Yesterday, we were continuing our sermon series in Matthew. This week we had reached Matthew 22:15-46 and the various attempts to trap Jesus with tricky questions. If you want to know how that passage was handled, you can watch our service back here – the preaching in our church comes at the front end of the service.

One of the points I made in that sermon concerned submission to civil authorities and government. Jesus’ famous ‘render unto Caesar’ comments – if he is saying anything at all – is that there is nothing incongruous or incompatible between living faithfully as believers and submitting to civil authorities. Everybody tends to get their knickers in a twist about ‘bad government’ and ‘government overreach’ but it doesn’t seem to trouble them that Jesus says nothing about that nor caveats what he says. Jesus is effectively commanding submission to the human authorities he has established in government.

It also bears saying two further things before I get to the point. First, Jesus is making these comments in the context of the Jewish people having just cheered him into Jerusalem and affirmed him as the Messiah. Matthew has been very carefully arguing up to this point that Jesus’ kingdom and messiahship will not necessarily meet the expectations of the Jewish mainstream understanding of kingdom and Messiahship. The expectation of the day is that the Messiah (and, therefore, Jesus at this point in their thinking) will re-establish the throne of David, reunite Israel and drive out the Roman occupying forces to restore a Jewish Free State under a Davidic king.

Second, it bears saying that the political context in which Jesus is making these comments is that of the Roman Empire. Leaving aside mainstream Jewish expectations of the Messiah, the Romans were hardly deemed benevolent rulers. The Jews hated them and their occupation of their land. And things didn’t get much better when the Apostles pick up Jesus teaching in both Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2:17, both of which were written during Nero’s reign. Whatever else you may say about Nero, benevolent and tolerant are not the two obvious words that come to mind. So, for later Christians, for Paul and Peter to pick up this teaching and command submission to Rome and to ‘honour the Emperor’ is no small thing. This is the wider political context into which Jesus makes his comments.

In my sermon, the point I drew was a simple one: Jesus calls us to submit to earthly authorities. The repeated tenor of the New Testament is to submit to earthly authorities. So long as they are not specifically asking you to personally sin, you are to submit even to government you think of as particularly bad. There are no examples in the New Testament of Christians rising up to fight the power nor of seeking to gain control and then pull the levers of power. The general tenor of scripture is both to submit to authorities (cf. Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2:17) and to seek, not authority or special treatment or any such thing, but simply to pray that we would be able to lead peaceful and quiet lives (cf. 1 Tim 2:2). Very much a live and let live attitude, seeking nothing more from civil authorities than the ability to freely obey Jesus on a personal level. #

There is no crowing about government overreach anywhere in scripture nor is there a concerted and organised campaign by any of the churches to overturn social injustice – something which challenges the engagement of both left and right; both culture and social justice warriors. The church addressed injustice by seeking to lead peaceful and quiet lives as a church in all holiness, serving the community around them by doing what Jesus asks them to do as believers (cf. Acts 2:41-47; 4:32-37). Their only engagement with government were not when the authorities were passing laws that meant other people could sin in ways the church deemed detrimental to society nor to organise for rights and privileges (we see neither thing). Rather, it is only when the authorities sought to stop the believers from being able to obey scripture on a personal basis (e.g. Acts 5:27-32). Even then, the consistent message of scripture is simply non-compliance i.e. we will not do that and we will accept and submit to the consequences.

Which brings me to my point. It is very easy to look at Jesus’ words here, and the Apostles further teaching on it in the rest of scripture, and challenge others with it. But the truth is, God’s Word must challenge all of us here. There must be ways in which our political engagement is affected by what Jesus says, whatever political position or view of engagement we hold.

If my view above is even broadly true, we are surely met with questions of how to deal with societal issues. Those who would push hard – on Christian grounds – against the tide of moral and societal legal changes must ask themselves whether that is consistent with what scripture calls us to do and how that is consistent with seeking to live a peaceful and quiet life. For example, if nobody is asking you to perform a same-sex marriage, what is the biblical grounds – the Christian grounds – for campaigning tooth and nail against it? There are certainly Christian grounds to not wish to conduct them ourselves, but what biblical examples do we have or commands of Christ that would lead us to conclude campaigning against this as the church is consistent with seeking to live a peaceful and quiet life nor the mission of the church itself?

