A Better Interpretation of Romans 13
As Paul wrote to his Roman congregation, he was making an appeal to them to be model human beings, for they were being castigated from all sides--the established religious community, the civic government, and so on. Paul's reasoning was that if followers of Jesus proved themselves to be ONLY people of love, grace, mercy, and compassion, then all grounds for their persecution would be revealed for the lies they were.
Now jump ahead to 2018 and an American government separating children from parents at our border. Representatives of that government invoke Romans 13 to somehow cow the rest of us into accepting an abhorrent policy--note the government is not giving a rationale for the practice of separating children from parents, but only telling the rest of us to fall in line in righteous obedience to that government.
What Mr. Sessions fails to mention is the line tucked away there in Romans 13:1--all authority is of God--i.e., God is the last and only lasting authority.
And, as John wrote in his own epistles, God is love. God is the love revealed on the cross. That love loses itself in the other person. That love thinks of the needs, wants, and presence of the other person first, last, and always. That love will empty itself--Jesus literally gave his life for every other human being--so that the other person can fully be whom God created them to be.
Yes, there are problems connected to people fleeing their own countries and desperately entering another without any consideration of the rule of law. Desperation makes one do desperate things. Yes, some of those desperate people are families--mothers, fathers, and their children. Yes, we need to somehow find a way to manage their desperation.
But...
I can find nowhere in the Gospels--the witness to Jesus himself--where subjecting desperate people to an unimaginable cruelty is somehow an embodiment of the other-centered, self-emptying love of Jesus.
Instead, what I find is Jesus telling any and all would-be followers of him to care for the neediest of all, feeding them, clothing them, liberating them, and revealing to them the inescapable truth that they are beloved children of God (Matthew 25 is a good place to ponder). Then I read in Acts 2 how the community of Jesus emptied itself, sharing everything they had so no one would be hungry, afraid, or blinded to their being beloved children of God. God even empowered the disciples to speak the languages of all the strangers in their midst--do you have any idea how comforting it is to a stranger in your community to hear someone attempt to speak to them in their own language?
Nowhere do any followers of Jesus shatter families, terrorize children, or bereave parents.
When a government demands we kowtow and fall in line, invoking scripture, that government is idolatrous. God alone is ruler of the conscience, as our Presbyterian Church (USA) Book of Order reminds us in its opening paragraphs. God only is worthy of obedience. God only is our authority because God only offers the love, grace, mercy all human beings need to thrive, find their full identity as children of God, and be whom God made them to be--for God made every one of the seven billion humans alive, and every single one of them is a unique act of God's creative will--every one of them without exception--act accordingly.
Now jump ahead to 2018 and an American government separating children from parents at our border. Representatives of that government invoke Romans 13 to somehow cow the rest of us into accepting an abhorrent policy--note the government is not giving a rationale for the practice of separating children from parents, but only telling the rest of us to fall in line in righteous obedience to that government.
What Mr. Sessions fails to mention is the line tucked away there in Romans 13:1--all authority is of God--i.e., God is the last and only lasting authority.
And, as John wrote in his own epistles, God is love. God is the love revealed on the cross. That love loses itself in the other person. That love thinks of the needs, wants, and presence of the other person first, last, and always. That love will empty itself--Jesus literally gave his life for every other human being--so that the other person can fully be whom God created them to be.
Yes, there are problems connected to people fleeing their own countries and desperately entering another without any consideration of the rule of law. Desperation makes one do desperate things. Yes, some of those desperate people are families--mothers, fathers, and their children. Yes, we need to somehow find a way to manage their desperation.
But...
I can find nowhere in the Gospels--the witness to Jesus himself--where subjecting desperate people to an unimaginable cruelty is somehow an embodiment of the other-centered, self-emptying love of Jesus.
Instead, what I find is Jesus telling any and all would-be followers of him to care for the neediest of all, feeding them, clothing them, liberating them, and revealing to them the inescapable truth that they are beloved children of God (Matthew 25 is a good place to ponder). Then I read in Acts 2 how the community of Jesus emptied itself, sharing everything they had so no one would be hungry, afraid, or blinded to their being beloved children of God. God even empowered the disciples to speak the languages of all the strangers in their midst--do you have any idea how comforting it is to a stranger in your community to hear someone attempt to speak to them in their own language?
Nowhere do any followers of Jesus shatter families, terrorize children, or bereave parents.
When a government demands we kowtow and fall in line, invoking scripture, that government is idolatrous. God alone is ruler of the conscience, as our Presbyterian Church (USA) Book of Order reminds us in its opening paragraphs. God only is worthy of obedience. God only is our authority because God only offers the love, grace, mercy all human beings need to thrive, find their full identity as children of God, and be whom God made them to be--for God made every one of the seven billion humans alive, and every single one of them is a unique act of God's creative will--every one of them without exception--act accordingly.
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