There's not a gospel position for those things because Scripture is not a policy manual.
No, see what Paul is teaching us in this Romans text is actually something much older
and much more difficult than deciding who to vote for.
Paul's argument is simple, yet harsh.
He says there is a sword and it belongs to God.
Uniquely, it does not belong to you. It belongs to God.
See, a few verses before our reading, just in Romans 12, Paul warns,
never to avenge yourselves, but to leave it to the wrath of God.
For it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.
Well now, he's telling us how that vengeance gets collected.
The governing authority is God's servant.
And he's an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.
Vengeance is real. It's just not yours to collect.
Instead, he says, pay what you owe. Taxes, revenue, respect, honor.
Those are debts that the sword can collect.
The last time I checked, if you don't pay them, the sword will come knocking at your door.
Now, of course, being subject to authority is not the same as approving of that authority.
If a governor were to command you to sin, for instance, you do not obey.
Acts 5.29, we must obey God rather than men.
There is a line.
The story of three young men in the book of Daniel that I keep referencing in my sermons for some reason.
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
Their story comes to mind because as they're standing in front of a fiery furnace,
they say, our God is able to save us, but even if he doesn't, we will still not bow.
They didn't raise an army. They disobeyed.
And then they walked in.
Paul is writing to ordinary Christians about the wrongs done to them and how they should respond.
But there's something the sword can't do.
See, that law only reaches the outside of us.
It punishes what we do with very little to say about what we don't do.
As far as I know, there is no law in Texas that will punish a man for being stingy
or for refusing to lift a finger to help his neighbor get the justice that they're owed.
He can walk past all of that and in the eyes of the law still remain a perfectly righteous man.
None of it is against the law.
In fact, sometimes the sword fails within its own borders.
I mean, look at the authorities that were in power as he's writing this.
Paul is writing to Christians in Rome.
And the servant of God that he's describing, the avenger, the man that does not bear the sword in vain, his name is Nero.
And within a decade of writing this, that servant of God will be killing the very people reading this letter, including Paul.
Paul knew that, and he still wrote it.
But that's Rome.
Nero is not at the top of our minds, I don't think.
But let's bring it a little closer to home.
You know how this feels because you've lived it to varying degrees.
Bosses, managers, HR departments, judges, social workers, police officers, politicians.
The truth is all of us at some level have been let down by the authorities in power around us.
And yet we still pay taxes and revenue and honor and respect.
We want justice, but what are we supposed to do?
Just get over it?
Paul says there is one debt left.
When you've paid all that you owe, there is one debt left.
He says, owe nothing to anything except to love each other.
That sounds doable, doesn't it?
And it sounds doable because he tells us what love looks like by telling us what love doesn't do.
Love does no wrong to a neighbor.
So don't steal from them, don't sleep with their spouse, don't covet their house.
Most of us hear that and we figure we've got a pretty good grasp, pretty good handle on that.
But let's ask Jesus what love means.
John 15, 13, Jesus says greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
Oh.
So that's the debt.
Not politeness, not keeping your hands to yourself, your life.
And Paul says you owe it, not to the people you like, but to your neighbor.
Which typically means the person, rather it not be.
We want the ones who failed us to answer for it.
But then how often do we want to answer for what we failed to do in the eyes of God?
If God's vengeance is real and Paul just told us it is, then it's not only coming for the one who wronged us.
In our Old Testament reading this morning, Ezekiel gets handed an office and it's a terrifying one.
God makes him a watchman and tells him to blow the horn.
And if he doesn't, the blood of the one who dies is on his hands.
Now all three verses of this reading, blood is in every single verse.
Somebody's blood always ends up on somebody else's head.
But a watchman blows a horn for a reason.
He blows it because there's a sword on the way.
And the sword did come.
On the night he was betrayed, Jesus tells his disciples that it's about to happen.
And he quotes the prophet Zechariah saying, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.
The sword that the watchman had been warning about for centuries,
the one meant for the wicked, the one that was coming for us and our sin,
falls on the shepherd instead, rather than the sheep.
Jesus standing before Pilate, this conscious Pilate, this magistrate, this governor,
the man of authority who is holding the sword.
And Pilate says, don't you know that I have the authority to release you or the authority to crucify you?
And Jesus tells him, you would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given to you from above.
And so the very authority that Pilate used to condemn him was authority that Jesus himself had given to him.
He handed the man the sword and then stood still while it came down upon him.
Why?
He said so himself.
No one takes my life from me. I lay it down of my own accord.
Greater love has no one than this.
He laid it down for his friends.
And Paul actually tells us that while we were still enemies, not even friends, Christ died for us.
He was paying the debt that no one else could pay.
And from the cross, nails in his hands and feet, he looked at the soldiers, the high council, the governor.
What did he do when those authorities failed him?
Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
And God did not answer that prayer by striking Pilate down.
Despite a rigged trial, an innocent man dead, lying in a borrowed tomb, instead God on the third day raised him.
God dealt with this total failure by the authorities, not by striking down the guilty, but by lifting up those who had been wronged.
That's what he did with the wrong done to him.
Now look what he did with yours.
The one you owed and never paid.
The love you owed your neighbor and didn't give.
The life you owed and kept to yourself.
It was owed.
And it was collected.
But not from you.
Somebody's blood always ends up on somebody else's head.
Yours ended up on his.
Your account is settled.
There is nothing left with your name on it.
And when he said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do, he wasn't only praying for the soldiers or the council or Pilate.
He was already dying for you.
The forgiveness he asked for from that cross is the same forgiveness that reaches you this morning.
It has your name on it.
So what about the ones that did wrong you?
What are the injustices that you've experienced?
A boss or a judge or an officer, someone who was supposed to come in and fix all your problems but never delivered.
Paul doesn't tell us to stop caring.
He tells us to leave it to God's wrath.
In a sermon on this very text, Luther says that the right response is to pity them.
Pity those who've wronged you.
Because if you take your hands off of it, don't reach for your sword.
They're still not going to get away with it.
In fact, they're falling into the hands of the living God.
You can let go of the weight of that failure or of that injustice, not because it didn't matter, but because it's already been dealt with.
Either it fell on Christ or it will fall on the last day.
Either way, it's not on your shoulders.
And it never was.
In the Lord's Prayer, we say, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
We listen closely to what we're actually asking for there.
You're asking God to hand you what he already bought.
And then to work it through you toward the very person or authority you've been holding a grudge against.
It is the result of what happens when you're forgiven.
God begins to work forgiveness through you to others.
And so the sword is God's.
And it's not yours.
And when it fails, and it will fail, God doesn't hand you a sword.
He hands you a word.
And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Amen.
Please rise.