In recent weeks one of the folks considered to be the arch nemesis of the US in
the past has resurfaced. After a long illness, Fidel Castro appeared at a recent
rally and spoke. He spoke of his disdain for US policy, and he was also critical
of the Communist part in Cuba. I guess it’s good to hear that we’re not the only
people he’s disgusted with.
Many of you can remember back in the early 60’s when Castro acquired a bunch of
missiles and pointed them at the US, prompting an angry response from President
Kennedy.
Of course we responded by prohibiting our folks from travelling to Cuba or
importing their exports. So you have to travel to Canada or Mexico if you want a
Cuban cigar or a flight to Cuba. Doesn’t seem to have affected Castro all that
much.
But the biggest complaint the religious community has had is that Castro’s
policies have restricted religious freedom. People who practice religion are
supposed to register with one of the religious groups who are authorized by the
government. So you can’t just for ma church and do what you want there.
A US State Dept. report from 2004 says that “Some unregistered religious groups
were subject to official censure, and also faced pressures from registered
religious groups. The Government's policy of permitting apolitical religious
activity to take place in government-approved sites remained unchanged.
However, citizens worshipping in officially sanctioned churches often were
subject to surveillance by state security forces, and the Government's efforts
to maintain a strong degree of control over religion continued.”
Now that sounds kinda bad, but it’s not the entire story. Two years ago a
reporter from the publication Religious Dispatch wrote about how things had
changed in Cuba, especially since the Pope visited in 1998.
“In the ten years since the Pope’s visit there has been a significant increase
in religious freedom: believers can worship openly, and are less likely to be
blocked from jobs or universities.
Church congregations are swelling (although mainly in Protestant denominations,
which have doubled since the 1950s from approximately 250,000 to an estimated
500,000 members).
Churchgoers are even allowed to join the Communist Party, and Raul Castro’s
first order of foreign policy business, two days after the election, was to meet
with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state.
The point I’m trying to make here is that a church which is belligerent and
oppositional to civil authorities is sometimes less effective in spreading the
gospel than a church which shows respect for civil government and works within
the parameters established by society.
That’s the issue raised by the passage we read for this morning. In the western
hemisphere we’re so used to civil government giving wide sway to churches,
giving them lots of freedom to carry out their mission. In fact, we’ve had so
much freedom to do what we want that we tend to take it for granted.
We guard our rights to religious freedom and tend to look suspiciously at anyone
in civil government whose job it is to mediate those freedoms for the citizenry.
We have also adopted such a negative view of the government in this country that
the idea of praying for them and being supportive of them (even if we’re not
supportive of their policies) is seen as ridiculous.
One candidate for governor in New York seized on voter anger in his campaigning
by saying that he was going to “clean out [the state capital of] Albany with a
baseball bat.” I’m not sure that’s the most Christian way to do it. By the way,
he won his party’s nomination.
I want to contrast that kind of vitriol with what we read in 1 Timothy: the
author says prayers, intercessions and thanksgiving should be made for everyone,
especially king and all who are in high positions. Nothing about a baseball bat
yet.
This letter gives churches some direction about what should take place in their
worship services. Part of the reason why the author sounds like such a lamb is
because the church at the time was living in a situation more like Cuba’s than
like ours when it comes to religious freedom.
The church’s political agenda at the time was pretty simple: Don’t start any
trouble; fly under the radar; don’t give the civil authorities and reason to be
suspicious of us. Then they’ll leave us alone and let us go about the business
of being a church.
This author wasn’t the first person to encourage people to ask God’s blessing on
civil leaders. 100 years earlier a Jewish theologian named Philo wrote about how
Jews in synagogues in Egypt were accustomed to offering prayer and sacrifices to
God for the Roman Emperor. So the church would just be doing the same thing that
Jews had done for a long time.
But there was also a problem with praying for the emperor or the king or
whomever: Some of these leaders demanded to be revered as a God. The Roman
emperors considered themselves to be divine; and many of the titles we have in
the New Testament for God are actually titles used by kings and emperors to
refer to themselves.
