(Romans 13: 1)Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. 4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience. 6 This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. 7 Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. 8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.
On the first Sunday of January, 1945, during World War 2, the guns in the vicinity of Strasbourg, France, went silent for an hour or two. There had been fierce fighting there as the German Army was trying to retake Strasbourg. But on that Sunday, a brief truce was called in one sector of the front, where stood a small Catholic chapel, so that German and American soldiers could attend Mass. Back then, much of the Mass was still held in Latin. So Catholic soldiers of both armies could follow and share much of the service. As the chapel bells rang, in came German soldiers from a door on the eastern side of the sanctuary, stacking their weapons in a corner near where they sat together. Through a different door on the western side of the sanctuary came American GI’s, who also stacked their weapons by the door, and sat on their side of the chapel.
During the service, soldiers of both armies recited together, in Latin the Lord’s Prayer, and phrases like, “Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us,” and, as they prepared for communion, “Lord, we are not worthy to receive you; only say the word and we shall be healed.” Just before sharing the common bread of communion, the priest would say, “Grant each other a sign of peace.” And so soldiers of both armies reached across the aisle separating them, or even mingled with each other, to say to each other in Latin, “Peace be with you.” After the service was done and the blessing given, the priest would have said, “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” If there was a special liturgy that day, he may even had added the phrase, “and your neighbor as yourself.”
And so those soldiers of both armies proclaimed together the nonviolent victory of the Lamb of God and the Prince of Peace over all the powers of earth and hell that would divide, dominate and destroy us. But they don’t seem to have understood that, because, once the priest said, “Go, the Mass is ended,” they put back on their helmets, picked up their weapons, left the chapel through the same doors by which they had entered, and retook their firing positions. Then they resumed the deadly serious business of killing each other.
And if you wonder, Why? or How? Or Don’t you see any disconnect between sharing the body and blood of Christ in communion, and wishing each other peace, and then killing each other? Soldiers of both armies would likely have said, “Yes, Jesus told us to love one another, to love even our enemies, but he also said, ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.’ The Bible also says “Be subject to the governing authorities, for they are instituted by God,” right there in Romans 13. And our governing authorities tell us to kill each other. Each government being instituted by God, we have to obey their will as God’s will,” they might add. “So, in the personal realm I can love my personal enemies; but when it comes to Christian citizenship, I have to kill, because those are Caesar’s orders. And Caesar’s orders are God’s orders, because God instituted and ordained each of the world’s governments.” The German soldiers especially would have heard almost nothing but that in those churches that had caved in to the control of the Nazi Party. You have to wonder how much that had to do with the fact that German churches had long received money and other benefits from the state.
Now, if Daniel, from the Book of Daniel in our Bible, had heard that particular argument, his jaw would have dropped, and he would have asked, “So, when I disobeyed the royal decree to pray to no one but King Darius, did I sin against God? Did I get thrown into the den of lions for nothing?” And if his fellow Jews in Babylonian Exile, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, had heard that particular explanation of Romans 13, they would have been flabbergasted: “If there’s never any daylight between God’s will and that of the king, then did we sin by not bowing down and worshiping King Nebuchadnezzar’s golden statue of himself? Did we face the fiery furnace for nothing? Submit to the rule of law, we did, even when we disobeyed a particular law, when that law of mortals clashed with the commandments of God, when we accepted peacefully and respectfully the consequences of disobeying it.”
I mention Daniel and other Jews in Babylonian Exile, because that’s who we are, according to Paul’s letter to the Romans, including Romans 13: through faith in Jesus Christ we Gentiles are now adopted as children of Abraham, and are joint heirs with Jesus of all the blessings and promises to Abraham. But with the Jewish children of Abraham, that also makes us strangers and exiles among the world’s idolatrous empires, in Paul’s case, the Roman Empire. The reason Paul wrote these words was not, as some people say, so that if Caesar should get a copy of this Letter to the Romans, he’ll like the Christians better. If anything, the Caesar at the time would be come away from reading that letter all the more concerned. Yes, Paul says, “Give honor where honor is due, pay taxes and revenue and respect the authority of government leaders and servants.” But that’s not all that the Caesars usually wanted. Increasingly, they wanted everybody’s blind obedience, even everyone’s worship, and their prayers and sacrifices, to them, not just for them. Coins of the time, and other monuments, named the Caesars as “Son of the Gods.” The Romans claimed to be tolerant of every and any religion, but only as long as that religion included and permitted prayers and sacrifices to the emperor. That’s what got Jews and Christians into a lot of trouble: they would pray regularly for the emperor, but never to him.
Chapter 13 of Paul’s letter to the Christians in the heart of the Roman Empire is like another letter, the letter which the Prophet Jeremiah wrote 600 years earlier to the Jewish exiles in Babylon. “How can we sing the Lord’s song in an alien land,” those captives lamented in Psalm 137. Should we rise up in armed rebellion? Engage in terrorism, guerilla warfare, and sabotage the system? Some self-appointed prophets were advocating just that. But this is what Jeremiah wrote to the captives: 5 “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. 7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” 8 Yes, this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. 9 They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them,” declares the Lord.”
