A Homily Preached at Trinity Church, Barrie, Anglican Diocese of Toronto, Friday 11 April as Part of Their Lenten Series on Faith Informing Politics
Honour everyone. Love the family of believers. Fear God. Honour the emperor. 1 Peter 2.17
Let me begin by thanking you for asking me back there to come back to Trinity as a preacher for the Lenten series. As I hope you know, Trinity holds a special place in my heart and that of my wife Joy, your former canonical administrator, and who is very sorry that she can’t be here today because of a funeral.
The topic for these services, “Faith Informing Politics”, could not be any more relevant to our time, and I can only imagine what a rich feast of thoughts you’ve enjoyed from the previous preachers in this series. The times we find ourselves in feel unmoored and chaotic. As Canadians, our nationalistic emotions are stirred by talk of the “Fifty First State” and phrases like “Elbows Up”. We are buffeted by ever-changing news about tariffs, we worry about our savings evaporating, and we are perplexed by the sorry, indeed, idolatrous state of much of Christianity in the United States.
In the past few months we’ve seen US evangelicals continue to proclaim that their president has a divine mission to make America great again, while we’ve seen an Anglican Bishop, Mariann Budde, who dared to preach about mercy and compassion at the Inaugural service in Washington in January, hounded as a “Radical Left hard line Trump hater”. As the new president wrote on social media, the Bishop “brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way”.
If for the American right there is a “gracious way” for politics and church to mix, then it seems to be in the heady brew called “Christian Nationalism”. Drew Strait, an Mennonite scholar, defines Christian Nationalism as “a form of political idolatry that distorts our knowledge of God and neighbor through a xenophobic, racialized and militarized gospel that is at odds with the life and teachings of Jesus”. Many who hold this view see Donald Trump as a chosen agent of God, despite all evidence to the contrary, and see his democratic opponents as evil and even demonic. Tellingly, Christian Nationalism actually has little to say about Jesus or his teachings, such as the Beatitudes, which cannot in any way be reconciled with an authoritarian political project.
Its worth noting that two days ago, the church remembered the German theologian and martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was murdered by the Nazis on April 9th, 1945. Bonhoeffer and many of his Christian clergy colleagues saw a similar attempt by many of their contemporaries to give religious approval to the rise of fascism in Germany. In 1934 Bonhoeffer and many other German Christians signed the Barmen Declaration, a manifesto critiquing any attempt by the Nazis to co-opt the church. They wrote that “We repudiate the false teaching that the church can turn over the form her her message … according to some dominant ideological and political convictions”.
Perversely, Bonhoeffer has himself become a contested symbol. Because he was associated with some Germans involved in the plot to assassinate Hitler, some have made tried to make Bonhoeffer a hero of the right. One of his biographers, Eric Metaxas, has argued that because Bonhoeffer resisted an unjust authority, he should therefore be a patron saint for those who resisted the Biden administration, including the January 6th rioters. Bonhoeffer scholars have protested against such attempts to link his memory to Christian nationalism, calling it “a dangerous and grievous misuse of his theology and life.”
The Bonhoeffer controversy brings us squarely to the question of how Christians should live and conduct themselves under political authority. The New Testament seems to be on the side of the rulers. The criminal crucified beside Jesus in Luke’s gospel says that he and the other criminal have “been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds”, although he admits that there has been a miscarriage of justice in Jesus’ case (Lk 23.40-51). Paul in Romans, as you heard last week, says that that “every person [should] be subject to the governing authorities” (Rom 13.1). And today we hear from the letter known as First Peter that “For the Lord’s sake [we should] accept the authority of every human institution, whether of the emperor as supreme, or of governors, as sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right. (1 Pe 13-14).
Now we might surely wonder, how could Paul and the author of First Peter counsel obedience to pagan rulers who were at best suspicious of Christians, and at worst hostile to them? The answer might be as simple as this, that the early church was keeping its head down, trying to be good citizens and trying not to attract attention or suspicion. The Roman authorities had a limited understanding of Christianity, and were generally suspicious of any cult or belief that had the potential to disturb social norms and social order. Here’s an example.