So if you pray for someone who’s considered divine, are you being unfaithful to
your own god? The author of this letter reminds people that there is no other
God besides their God, and that praying for a civil leader does not mean you
think they’re god.
He tells the churches that the point is to live a life of peace and dignity, not
to have a combative relationship with people in authority because you think
you’re smarter than they are or know the mind of God better than they do.
He also points out something about the relationship between civil leaders and
the public that most of us don’t know about. If you were a citizen of one of
these places and you needed the king’s or emperor’s help with something, you
couldn’t just call or send an e-mail or even show up at the office – as we do
with our representatives.
These days we can get on the phone and literally call the White House to speak
to someone. Back then most civil leaders were less approachable. You had to find
someone who would act as a go-between for you, someone who knew the king and
could advocate for you.
That term in Greek is the one our author uses when he says that Jesus is a
mediator between us and God. And as a mediator, Jesus gives us the kind of
access to God that very few people had with their king or governor.
Rather than requiring some kind of payment like a normal mediator, Jesus gave
himself to God in the way that someone would pay a ransom for a loved one who
was kidnapped. Jesus alone could be the go between because he became human like
us.
I think the larger point our author’s trying to make here is that all of the
everyday hassles and scuffles with government bureaucrats were actually small
potatoes in comparison to the larger purposes of God in history.
Yeah, they could be a pain sometimes; there were occasions when the people of
the church would be harassed, sometimes folks who didn’t understand the church
would accuse Christians of not being patriotic.
But these people believed that Jesus was coming any day. Every day they looked
up at the sky and wondered if this would be the day that Jesus returned. And
since that was their hope, there was no reason to make a big deal or get into
some kind of fight with civil leaders who openly wondered whether or not they
should be considered divine.
The author reminds people that his purpose in life, his calling, is to share the
good news of Jesus with people. And if he’s going to be successful doing that,
he can’t be spending his time in court defending himself over the latest spat
with some bureaucrat who looked at him cross-eyed.
Again, I want to point out the huge difference between the attitude this author
takes toward civil authorities and the attitude that even Christians display
toward the government today. To me this change in attitude reflects the sense in
some Christians that over time they have taken over the world, and that they are
fighting to keep control of it.
If you think that the US is the most powerful nation in the world (most people
do), and if you consider it to have formerly been a Christian nation whose
policies reflected an interpretation of the Bible that many people support, then
you probably feel like God had nearly conquered this world through the US.
But if you look at recent decades of political development and consider them a
divergence from who we used to be as a Christian nation, then you will angrily
resist those who you think are pushing us away from God. That doesn’t change
your sense that Christians and their God hold the greatest power and influence
in the world, and that their influence should never be challenged.
I would suggest that people who see religion and politics in this manner are not
honestly serious about freedom of religion, and that if given the chance they
have and will force their religion on other people “for their own good” and the
good of the country.
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia was interviewed about his views on
religious freedom and the first amendment a while ago, and he was very up front
about his belief that while the constitution gives us freedom to follow whatever
religion we want without government interference, the government can also
highlight the merits of a particular religion (if you read his judicial record
it’s clear that he thinks the government should highlight Christianity because
Christians are in the majority).
In other words, if Christians are in the majority (and they are here), then the
government should tolerate other religions and allow people to practice them,
but the government should also make it clear that those religions are somehow
inferior to Christianity. You don’t highlight a particular religion unless you
think it’s better than all the others.
We Baptists come from an entirely different point of view form Justice Scalia’s.
We came from a movement where, as Justice Scalia said, a particular religion was
highlighted and forced upon people, regardless of their religious persuasion.
Baptists reacted against that policy and said, “We believe that God gives each
individual the freedom to interpret the Bible for themselves and form their own
churches based on their reading of the Bible.” The civil leaders and kings
didn’t like it, but the Baptists, like the church being described in 1 Timothy,
were not setting themselves up against the king.
Our predecessors fought against attempts to make everyone in the country follow
some Christian narrative and be a Christian nation. And yet these days there are
plenty of Baptists and others who, rather than pray for the king, want to be
king and make everyone else acknowledge their religion as the only true one.
