III.
Vows of Nonviolent Witness
“We
pledge to act in allegiance to God alone, and to resist injustice with
goodness”
- I will be subject to civil authorities, unless they command actions which are unjust or protect injustice, or if they violate common human dignity.
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| Paul Speaking Before Agrippa |
Today's vow may feel a bit distant to you, rarely applicable. Most of you reading this are usually "subject to civil authorities," that is, in compliance with most laws and regulations. You are not usually in situations were you are knowingly disobeying laws (except maybe speeding)! But this is still a slippery vow for me to reflect on. As a Mennonite, I
come from a Christian religious tradition historically wary of too-close Christian
relationships to or involvement in the civil governing authorities.
A Citizen of ... ?
As a citizens of God’s kingdom (but residing in the United
States of America, also with citizenship privileges there) how do we faithfully relate to civil
systems and laws and individual political leaders? Especially ones who demand
the right of our country to assassinate other humans in other countries, that
propagate poverty among already-disadvantaged economic classes, that create
giant profit out of incarcerating (but not rehabilitating) a massive prison
population, that call for enforced racial profiling against our darker-skinned
migrant brothers and sisters? We are, after all, commissioned by God in Jesus to self-emptying,
nonviolent service to the least-of-these. That is not the typical way of our country-of-residence.
“Be subject to governing authorities.” Really, Paul?
“Accept the authority of every human institution, whether of the emperor as
supreme, or of governors.” That’s not what I wanted to hear, Peter!
On days when all I see of “the State” is injustice and
violence against fellow humans, I loathe Paul and Peter for contributing to a
US American Christian culture of subservient civil religion. But, dear Lord,
let me not miss the value in the exhortations to “be subject, to accept the
authority” (not “blindly obey,” nor “approve of,” and most definitely not “worship”
and "pledge allegiance to," mind you!) In reality, the first part of
this vow today is something we do every day when we drive the correct way down
the street, pay the bill on our groceries without theft, avoid gender
discrimination as we peruse a new set of job applicants, or ensuring our church
or non-profit finances are in compliance with our taxation exemptions.
As a contemporary Anabaptist Christian oriented toward
God’s larger justice, I often forget that a significant portion of the laws and
actions by civil authorities in my country of residence are worth being subject
to—and also worth disobeying when
they foist injustice and violence or demand we grant Lordship to something or
someone other than Jesus Christ. That gets us partway to today’s vow: “I
will be subject to civil authorities, unless they command actions which are
unjust or protect injustice, or if they violate common human dignity.”
Back to Paul and Peter’s call to “subjection.” First, let us not mistake their words for
universal sanction of all civic authority nor as a theological theory of the
providential purposes of secular government and legal order, nor as a model for
proper spheres of “church and state.” Rather, these apostles are concerned that
the church maintains its proper focus: “Owe no one [including
Ceasar and his laws] anything except to love
one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” “Honor everyone” and, “Do not be overcome by
evil, but overcome evil with good!”
(Romans 12 & 13; in the reflection section below).
Be Subject ≠ Obey
Second, let me
clarify that “being subject to” the state is not the same as “obeying” the state. Rather, we let our guiding
Christian principles define all that we do and when the Empire disagrees, we
accept the consequences that result. Being subject to the governments of this
world includes accepting the punishment of the state for rightly disobeying.
To set the context: Peter is writing to a Christian
church under dire persecution by the authorities—not some legally protected,
socially acceptable 501.c.3 church group. For his readers these words on
respecting civil authority are not a simply our relatively safe questions of, “Do I withhold a symbolic
portion of my taxes as a protest against the shameful federal war budget?” nor
“Should I risk arrest at the next local #Occupy protest?” These readers had no constitutional or legal guarantees of humane
treatment. They could and did face torture and death by the authorities regardless of whether or not they “payed
to Ceasar what was Ceasar’s” or “paid taxes, revenue, respect and honor that
was due” (Romans 13). No, Peter is telling that church (and us) something else
entirely. God’s “messianic revolutionary
power does not perpetuate, oppose or
destroy what exists…Rather, messianic revolutionary power seeks only the good of what exists and does so by doing good as revealed and defined by
its Lord, that is, by subordinating itself, giving itself, in the bodies of its
members, even to suffering and death, for
the sake of what exists. That is witness to Jesus Christ.”
Peter and Paul call us to a kind of subjection to the civil authorities that is more than
doormat-obedience and a kind of revolution
against their injustice that is very
different from the violence and rage of most revolutions. As people of the
church, we are called to messiah-shaped, cruciform and resurrected “engagement
in history, against history, for the sake of history.” May it be so in us today!
Prayer Focus
Governing God, you alone give us
freedom,
yet your apostles called us to do good to
authorities
who can neither give nor take away our
self-emptying freedom.
Give us the wisdom to sub-ordinate ourselves
faithfully
to human rulers and laws,
showing honor and respect when it is due,
offering prophetic critique when violence
& injustice comes,
but always "seeking their
well-being."
Victorious Jesus, thank you for your Spirit
enabling us
to love one another, overcoming evil with
good! Amen!
For Reflection and
Action:
A. New Testament Options
1) Read 1 Peter 2:13-17. Consider especially: “Live as free people [which comes entirely from God, not the
governing authorities!], but don’t use that freedom as a pretext for evil.
By doing right, silence the ignorance of the foolish.”
o What
freedoms do you have that ostensibly come from the government? What are the
freedoms you have that cannot ultimately
be granted nor taken away by the civil authorities and laws?
o What
American freedoms are you engaging that have become a “pretext for evil”?
o In
what ways are you using your freedoms (both the ones through Jesus and through
human laws) for “doing right?”
2) Read Romans 12:17-13:10.
o Reflect
on the difference between “be subject to” (subordination: ordering yourself
under) rather than “obey” (subservience: abject submissiveness).
o Today,
what are ways you can “order yourself under” those in authority over you
(showing hospitality to the “enemy” and thus “heaping burning coals on their
head”)?
B. Old Testament
Option
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The
Prophet Jeremiah
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3) Peter
& Paul were not the first of God’s people to blend respectful subordination
with critique of the authorities. Even before Jesus, the Hebrew prophets were
known for their confrontations of countries, cultures and leaders. Compare the
“being subject to the authorities” in 1 Peter and Romans with the prophet’s
critique against the authorities in Jeremiah 39:1-6.
In the face of the oppression, bloodshed and idolatry by the ruling
powers of the nation of Israel—the kings, officials and priests— Jeremiah
stands up to protest with God’s words. No longer does he consider himself
subject to the civic-religious authorities because God has called him to “stand
up and tell them everything that I have commanded you. Do not break down before
them.”
(Jer. 1:17)
o What
ways do you need to “stand up” to tell the authorities of the justice God
desires?
o In
the midst of your critique, how will you and Salem “seek the welfare of your
city?” (Jeremiah 29:4-7)
