07.03 | Allegiance
Romans 13
‘Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.’
Romans 13:7
About a year ago, a good friend of mine went to see his team play against one of the local teams (Aston Villa). He was sitting with the Villa fans. Let’s call him Jermaine.
Anyone who’s familiar with sports knows that this is a vulnerable position to be in. Exposing your true allegiance isn’t wise, and so most opt for sitting quietly, inwardly celebrating or agonising, but keeping a stoic exterior.
Not Jermaine. He threw himself in with the Villa fans, openly taunting the supporters of his own team when Villa scored, and externally playing the part of a local Birmingham boy with enthusiastic plausibility. Despite his deeper loyalties, he was cheering for the wrong team.
There’s a very real tension that many of us face when we come to the intersection of faith and politics.
Where does my loyalty lie?
We see different leaders, different policies, left vs right. We see rising animosity and fervour, whipped up in the crucible of a polarised media and a rampant degradation of nuance and truth-telling.
Paul’s writing today takes us to this very intersection of our faith and politics. How do we live in such a world?
Paul’s approach?
Be subject to the governing authorities.
For a guy from who we’re used to something more feisty, this feels a little tame. Politically correct. Beige. It seems a long way from prophetic critique, moral campaigning, or speaking truth to power.
When we look at the nature of the specific governing authorities that he’s writing about, this tension only increases.
Paul was writing during the reign of Caesar Nero. At this point (c. A.D. 57), relatively popular. However, within a few short years, Nero would murder his mother, his stepbrother, and (at least) one of his wives. His reign would become increasingly controversial, with growing vanity projects and a notoriously wild sex life. In A.D. 64, he would blame the Christians for the Great Fire of Rome (that he was rumoured to have instigated himself), having the scapegoat Christians burned alive, crucified, and thrown to the beasts.
It was this very Caesar Nero under who Paul would later be martyred.
Be subject to the governing authorities.
The tension that many of us live in with politics is the pressure to pick the right team. Certain areas of policy or personality become sacrosanct to us, and we join in with exactly the same us and them dynamics of the world around us.
Paul, however, is playing a different game.
It’s not a game of wimpish acquiescence to the status quo. Neither is it allying himself with a particular party or personality of the world.
Rather, he builds his approach from a different allegiance.
It is an allegiance that means he can stand before a corrupt empire, living with both humility and honour, praying for its leaders even when their policies and personalities are deeply broken.
It is an allegiance that means that he is unshakeable when the kingdoms of this world crumble, because the Kingdom he lives for is endlessly secure.
It is an allegiance that means that he can seek the wellbeing of the world where he lives even though he is an exile and stranger upon it.1
It is an allegiance that means he can stand before the Emperor of the Empire, look him in the eye, and defiantly name the true King of the true Kingdom as his endless loyalty, even unto the ultimate cost of his life.
Paul’s allegiance is both humbler and mightier, deeply engaged and radically subversive. It models the strength of servitude, letting the integrity and beauty of our lives demonstrate a different way of being. And it stands defiant when any empire demands allegiance above our unbreakable allegiance to our true King.
We’re sitting with the home fans. It’s noisy and angry and polarised.
But our allegiance is clear. Jesus is our politics and Jesus is the only personality who takes our allegiance. And, with eyes upon Him, we stand with gentleness and defiance, speaking truth and serving in love, contending for justice and going lower and lower and lower for the inbreaking peace of God into the brokenness of our world.
Empires will continue to fall,
And the enduring reign of God irresistibly breaks in.
Reflect:
Where are my greatest places of anger and fear with politics?
Bring these to Jesus. What does allegiance to Jesus—His cause and His methodology—look like in this issue?
Pray:
Father,
I get angry because I care.
I care about poverty and I care about inequality.
I care about international conflicts,
And the state of the economy.
I care about people and how they are valued,
The telling of truth,
And the integrity of political leaders.
I get angry because I care.
I know you do too.
Today, Father, remind me deeply of this,
That my homeland,
My cause,
My politics,
My methodology,
My characteristics,
And my very ways of being,
Are found not in the polarisations of the world,
But in you.
Your Kingdom. Your Son.
Today, Father, I give you my allegiance again;
Unto radical, honouring, serving, humility,
And beautiful defiance,
In the Way and Name of Jesus,
And the subversive pursuit of His Kingdom alone,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Numbers 17:1-20:13 | Psalm 33:1-12
Jeremiah 29:7; 1 Peter 2:11
Rampant degradation of nuance? Really?