The evil that we allow to fester within human society for so long, that God has to
appoint authorities over us in order to expose it for the evil that it is. To expose the idols we trust
more than we trust in God.
And so Paul tells the Romans at the end of chapter 13, that now is the time, the God-
chosen moment, for us to “wake from sleep” – a biblical metaphor that is better translated – “rise
up to moral action.” Now that this evil – which has been hiding among us and even within us for
so long – now that this evil has been exposed through these governing authorities – it’s time for
us to “lay aside the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light” because “salvation is nearer
to us now than when we became believers.” Jesus is on his way back, and we need to be found
doing the work of building the kin-dom Jesus commissioned us to build. A kin-dom which
opposes those unjust, long-established, unquestioned, governing authorities and leaders that we
created out of our idols of greed, prejudice, power, and privilege. Those unfair, long-standing,
undisputed systems and institutions that we have accepted and submitted to for so long because
of our fear of those who are different, our fear of being seen as different ourselves, and our fear
of upsetting the status quo. And God has ordained those governing authorities who represent this
evil within us so that we may root it out and lift it up to Christ so that ALL may be reconciled to
God.
This is the Good News of the apocalypse. This is what Romans 13 is truly about. This is
why we ARE saved by Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection – because Jesus exposes the deepest
evils of humanity – within each and every one of us – to the light of his saving love. A love that
unveils the idols of greed, prejudice, power, and privilege among us so that it is possible for us to
“love our neighbors as ourselves.”
A love that “does no wrong to a neighbor”
but instead seeks the same for our neighbor
as we would want for ourselves.
A love that is “the fulfilling of the law.”
Thanks be to God for the saving love of Jesus Christ,
and the light of Christ which unveils all things
for what they truly are. AMEN.