"Submit to your local authorities" and "Give back to Caesar what is Caesar" are common refrains now due to COVID-19.

If you would rather listen to this piece, rather than read it yourself, you can do so with the following youtube video!

https://youtu.be/DwdFO8bONqM

Over the last several weeks, I’ve heard the refrain from brothers and sisters in Christ “Submit to your local authorities”. I’m sure you’ve heard it as well, from a wild variety of sources. I’ve heard this theme from bible teachers, preachers, pastors, priests, and even from politicians. 

This refrain comes from a passage in the bible in Romans 13:1 “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established.” (NIV). This was written originally by the Apostle Paul, who was both a Hebrew by birth and upbringing, and a Roman citizen (Acts 22:25-27). 

Another commonplace quote from the bible nowadays seems to flow from Jesus’ instructions regarding taxes. Some of Jesus’ enemies sought to trap him regarding payment of taxes. “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s” (Mark 12:17). This refrain has become so prevalent in our language, even courts are making reference to it in their decisions (See the US 6th circuit court of appeals court order). 

Jesus’ response is now famous during the COVID-19 crisis and is being used a rallying cry for blind adherence to any and all statements, orders, decisions, or legislation that occurs which prohibits the gathering of believers to worship, pray, and participate in the holy sacraments, or proclaim Christ’s life, death, and resurrection through rendering worship together as a gathered face to face assembly. The word we read in our English New Testament for "church" is often rendered as “assembly” which was the same word used to describe the gathering of people in the Old Testament to worship God. It was a gathering, an assembly. In an age without Facebook live, YouTube, or streaming, a government order to forsake assembling would have been a government order to forsake the public worship of God as his gathered people. 

The problem with each of these current adoptions of phrases and slogans for our contemporary COVID-19 times is found in the utter ignorance regarding the teaching of each of these phrases by their author/speaker. For Paul, he was a Roman citizen, who exercised the fullest extent of his rights as a Roman citizen when he was taken and flogged in Acts 22. For Jesus, he didn’t stop his teaching on taxation and submission to authority by saying “give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s” - his teaching continued with “and to God what is God’s”. 

I hear some Christian leaders in my own community and dearly beloved family members using these refrains to willfully and purposefully ignore God’s own word regarding submitting to authorities of the world. Is the blind adherence to local governing authorities what God’s word requires? Is it possible for Christians to act within the boundaries of the governing laws on their own (or others) behalf? 

This may seem like a silly question. Imagine for instance if you were arrested for a crime. You are afforded (in the United States) the right to an attorney. Would you consider it justice to be denied that right? Of course not! The United States, for all its many flaws, have laws in places that require some level of procedure. Submitting to the governing authorities does not mean blind adherence to whatever decision is made in a given moment. We have biblical examples of this in Paul’s own life, that’s right, the same Paul who wrote Romans 13:1 commanding submission to the authorities! Being a Christian and submitting to local authorities doesn't mean forgoing a right granted by that local authority (like the right to an attorney). Nor does it make it unchristian to be an attorney representing someone else's legal interests!

The Apostle Paul, when he was arrested and about to be flogged, spoke up regarding his rights as a Roman citizen to the governing authority of the situation he was presently in: 

24 the commander ordered that Paul be taken into the barracks. He directed that he be flogged and interrogated in order to find out why the people were shouting at him like this. 25 As they stretched him out to flog him, Paul said to the centurion standing there, “Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who hasn’t even been found guilty?”

26 When the centurion heard this, he went to the commander and reported it. “What are you going to do?” he asked. “This man is a Roman citizen.”

27 The commander went to Paul and asked, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?”

“Yes, I am,” he answered.

28 Then the commander said, “I had to pay a lot of money for my citizenship.”

“But I was born a citizen,” Paul replied. (Acts 22:24-28)

This was the man who wrote Romans 13 “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities”. The Apostle Paul pursued his rights as a Roman citizen, to prevent himself from being illegally flogged by an authority in the Roman hierarchy (the Centurion). So many are crying for the church in the United States to lay down and quietly submit, forgetting that we can submit to our local governing bodies in the United States while also filing grievances, asking for restraining orders (as was done in the Kentucky Easter service) to allow worship to continue via drive-in worship. 

Paul submitted to his authorities, ultimately standing trial in Rome. He didn’t try to escape from his orders of house arrest or rebel against his governing authorities. He pursued his rights as a citizen to their limits for his own ministry of proclaiming Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. 

Many in our churches abhor careful reading. Many lack the discipline or focus to read any passage of scripture at all, let alone lengthy passages of scripture which inform our daily lives. Then, after we forsake reading God’s word, we adopt these half-assed slogans and allow for the bastardization of God’s word to be co-opted for intentions and interpretations that simply are not present in the text. 

I am not an advocate for “reactionary” preaching. I firmly believe that preaching and proclamation of God’s word is best done in an orderly way. Yet if there were to be a break or a “special sermon series” done in such a time as this, it would certainly be right and proper to devote Christians to time in the word on Paul’s own imprisonment and exercise of his rights during that imprisonment. 

I fear what has happened is a great victory for fear of the world rather than fear of the Lord. We as Christians have become so inept at our reading and understanding of God’s Word that we have forsaken the very basic idea of reading the full length of a verse. We have adopted slogans and policies that strike at the very heart of what it means to be God’s gathered people to worship. We have forgotten the command of Jesus when we are gathered together to “do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19).

This isn’t an appeal for churches everywhere and anywhere to “open up” as the refrain from many seems to be. This is an appeal for us as Christians to be a bit more like the walking, talking tree from JRR Tolkien’s myth “The Lord of the Rings”, Treebeard. When he was asked “whose side are you on?”, he responded “Side? I am on nobody's side, because nobody is on my side”. We as Christians do not have to look to other humans' wisdom to determine our policies, our procedures, our responses. We’re free from having to look for a source of wisdom in times of trouble. We’re free from having to choose a side in the midst of the current climate of “stay-at-home” vs “open up”. Our side is the side which serves Christ. It is he who gives us our marching orders, our wisdom for each day. His word has not ceased in its relevance as to our duties as citizens, or our duties as his worshiping assembly. 

It is possible for us as Christians to both submit to our local authorities, and also pursue the rights we are granted as citizens of our cities, counties, states, and nation. It is right for us Christians to submit to our local governing authorities. It is right to render unto our leaders the respect and honor (Romans 13:7) what is owed. It is also proper as Christians to remember that all governing authority originates from God (Romans 13:1). It is right that we Christians have observed our local authorities, staying home, and continuing to worship as we could during quarantine. Now it is time to exercise the rights afforded through the governing laws of our land to worship our God in Spirit and in Truth, face to face wherever possible. 

This means pursuing the rights afforded to us as individuals who are citizens, and as churches as organizations with protection within the laws of the land. At this point, some of you may be thinking (I know I’ve thought it the past few weeks), ‘Yeah, but I’m not a legal scholar, I’m not a lawyer or a lawmaker, this is all beyond my ability to change’. It is precisely in moments where we are without power, we can fully lean onto the one who has all power, all authority, on heaven and on earth, the one to whom all kings, powers, and authorities must answer. These moments of great uncertainty and awareness of our own inability, are the moments where we can throw ourselves completely upon the awesome power of God. For us in our household, we will submit to our local authorities, and pursue the rights afforded us in our laws. We will also submit to our divine cosmic authorities and we will worship him in spirit and in truth, face to face, remembering Jesus as he commanded.