god’s wrath

Be a Good Citizen

Be a good citizen. All governments are under God. Insofar as there is peace and order, it’s God’s order. So, live responsibly as a citizen. If you’re irresponsible to the state, then you’re irresponsible with God, and God will hold you responsible. Duly constituted authorities are only a threat if you’re trying to get by with something. Decent citizens should have nothing to fear.

Do you want to be on good terms with the government? Be a responsible citizen and you’ll get on just fine, the government working to your advantage. But if you’re breaking the rules right and left, watch out. The police aren’t there just to be admired in their uniforms. God also has an interest in keeping order, and he uses them to do it. That’s why you must live responsibly—not just to avoid punishment but also because it’s the right way to live.

That’s also why you pay taxes—so that an orderly way of life can be maintained. Fulfill your obligations as a citizen. Pay your taxes, pay your bills, respect your leaders. (Romans 13:1-7, The Message)

Deportment Is Expected

Good citizenship, historically in America, was a normal part of conversation. It received a great deal of attention.

Back in the day, when I was in elementary school, every student received a grade on their report card for “citizenship.”  Way back in the day, my Dad’s report cards had grades for “deportment.”

Both “citizenship” and “deportment” were words used by the public-school system to gauge how well individual students behaved in the classroom. The grade was based upon the following:

  • The student’s attitude toward the teacher’s authority
  • The behavior of pupils with their fellow students
  • How students handled the responsibilities of their studies

It was a grade given for the overall obedience and submission of students with their duties and obligations, or the lack thereof.

Since we no longer give grades on citizenship and deportment, Bob insists a careful consideration of good citizenship is in order.

Good Citizenship Is Responsible and Fair

Advocating a favored political philosophy is part of the American democratic system. What’s not part of good citizenship is:

  • Ignoring or avoiding a rival party
  • Having constant bad attitudes about government
  • Being uncivil and disrespectful
  • Digging in with disobedience

That’s all poor deportment and will earn an “F” from God on the report card of life.

Picking-and-choosing which laws I will obey and which ones I will not is very far from biblical teaching. Rebellion against laws I do not like only results in punishment from the principal for being shortsighted and stupid.

On the other hand, blind and unthinking adherence to a government is irresponsible and can be unethical.

Unjust leaders and immoral laws champion certain people and not the common good of all. Such leadership needs to be dislodged and dismantled. When one simply says, “I’m just doing my job,” or “I don’t want to get in trouble,” in the face of unjust laws and leadership, then we are complicit in the perpetuating of the evil person or system.

Blind obedience keeps abusive people in the classroom.

Vigilante-ism is a form of “recess justice.” It’s a refusal to accept what is taking place. It takes matters into one’s own hands.

“Do not take revenge but leave room for God’s wrath…. Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:19, 21)

There is no place for vigilante justice in the kingdom of God. At its basest form, vigilantes are resisting God’s justice and being extremely impatient with the divine plan.

The Good Citizen Is Just and Obedient

Submission is a choice.

The word “submit” in the New Testament means “to place oneself under authority.” In other words, to submit to another person, group, system, or government is a human volitional choice.

Obedience through coercion, as in totalitarian regimes, is not submission – it is oppression.

Good citizenship begins with humble submission to governing authorities. There are good public servants who are trying to do their best and have everyone’s best interests at mind. They enact responsible laws which benefit the common good of all. Most parents and school boards would do well to remember that.

Justice is primarily about provision, not about being punitive.

Many people, if not most, use the term “justice” in the penal sense – wanting convictions and incarcerations when someone has committed a crime against the state and/or humanity. Although this is an important work of government, the biblical sense of justice is about provision – giving people their rights to life and liberty.

Justice ensures that we all exist in an equitable form of union together as one people. It ensures that people don’t fall through the cracks of bureaucracy. Justice provides what they need to survive and thrive.

Only paying attention to constituents who agree with me is an injustice. Many people need a remedy sooner than later – without unjust leaders putting it off to another election cycle.

So, put the spanking paddles of shame away (yes, kids at school got the paddle in my day) and instead find ways to uplift and support one another.

Submits to Authority Characterizes Good Citizenship

Responsible citizens exhibit proper deportment. They submit of their own volition. Good citizens conscientiously give proper payment of taxes for the benefit of all. They provide due respect to public servants.

Keep in mind that the Apostle Paul originally wrote about how to conduct ourselves with government smack in the middle of the Roman Empire. The Romans were often fickle and careless about the rights of Christians, Jews, and others.

