The City of God at the Time of the Inauguration

Yesterday I was at a conference with Smith and Martha and Emma. Smith had picked up a card that has all of the liturgical colors for the year and I picked one up as well. We noticed, however, that this one had some new days marked for the color red. Besides Pentecost, which is the day we usually think of as red, there were civic holidays. Martin Luther King Day, Labor Day, Memorial Day – these were marked for liturgical observance.

This made me a little uncomfortable. Why are we adding national holidays to our liturgical calendar? Do we really need to observe them in the sanctuary? What does a church owe the country in which it is found?

It’s an old question – as old as the church itself. Way back in the 5th century Augustine, that influential saint of the church, was struggling with the question as he watched troops sack the city of Rome – the capital of the great Roman Empire. It was an unthinkable thing to happen. The greatest city on earth – independent for a thousand years – looted and burned by the Goths.

Augustine was forced to think about the distinction between God’s reign and the reign of the Romans. What he said was that God had worked through Rome, but the city of God was not the same thing as the Roman Empire. The City of God was something more – something behind and beyond the empire. It was wherever God ruled in fullness.

There was an earlier Christian who also looked to Rome with a mixture of emotions. The Apostle Paul, who gave us a good chunk of the New Testament, wrote his most significant letter to the Christians who lived in Rome. They lived in the seat of the empire or in the belly of the beast depending on your perspective.

Paul wrote them at a time when Rome was at the height of its power. From what is now England to Egypt, from what is now Spain to Palestine – Roman roads, Roman troops, Roman trade and Roman government ruled the world. To be a Roman citizen was to have a slate of protections that set you apart. To be a Roman subject was to be reminded continually of who was really in control.

Paul knew both sides of that equation. As a Jew he knew the many compromises the Jewish leaders had made in order to maintain just a puppet state. He also knew the revolutionary tendencies of the Jews in Palestine who were clamoring for a new Israel with a new king not beholden to Rome. Rome was no friend to independence and faithfulness.

Yet Christianity flourished in the empire. Paul was able to move easily from place to place down paved roadways which were kept clear of robbers and bandits. Mail could be delivered. Emissaries could be sent. Roman cities were places of conversation, culture, and religious ferment. Roman law made it possible for Paul to have a hearing in Rome following his arrest. In the end, though, tradition says that Paul was beheaded by the Roman authorities.

So it is that familiarity with the empire that Paul writes with as he tells the Roman Christians, “Let every living person be subject to the governing authorities.” We hear this and we think to ourselves, “Really? Do you really believe this Paul? We know what blind obedience can lead to. We just got out of the twentieth century and in that century we saw people gassed to death in concentration camps because they were ‘subject to the governing authorities.’ We saw people sent to gulags, whole peoples annihilated, whole segments to the population segregated behind walls of Jim Crow laws, massive resistance and apartheid, whole countries starved, all because the governing authorities were obeyed. And the 21st century is not looking a whole lot better!”

There is a school of thought that says that things all went wrong in the relationship between the church and the state when the Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and made his new religion the official religion of the empire in the 4th century. Before that time Christians were often persecuted and blamed for everything that was going wrong. We think about the time and we think about Christians thrown to lions and publically executed. But we also imagine a pure church untainted by connections to power.

Constantine gave us something new – Christendom. Christianity became the unifying point of the empire and when Rome fell, it was Christendom that survived. All the corruption and power plays and wars and compromises that were part of the old empire now became part of the Church. The City of God began to look a whole lot like the cities of the world.

That’s the way the argument goes and there is some truth to it. Christians did get seduced by power and they did begin to lose touch with the gospel of Jesus. But it is too easy to fall into the belief that if the Church would just detach itself from the kingdoms of the world and renounce the idea of Christendom that we could once again discover what it was that the early Church was about.

This passage from Romans shows us, however, that the relationship between the church and the authorities of this world has always been complex, even before Constantine made us “official.” We’ve always been mixed. But Paul reminds the Roman Christians that it is not the powers of this world that have control. When order has come out of chaos, when the some sort of justice and rule of law has emerged, it is always because of the work of God. Behind all human systems of authority is a bigger picture. The big story is not the power of Rome but the power of God.

Of course, Paul, as he is writing, is expecting the end of all the powers of the earth. He has taught his followers what Jesus said – that he would come again soon to bring about a new reign. A few verses after this passage we read today are these words: “You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light” [Romans 13:11-12, NRSV]. Paul’s concern is to help these new Christians to live as people who are ready for Jesus to come. They should not be distracted by arguments with the governing authorities that keep them from being Christians.

So one thing Paul says to the people is: You shouldn’t live in fear of the government if you are doing good. You should always be living right according to the law of God. It’s only when you do wrong that you should be afraid. That’s why the authorities are given the power that they have.