First Peter was written in the late 80s as a letter circulated among the churches in Asia Minor, modern day Turkey. A few decades later, a Roman governor in that part of the world named Pliny, reported to the emperor Trajan that he had investigated cases of people, women and men, accused of being Christians. He described them as being superstitious, with an “inflexible obstinacy”, but not criminals in the usual sense. In fact, he told Trajan, when they gathered to worship Christ, “they [bound] themselves by an oath …to abstain from theft robbery, adultery, and breach of faith”. Generally, he found them harmless people whose only crime was that their belief was undermining the official religion of Rome.
Pliny’s description of Christians as generally law-abiding closely follows the instructions given in First Peter to “do right” and “not use your freedom as a pretext for evil” (1 Pe 2.17). First Peter consistently preaches a message of morality, urging Christians to shun the vices that it associates with pagan (gentile) society such as “licentiousness, passions, drunkenness”. It offers the interesting idea that all have a freedom that they have found in Christ, but urges them not to use that freedom in a disruptive way, so that slaves should obey their masters and wives their husbands (suggesting that many Christians were in fact women and slaves).
The letter is clear that Christians should not rock the social boat; they should “honour” the emperor but they should also “honour” everyone. Here the Greek word for honour, timaō, seems to mean give appropriate and due respect. “Honour the emperor” in First Peter may thus mean something as simple as 'respect that the emperor is the boss for now, but Jesus is the boss for all time”. It probably wasn’t the same sense of honour that Pliny had in mind when he tried to force Christians to curse Christ and say prayers to the emperor and to the Roman Gods.
There is clearly in First Peter a sense that Christians under Roman authority are living in a temporary situation. Believers are repeatedly described as “aliens and exiles” who owe their true obedience to Christ. The letter does imagine the possibility that Christians may be questioned about their beliefs, perhaps questioned by someone like Pliny, in which case, the letter states, “Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence” (3.15-16). In other words, when you have to, be clear that you are a Christian, in the religious sense of confessing , of stating belief, knowing that you might have to suffer the consequences. First Peter is clear that Christians may be called to a [share] in Christ’s sufferings (1 Pe 4.12-19) but through these ordeals you are “receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1.9).
Its fair to say that First Peter is in some ways a subversive document. It places Christ at the centre of the universe, and only admits a temporary authority for the emperor, whose power will not last. The letter shares a common belief of the early church, that Christ will return soon, and the “The end of all things is near”(4.7-11). There is also a subtle reference to Rome itself at the end, when the letter offers greetings from “Your sister church in Babylon” (1 Pe 5.13). The Book of Revelation, written about a decade later, paints a scathing portrait of Rome as a sinful, whorish New Babylon, suggesting that the early Christians had a sort of code. It’s unlikely that someone like Pliny would have understood this reference had he see a copy of the letter of First Peter.
If First Peter tells us anything as we navigate these strange and perilous political times, it is that we as Christians should lead wholesome lives while paying appropriate respects to rulers whose reign and power are temporary. Living as a Christian in a time of empire is to always be aware that our allegiance is ultimately to another kingdom, the kingdom of God whose power is not expressed in golden images or in slavish demands for obedience, but rather exists at the edge of our perceptions, only becoming real through acts of worship, love, gentleness, and self sacrifice.
I’m thinking here of this coming Sunday and the Passion narrative from Luke, when Jesus is confronted by Herod and Pilate, who demand to know what sort of king he is. Pilate’s mocking inscription, “King of the Jews”, totally misunderstands Jesus. Previously in Luke Jesus has associated the kingdom of God with the banishing of demons and the gathering of innocent children. The kingdom of God is a place strong enough to obliterate evil but gentle enough to gather the lost and the weak like a mother hen. It is humble rather than grandiose, and it is merciful enough to welcome the condemned man whose plea for mercy is simply this, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom”.
The kingdom of God is where our moral compasses should always point towards, even in the bleakest of times.. The kingdom of God has no politics other than love and mercy. The kingdom of God has no ethnicity and has no room for nationalism. The kingdom of God has no agenda other than a longing for Christ’s return. The kingdom of God is where our ultimate loyalty resides.
1 comment:
Thank you. Very helpful.
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