Notice that Jeremiah does not say, “Seek your own prosperity in that city.” This is no health/wealth and prosperity gospel. He’s saying “Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have called you.” Seek your neighbor’s peace and prosperity, as well as your own, whether he’s Hebrew or not. Like what we do with Bridging Cultures, English as a Second Language classes, Jubilee Food Pantry, the upcoming Mennonite Central Committee Relief Sale. And, of course, as we worship God and share the gospel. That way, we can be a force for good, a city on a hill, the light of the world. Thus we will be a witnesses to God, even amid the idols and shrines and temples of imperialism and immorality. If there is to be any hostility and aggression, let it not come from us; let it come from those who oppose the wisdom and virtues of God and our faith. If ever it should come to that, then we must understand and apply Romans 13 in light of how Romans 12 ends, in the verse that immediately precedes Romans 13: 1-8: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
Like Daniel did, as an administrator and an advisor to the Babylonian and Persian monarchy, even while his enemies targeted him for his God and his integrity. And that’s the role to which Paul is calling us in Romans 13, to be lights to the world, like Daniel was, by working for the peace and prosperity of all, believer or not. That includes supporting the basic public services that make life together possible, even desirable. So Paul says, “If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue.” That also includes honoring all people greatly, but also equally, without favoritism, whether kings or commoners, presidents or peasants, without distinction. In sum, Paul says, “Give to everyone what you owe them: if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.”
For the governments, Paul says, are powers and structures which have been instituted by God. Now if we were to take that to mean that God has personally hand-picked every person in any office, that’s above our pay grade. That’s saying more than we can yet know about God’s sovereign, saving activity in the world. If God has personally chosen any or every political leader, that might be as much for judgment, as for blessing. And if Paul were saying that everything a human government demanded of us is automatically God’s will too, then Paul could not have written these words. Paul was in jail when he wrote these words precisely because he was disobeying the orders of government magistrates against preaching the gospel. So we can’t take these words to mean that, if God instituted human government, then everything a human government wants and does is God’s will. We are simply told that God has permitted and ordained their existence, at the very least, to control evil and foster the good. We also know, from elsewhere in the Bible, from human history and today’s headlines, that governments and other human organizations, including, yes, churches too, can and do overstep their God-given purposes and boundaries, do evil, and resist and rebel against God and against God’s laws, limits and purposes for them. But never can they thwart God’s purposes. God can work his will even through their evil and rebellion as much as he can through their justice and virtue.
And to use this passage to justify war, the way the Nazis did, is a stretch light years beyond what Paul means to say. When he says that government agents “do not bear the sword for no reason,” the sword Paul refers to is the long dagger that some civil servants carried, like police officers and toll collectors. It was as much ceremonial, like a badge, as it was functional, like a baton. I think it’s telling that Paul does not refer in this passage to the double-edged broadsword of the regular soldier, nor the javelin, the arrow and the chariot of imperial wars of conquest and expansion. It’s the difference between the police officer’s service revolver, or hand cuffs, and the B-1 Bomber, nuclear missiles, attack submarines and battle cruisers. The one symbolizes duly-constituted and regulated authority, and is supposed to serve the purpose of peacekeeping within a government’s rightful sphere of responsibility; the other is the imposition of power, terror and domination beyond a government’s proper sphere of responsibility. So we cannot apply Romans 13 to questions of war and international relations. These words are about the internal police function of a government that should understand its God-given limits and responsibilities, and act within them.
So, if I had been the preacher in that chapel in Strasbourg, in January, 1945, with a congregation of German and American soldiers, I might have preached from Romans 13. I would have said that Romans 13 applies to the duly-appointed civil servants of Strasbourg, not to you soldiers from anywhere else. It tells us to respect the persons and the authority of local civil servants, within certain God-ordained limits of justice for all and the restraint of evil. That respect does not include attacking and destroying this city, nor killing each other in its streets and buildings.
But in the spirit and letter of Romans 13 you can at least do this: leave those weapons in those corners for your superior officers to collect and take back. They are, after all, the property of your governments. If those leaders want to be biblical, they should melt them down into plowshares and pruning hooks. Then go home to seek the peace and prosperity of that place to which God has called you. That will require courage, discipline and comradeship enough. Then, should you come back to Strasbourg someday, come here to worship together, embrace each other, and say to each other, “Peace be with you,” in every sense of the word, and mean it. For we owe no one anything contrary to the will and the Word of God. We owe God all worship, allegiance and obedience, not the Fuhrer, nor to Uncle Sam. To everyone and each other we owe love, the love with which God first loved us. Such love will more than fulfill the just laws of any government.