ON GOVERNMENT
Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the
Lord’s sake; whether it be to the king, as supreme; or unto governors, as unto
them that are sent by him, for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise
of them that do well. 1 Peter 2:13.
Sometimes my Christian
journey seems to me to follow a terribly tortuous course and the goal of
sanctification is but a phantom observed in glimpses through the thick curtain
of a persistent fog.
Along that tortuous course,
there is probably no error which has caused Bishop Carl to smack me,
metaphorically speaking, as often as my expressed lack of respect for those
elected to high political office.
Perhaps I simply find the breed hard to like, and for sure I find others
among God’s creatures, such as bunny rabbits, generally much more likeable.
However, no matter how much
I may think the policies of Mr. Dalton McGuinty, for example, resemble a poorly
constructed hamburger, slapped together without thought or care, I really
should not refer to the man as Dillweed McWonky. Such expressions of contempt are unbecoming
of any Christian and if any of you hear me going in that direction, please feel
free to remind me of the sermon I preached on Canada Day, 2007, and haul me
back onto the right path.
Render unto Caesar the
things that are Caesar’s. Our Lord’s words are perhaps most often used
to give us reason to pay our taxes without demurring. Certainly, in the context in which Jesus
speaks, after being asked, Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not?, certainly
he was including the payment of taxes in His response.
But Jesus teaches absolute
lessons much more than He teaches lessons which are strictly contextual, and in
this case He is teaching about nothing less than maintaining the order which
God instituted in society for our benefit.
He commands us in His words to respect the office of Caesar and by
extension the office held by Steven Harper, Dalton McGuinty or Queen Elisabeth,
no matter how hard it may be for us to respect the current occupant of such an
office. The human failings of the
incumbent do not negate the divine institution of the office itself. Nor do those failings allow us to forget that
the person exhibiting them is no less a creature of God than we ourselves are,
created by God for His purpose and pleasure.
No matter what that person does, we are obliged to respect them at least
as part of God’s creation.
Jesus underpins this when He
says, Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and unto
God the things which are God’s.
Obedience to the social governance God has provided for our benefit is
indirectly obedience to God.
Holy Scripture leaves us in
no doubt about the divine origins of social order and government, for they are
rooted in the Law of Moses, which was delivered to that ancient by God.
What did Jesus say of that
Law? Think not that I am come to
destroy the law, or the prophets; I am come not to destroy, but to fulfil. Matthew 5:17.
Jesus Christ spiritualised the Law given by God to Moses, bringing
out the Christian meaning which always lay – though hidden for the most part –
in the Law. Bishop Walsham How, a nineteenth
century Anglican Christian far wiser than I, wrote those words.
The Law, which still forms
the bedrock of much of our modern system of law, is intricately tied in Holy
Scripture to societal order and government.
We read time and time again of God providing Kings, judges and rulers to
administer the law and maintain order in society. God established such offices not for His benefit,
but for ours, to overcome and compensate for our shortcomings as fallen man.
And when it all broke down,
He sent prophets to sound warnings or give messages of direction or
encouragement; or mighty men of war to teach lessons or to straighten things
out again. Finally, to save us once and
for all, He sent Jesus Christ, His beloved Son.
Jesus brought a new
dimension to the whole subject of our relationship to those in positions of
earthly authority, a dimension which goes way beyond the teaching of respect
for the office and illuminates the dynamics of the relationship itself. On this Canada Day, in this beautiful country
of
Let us look again at the
question He is asked. What thinkest
thou? Is it lawful to pay tribute unto
Caesar or not? This question was
based on a burning issue of the day, for there were many among the Jews whose
consciences were genuinely troubled by these tax matters. Indeed, a few years later, the discontent
erupted into the open in the rebellion of Bar-Cochba.
The Pharisees and the
Herodians were each looking for a response which they could use against Jesus
for their own purposes. Jesus knew that,
of course, and His marvelous answer gives neither party any satisfaction. Jesus also knew that taxes were a burning
issue and He also refuses to touch the issue directly, as He consistently
refused to do with matters political.
What He does do, however, is
to provide an answer which is so profoundly comprehensive that it has touched
and will touch issue after issue through the ages. It enshrines a principle upon which
Did Jesus ever intend for
His church to organize for herself a suitable social and political system? The answer to that question has to be,
No! If for no other reason than that the
Church exists purely to attend to the spiritual needs of Christians and to
shepherd the flock of Jesus Christ into His great sheepfold. The Church has no business dabbling directly
in matters which are not explicitly spiritual and when it does the consequences
are seriously bad. Those matters quickly
contaminate the church’s very purity in what the business world might call a
reverse takeover.
Even when we see our
governments writing into secular law things which are specifically contrary to
Holy Scripture, Jesus does not lay out for us a path of direct
interference. He nowhere instructs His
Church to organize that political or social system. In fact, He does not give us direct
instructions at all.
Render unto Caesar the
things that are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s, is not giving us a specific course of action, but a
principle by which we are to live. If
men and women in authority had lived by that principle, we would not be faced
with the mess we see in the society in which we live.
If men and women had
approached the election of those who they set in positions of authority in
accordance with that principle, we would not be watching the elimination of all
things Christian from every institution in which government can interfere.
If men and women had held
their church leaders accountable to this principle, as the early Church did, we
would not be witnessing the appalling spectacle of churches heading like the
Gadarene swine over the cliff of apostasy.
Having said all that, did
Jesus intend for His flock to stand right outside the social economic and
political development of the human race?
Absolutely not! He did not
hesitate to call the Pharisees and scribes hypocrites and a generation of
vipers!
But for the most part, the
course of Christian involvement in society follows a different path. As St. Peter says, For so is the will of
God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.
And Jesus, what does our
Living Lord say? My kingdom is not
of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight,
that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from
hence. John 18:36.
If we, His servants, are not
to fight, not to involve ourselves in direct action, neither are we to ignore
the world around us. Civilization can
not be said to be the same as Christianity, but Jesus wants Christians to
influence the nature of that civilization as much as they can. We are to be like the little piece of leaven
which makes the whole lump of dough rise.
Ye are the salt of the earth. Ye are the light of the world, Jesus teaches the
Christian, Let your light so shine before men that they may see
your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the
Lord’s sake. Render unto
Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s. If we can live our lives in accordance with
those principles, perhaps one Canada Day in the future Canadians will again
find themselves worshipping God in a truly Christian country.
Peter Jardine+