Now we know that the authorities can misuse that authority and they often do. The other scripture passage for today from Luke shows us John the Baptist chastising tax collectors for taking more that they were supposed to take and soldiers for abusing their position and extorting money from the people under their power and protection. John would not have called these folks a brood of vipers if they hadn’t been acting like snakes.

Paul is telling us something more, though. The ruling authorities at least have the capacity to act as God’s helpers. That’s what he calls them. They have the capacity to act as God’s servants. He calls them that, too. These are not good Christian folks he’s talking about here. He’s talking about pagan Roman rulers just as prone to corruption as any Rob Blogojavich we know in our day. Even they can act in ways that reflect God’s will for the world. It’s not that God has given up on the world and is just waiting for a day when a new heaven will replace everything. The new day God promises is one in which there will be a new heaven and a new earth.

Which brings me to Barack Obama and the inauguration coming up this Tuesday. I know that we did not all vote the same in November. I know there are many of us who are unsure about this man from Illinois and from the world and maybe you have a little bit of justified fear about whether he is up to the job. But whatever his politics, this day represents something historic for our country. How many of us thought that we would see a day when we would be electing an African-American as president? We have said the words so many times – “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” – and yet we have to live it out over and over again in moments like this one to know that the promise is for all and that men doesn’t mean just some men and in fact it doesn’t even mean just men.

So our country is living up to its founding words and it is a moment that was brought about, not by force of arms, not by the National Guard, not by a legal decision from the Supreme Court, but by the vote of a free people. That is no small thing. There is a long way yet to go. But on Tuesday we take a big step towards the promise that race does not have to divide us.

In addition to this, we have elected a man who talks about the power of hope. We’ve heard that word before. We are right to be skeptical when politicians use that language. We’ve been burned before. But in these dark days, it is good to be reminded that it is more than just O.K. for us to lead with our hopes instead of our fears. This is what Christians are called to do – to look with open eyes at the future, to know that there is evil in this world and that our leaders, just like us, can fall prey to it, and yet to expect that, for all that, God has plans for us and this world. And God has used broken people before to do amazing things.

God took a murderer named Moses and led a people out of slavery. God took a beauty queen named Esther and saved the people from slaughter. God took a shepherd boy named David, a tender of sycamore trees named Amos, a geriatric mother named Elizabeth and a teenaged mother named Mary, a tax collector named Zaccheus and a bully named Paul and used them to do mighty things. Who’s to say that God won’t do it again? Who’s to say that God can’t do a new thing, even with the United States of America?

So I call you to pray with me today for this country. I have to admit that I have been guilty at times of thinking that we had no stake in this land. As a Christian I know where my allegiance lies and when the interests of a flag stand between me and God I know whom I am called the serve. It’s not George Bush or Barack Obama. It’s the God of Jesus Christ.

But…but what is good about this land is something God blesses. The empire may have ruined us when it coopted Christianity, but empires don’t last – the Word of God remains. The grass fades, the flower withers but what shall stand forever? The Word of God. And as long as we draw breath in this land we are called to let that word shine forth with hope and light through every institution and in every way possible.

We have a responsibility for this land because when this country aspires to be its best, it is looking to values that are gospel values – the sacred worth of every human person, the freedom God calls us to, the common purpose that binds us together in community, the advancement of liberty and well-being from sea to shining sea. So yes, we should pray from this land and pray for its leaders and pray for its promise, because even though God can work through every land, God can work through this land.

Jeremiah the prophet spoke to the people of Judah just before they were taken off into exile in a foreign land. Jerusalem was going to fall. The people were going to live under other powers. But Jeremiah did not tell them to condemn the authorities they were under. Instead he said, “Pray for the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf; for in its welfare you will find your welfare” [Jer. 29:7, NRSV].

I don’t like adding new days to our liturgical calendar, but I do think this day in the life of our country needs noting. The kingdom Christians live in is not the same as the nation they live in. The city of God is not the city of Washington. The Messiah we proclaim is not the president. But we pray that this nation can be the best it can be and that it finds its true measure when it seeks the God who gives us life. Thanks be to God and may God bless America.

Romans 13:1-8
Let every living person be subject to the governing authorities. Authority exists under the reign of God and the authorities existing are instituted by God. So the one resisting authority has set self against the direction of God, and those resisting shall bring condemnation on themselves. Rulers, you see, are not a terror to the good deed but to the bad. Do you want to live without fear of the one in authority? Do the good and you will have authority’s praise because the authority is God’s helper on your behalf for the good. But if you do the bad, be afraid; for authority does not carry the sword to no purpose; the helper of God is wrath’s avenger to the one practicing the bad. So you must to be subjected, not just for wrath, but for conscience’s sake. This is the also the reason you pay taxes; because God’s servant’s are devoting themselves to this thing. Give to all their due: taxes to the one due taxes, customs duties to the one due custom duties, respect to the one due respect, and honor to the one due honor. Owe no one anything except love for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.