By contrast, those who would campaign on various matter of social justice must ask what examples and commands we have in scripture to effect change that way. For example, though God cares about injustice and there is certainly biblical grounds for the church to meet societal needs as it comes into contact with them, what biblical examples or commands of Christ do we have as the church to campaign society-wide on these things? How is lobbying for the eradication of societal ills specifically a calling of the church? How is pushing government to legislate for better access to, or relief from, various problems consistent with our call to lead peaceful and quiet lives and the mission of the church itself?

The mode of change – both moral, spiritual and societal – in scripture, so far as the church is concerned, seems consistently to be the making of disciples and disciples living as disciples. The church as the church is called to make disciples and the beneficial effects on society seem to be a by-product of that endeavour, not a command of Christ in its own right. The church is called to care about justice, and where it is able to serve the cause of justice, without ever once being seen in scripture to do so through legal and civil channels. The church is called to care about the good of the society it is in, and where able to serve the good of the place they are in, without ever once being seen in scripture to do so through legal and civil channels.

The closest we get to such things is particular people, in certain places at specific times acting faithfully as believers in such a way as it served the good of wider society because of the particular position God had put them in. You can think of a Joseph, David, various of the judges, Esther and others. Some of these, of course, don’t translate easily as they are kings and judges of Israel rather than believers in the church acting on behalf of the church. But I think we can draw the inference that a Christian in politics – just as we would say to a Christian butcher, baker or candlestick maker – is called to honour God in the position he has given them and seek to live faithfully as believers as they go about their work. But this is not the same as the church qua church.

Nor, incidentally, do we find many – even with the wherewithal to do so – pushing for government or regime change. It was John Calvin who said, ‘No man should think he is giving less service to the one God when he obeys human laws, pays tax, or bows his head to accept any other burden.’ The tenor of scripture, and consistent noise of the Bible, is submission to human authorities and non-compliance only when submission would cause us personally to disobey God. There is no single command or example in the teaching of Christ or the Apostles to resist bad governance, to seek regime change nor to campaign for societal change. And for all the talk of resisting tyranny, it is hard to escape that Paul and Peter were arguing for these things – and against such thoughts – under Nero. Instead, their call is submission, praying that we could live a peaceful and quiet life, seeking to live and let live so that we can simply get about doing as God commands us to do.

Now none of that is to say there are no godly ways we can involve ourselves in politics. It is to say I think Jesus teaching should challenge us all. I think many of us too quickly jump to accusations of government overreach. The only government overreach scripture seems to recognise is when governments command their citizens, without opt-out clause, to disobey God personally and directly. Some of us jump too quickly to using civil mechanisms to address social issues when, in truth, the only vehicle of social change scripture recognises is the gospel, prayer and the making of disciples. Even the prayers we are commanded to give for societal change revolve around a call for the Spirit to work to save people and to pray for those in authority so that we might be free to share the gospel.

There will be ways in which Jesus’ teaching on civil engagement challenges all of us. Submission to government, and seeking to live peaceful and quiet lives, will necessarily mean that we submit to all manner of laws that we simply don’t like. Some of them we may even find egregious impositions on us. There were, after all, few laws more galling to the Jews than paying a poll tax to an occupying force using blasphemous coinage! Yet Jesus affirms even such things are no grounds for non-compliance. The mission of the church is not, and has never been, to bring the New Creation and the rule of Jesus here, now, through political means. If Matthew is labouring any point in his gospel, it is that Jesus is no political or military king and his kingdom is specifically not of this world. Rather, the church’s mission has always been the work of making disciples. It is called to seek only the ability to live in freedom to do so and, similarly, quietly, and peacefully (rather than crowing and parading it publicly) whatever non-compliance we might believe is a similar matter of direct obedience to God in contravention of the law. But I am minded to think, if Peter and Paul can call the church to submit to Nero, most of our claims to government overreach and egregious legal and societal matters are, minimally, overblown.