Personally, I would rather be like the folks in this passage, people who pray
for our civic leaders knowing that ultimately those civic leaders answer not
only to the public, but also to God.
We can and should work to end injustice in our society, but the church really
has to wrestle with what it means to “lead a quiet and peaceable life in all
godliness and dignity” as our author instructs.
Those who want to use the power of the government to steer people toward
Christianity betray a sense that rather than relying on God’s power and God’s
direction and God’s timing, they are kind of in the driver’s seat, that God is
relying mostly on their efforts to change the world, and that it’s up to them to
make the country a Christian nation. They hope God appreciates just how much
they’ve done for God.
Our author describes the church as operating from a position of weakness, but
not weak, because God is working through the church in ways that it cannot work
on its own. The church doesn’t need to throw its weight around politically in
order to tell people about Jesus. It’s not our job to save the world.
It is our job to be God’s presence in the world, a presence which demands
justice but also seeks peace. We’re more content in asking God to work through
our civil leaders than in trying to force our civil leaders to adopt our ideas
about God.
We’re not in the midst of a battle we need to win. The quicker we can lay down
our swords and shields and choose not to “study war no more”, the sooner we can
start being like Jesus, who chastised Peter for cutting off the servant’s ear in
the garden and sought to heal someone even as he was being arrested.
That image of the church versus society is outdated. We can’t vote God’s kingdom
to come and God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. That’s not what
it means for Christians to participate in democracy.
We need to strongly consider this image in 1 Timothy, and image where the church
is not fighting, but being. Even when they were harassed, even when they were
arrested, they believed that somehow God was working to bring about God’s
purposes for the world.
They weren’t keeping score, they weren’t plotting their revenge. They were
saying, “We’ll be God’s faithful witnesses for as long as it takes, and we trust
that someday God will make it all right.”
I read a sermon as I was doing my research by a Baptist pastor from New Mexico.
He preached on Superbowl Sunday about his vision of the church in relation to
society. He described it like two football teams going head to head.
Team Uniforms
The World: Dark
The Church: Light
Coaches
The World: Satan [He is ferocious as a lion and loves to cheat, lie, etc…
Whatever it takes!]
The Church: Jesus Christ [He is meek as a lamb. He is Truth. He has never
cheated and does not approve of His team using any evil tactics.]
Scouting Report
The World:
1. This team has many players and everyone seems to want to be a starter.
2. This team does not give up easily.
3. This team will do anything and I mean anything to win.
4. This team is very aggressive.
5. This team is also very good at recruiting. It seems as though everyone wants
to be on this team.
The Church:
1. This team has many players, but most of them do not want to play in the game.
They would rather sit on the sidelines and watch.
2. This team does not look like a team. Everyone is doing their own thing
whenever they feel like it.
3. This team is undisciplined. They are fat, lazy, etc…
4. This team refuses to listen to their coach although He has never made a
mistake.
5. The players on this team seem to fit better on the other team. This is
probably the reason for poor recruiting.
Of course, the church wins the game, because there has t o be winners and
losers. And here is the postgame analysis:
If you have sin in your life, you are hurting The Church and you need to repent
of those sins.
If you are here today without Christ, you are on the losing team. You don’t want
to die while you are on The World’s team. You will lose and end up in Hell
forever and ever. Join me on Jesus Christ’s team today and live with Him and the
rest of the team forever and ever in Heaven.
Why would these people ever want to pray for civil leaders, as our author says?
They’re the enemy in the mind of this pastor. He’s not interested in a quiet and
peaceable life in harmony with others. He’s obsessed with making sure he wins
and someone else loses.
Jesus is not his mediator; Jesus is the general of the army. Is that really the
kind of church we want to be? Folks, our focus is not on winning, but on being.
Or focus is not on what we can do to turn the world in God’s direction. We seek
to be whatever God needs us to be so that God can accomplish God’s purposes in
the world.
We desire everyone to come to the knowledge of the truth, as our author says,
but we honor everyone’s freedom not to do so. Meanwhile, we pray for everyone,
we pray for God’s guidance on our leaders, even if we didn’t vote for them.
That’s the only way we can hope to live a quiet, peaceable life of godliness and
dignity that God has for us.