Mid-Lent 2
Table
of Duties: Of Civil Government; Of Citizens 2/24/16
Last week will not go down in the
books as one of my all time favorites.
Now thankfully, I did feel better than the previous weekend when I was
sick in bed and had to miss church. But
as you could hear last Wednesday and then on Sunday, I was still trying to get
over whatever I had. I was functioning and felt better, but I didn’t feel
great.
And then on top of this, most of the
free evenings during the week were spent doing one of least enjoyable things
that Amy and I have to do. They were spent getting our tax information
ready. Now nobody like doing taxes. It’s a pain.
You have to make sure that you have all the information assembled that
is needed – and somehow, no matter how careful you are, there always seems to
be a form or a figure that you have to track down. Often this means searching through that filed
paper work, or navigating some website that wants a long forgotten password, or
waiting on the phone forever to talk to someone.
This is not fun. And it’s not just that the job is tedious and
time consuming. I find it to be a little stressful because I don’t want to make
a mistake. After all, you are dealing
with the IRS. And if there is one
government agency that I don’t want to end up on the wrong side of, it is the
Internal Revenue Service. They have
tremendous power and don’t strike me as a particularly understanding
bureaucracy.
Oh, and did I mention that I don’t
like doing taxes because it means I see how much money the federal and state
governments take from me? I don’t want
to see money leave my pocket. And when
you consider some of the ways that the government uses our money – and wastes
it – it makes the whole experience pretty frustrating.
Paying taxes is one of the most
direct ways that we experience the topic of the two items from the Table of
Duties that we consider tonight. We take up “Of Civil Government” and “Of
Citizens.” On the one hand, these topics
are very straightforward. But they also
confront us with challenging questions – questions that the Christian faith
answers in ways that are different from the world.
The Small Catechism’s Table of Duties provides only one verse for the
topic “Of Civil Government.” And to be
honest it is really all that we need. In
Romans 13 Paul says, “Let
every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority
except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore
whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who
resist will incur judgment.” Paul says in
a straightforward manner that governing authorities have been instituted by God
– he is the One who has provided them.
Since God put them there, to resist the governing authorities – the
civil government – is to resist God.
The role of
the government is very simple: it is to restrain wrongdoing and maintain order.
Paul goes on to add: “For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.
Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good,
and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But
if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is
the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.” Paul can even describe the government as “God
servant.”
Civil
government exists because of one reason: sin.
It is the means God has established to restrain and control evil. To
understand how crucial this is, consider what happened in New Orleans after
Hurricane Katrina, or closer to home – in Ferguson, MO when crowds did not feel
constrained by police. The veneer of
civilization is a very thin one indeed.
When given a chance, sinners will do terrible things. That is why God
established governing authorities. As
Peter says in the verse included under “Of Citizens”: “Be subject for the
Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as
supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to
praise those who do good.”
The
government is God’s servant. The irony
is that it plays this role, even when the government itself rejects the idea of
God; even when individuals in the government do so. Remember, Paul wrote these words when the
government was the Roman Empire and the leader was the emperor Nero. And by the same token, since the government
functions in this way, it is easy to understand why it is entirely a God
pleasing thing for Christians to serve in the government, in the police and in
the armed forces. These are important vocations which carry out God’s
work. With good reason Luther included
good government among the blessings listed under “daily bread” – life without
government is a frightening thing; think of Somalia’s recent history.
Nothing is
free, and so government and what it does, costs money. From ancient times, governments have raised
money through taxes. The Roman world was no different and so Paul went on to
say in Romans 13: “Therefore one must be in
subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are
ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to
all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue
is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.” Paul told Christians to obey the authorities
God had placed over them,
and to do so by paying taxes. In saying
this, he was repeating Jesus’ own teaching when he said, “Give to Caesar what
is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
Civil
government is a great blessing from God.
It carries out a challenging job as it restrains sin. And so Paul said in 1 Timothy 2 that
Christians are to pray for their leaders and government as he wrote: “First
of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings
be made for all people, for kings and all who
are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and
dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing
in the sight of God our Savior.” When
you were baptized, you made a part of the royal priesthood of God’s people. And
part of your priestly service is prayer. Certainly we do this together in the
Divine Service each week. But prayer for
our government and leaders needs to be part of our daily life as well.
Overtly, we probably all keep the
Fourth Commandment in this way. I am not
aware that any of you have been arrested or prosecuted for a crime. But it is
not simply the external action that counts before God. The right thing done grudgingly and out of
coercion is not a good work in God’s eyes.
It is sin. And so these verses
confront us all. Yet again, the Law
reveals our sin. It shows the reason
that we have Lent.
During this time in the Church year
we follow our Lord as he makes his way to the cross and Good Friday. He goes there as the sacrifice for our sin. By
his death he was won forgiveness, and by his resurrection he has given us life.
But as we think about civil
government, we see that in his death he has provided something else as
well. Paul probably wrote the words of
Romans 13 during the first five years of Emperor Nero’s rule. They were good years as he was guided by his
teacher, the Stoic philosopher Seneca. However, as an unstable individual, Nero
eventually turned on Seneca and forced him to commit suicide. Nero’s rule soon descended into madness and
injustice. Before it was done he was having Christians burned as torches at
night.
Civil government itself can be
warped by sin into something that does wrong.
It can become something that commands things that are contrary to God’s
will. When this happens, the apostles
were clear as to how Christians respond when they said, “We must obey God
rather than man.”
When this happens, we are called to
suffer. True, we work as citizens in our form of government to bring about
change. But where this does not succeed,
we are willing to suffer for what it true and good. In the same chapter of 1 Peter in which the
verse in the Table of Duties is found, Peter goes on to say to slaves: “But if
when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the
sight of God. For to this you have been
called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that
you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin,
neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was
reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten,
but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.”
Peter says that Jesus’ suffering
provides a model for us by which he teaches us to entrust ourselves to
God. Now this is not a model that we
want. We don’t want to experience injustice.
We don’t want to be wronged and harmed. But Jesus’ model is also the reason that we are able to do this.
The Holy Spirit who created faith in Jesus also enables us to walk in
faith. Christ’s death and resurrection
for us is the reason that we know we
can trust God in the midst of any circumstance. God the Father has revealed his
love and care in the death and resurrection of his Son. And therefore we are
able to trust him in the midst of challenges.
Civil government is a great blessing
from God. It restrains sin and allows us
to live in peace. Our vocation as
citizens is to obey the government, pay our taxes and pray for those who govern
us. Yet when the government acts
unjustly, or when it commands things that violate God’s will, we are called to
follow our Lord in entrusting ourselves to God in the midst of suffering. We do this knowing that, just as for our
Lord, this way leads to life and resurrection for us.
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