Powers that be

Sermon for the fourth Sunday after Epiphany

Be subject to the higher powers? Can St Paul mean that? We have just remembered the dreadful events of the Holocaust and honoured those who suffered at the hands of a government committed to evil purposes. Surely, we need to stand up to evil rulers when they seek to hurt and destroy people? 

Does this mean that God gives power to evil governments?

[PAUSE]

This is a very difficult question. You might as well ask why God allows bad things to happen to good people. 

Certainly, when St Paul is talking about submitting to these powers and rulers, he has Jesus' words in mind. He hears "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that which is God's." St Paul also hears that, if you are compelled to carry a burden one mile, carry it to. He hears Jesus tell us that if someone wants to take our tunic then to let him have our cloak as well. We are to turn the other cheek. 

This is how we are to approach powers that try to control us: we submit to them but in a way that shows that we do so out of love for God.

But what about the Holocaust? That's not an easy question to answer but what lies behind it is where we see true power to lie. 

We trust God.

We trust God to bring good out of evil and he does.

One who embodies this attitude is St Maximilian Kolbe. He goes the first mile by submitting himself to being placed into Auschwitz. He goes the second mile by deliberately taking a condemned man's place in the gas chamber. He takes control back from the unjust power of the Nazis by choosing the same death that Our Lord chooses Himself. He chooses to trust God in the face of Evil and loses his life knowing full well that he will receive it again in the hands of God.

[PAUSE]

While we are fortunate enough not to live in times of obvious evil power, St Paul would bid us pay our taxes, follow the law, and respect our leaders. But rather than see their power over us as an enslavement, we should see it as an opportunity to draw closer to God Who makes the same choice as He walks with us on Earth. An evil government will fall never to rise, but God's authority is supreme and will triumph.

Why does God allow evil governments to arise? That may be unanswerable. If we trust God fully to bring good out of evil then maybe that question doesn't need an answer.