We submit not because we must, but because it’s the right thing to do. To do otherwise is to not only violate the law, but also our consciences.

Our conscience needs to be clear about the need for justice in this old fallen world of ours.

A Good Citizen Seeks to Love All

Christians have a continuing and outstanding debt to love one another. Having justice for some and injustice for others is not going to cut it with a Just God.

Our Creator and Sustainer desires that every single individual on planet earth – regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class, or any other human contrived social construct – have their needs met without prejudice, favoritism, or cronyism.

God’s original plan for the world includes an egalitarian society. So, we must be careful to remember and work toward the ideal. At the same, we need to deal graciously and resolutely with the realities of injustice all around us.

Bob, always the tongue-in-cheek sidekick dog, says we all need to attend a human obedience training school.

I wonder what grade Jesus would give America on this Independence Day for our citizenship…?

Read more

A few years back, I was a chaplain in a large care facility. One of the residents was a retired Episcopal priest. He developed a brain tumor and had surgery to remove it. However, getting rid of the tumor damaged his ability to speak.

So, when I came to see him after his return to the nursing home, he labored intensely just to get a simple sentence out. And after each struggle to speak he would swear and utter some expletive, then apologize to me.

Finally, I said to him, “There’s no need to apologize. You have spent your life using words to bless and help others and now that has been robbed of you. You are angry. I am angry. Let’s just sit here and swear together about it!”

We raged together about disease. We swore like sailors about injustice. We cried out to God for vengeance on evil. And I was secretly praying that no one would walk into the room while we were doing this.

I adore the biblical psalms – they encompass the complete range of human emotion. In this past year of pandemic, many have recognized the need for lament, like we find in the psalms. However, I have yet to hear anyone mention another type of psalm, the imprecatory psalm (pronounced im-PRECK-a-tory).

Whereas psalms of lament express deep sadness, imprecatory psalms rage with deep-seated anger.

The term “imprecatory” means to call down a curse on a person or group of people. Maybe this surprises you that there is such language in the Bible.  In fact, there are eighteen such imprecatory psalms which make a clear petition for God to turn the evil back on the people who inflict it (or try to) on others. For example, consider David’s angry plea to God:

You know full well the insults I’ve received;
you know my shame and my disgrace.
All my adversaries are right there in front of you.
Insults have broken my heart.
I’m sick about it.
I hoped for sympathy,
but there wasn’t any;
I hoped for comforters,
but couldn’t find any.
They gave me poison for food.
To quench my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

Let the table before them become a trap,
their offerings a snare.
Let their eyes grow too dim to see;
make their insides tremble constantly.
Pour out your anger on them—
let your burning fury catch them.
Let their camp be devastated;
let no one dwell in their tents.
Because they go after those you’ve already struck;
they talk about the pain of those you’ve already pierced.
Pile guilt on top of their guilt!
Don’t let them come into your righteousness!
Let them be wiped out of the scroll of life!
Let them not be recorded along with the righteous!
And me? I’m afflicted.
I’m full of pain.
Let your salvation keep me safe, God! (Psalm 69:19-29, CEB)

There is nothing sanitized about imprecatory psalms. They are as raw and real as it gets. Whatever you might think about how a proper pious person ought to pray, imprecatory curses are likely not your first thought. But here they are, out there for us to read in the Holy Bible.

One reason for the imprecatory psalms is that it is not any person’s place to engage in revenge or retaliation.  Instead, for people who are genuinely caught in the crosshairs of evil and have terrible trouble dogging them, prayer is their most effective recourse.

Sometimes you must tell it like it is. 

There is a time to do your best in putting up a good face and dealing with people who do not ever stop gossiping, slandering, and trying to get their way. But there is also a time to call such behavior “evil” and cry out to God for help.

There are many folks who consider imprecatory psalms a problem because of their detailed expressions of cursing. Yet, such psalms refuse to put a positive spin on malevolent motives, wicked words, and destructive actions. Desperate people utter desperate prayers. Their unflinching sense of injustice will not allow them to sugarcoat the villainous plans of corrupt people.

Evil is never toppled with tepid prayers from wimpy worshipers.

Rather, nefarious agendas are thwarted in the teeth of specific, focused, and intense prayers directed with spiritual precision to the very core of diabolical forces.

We need not be shy about being real with God, even with praying imprecatory prayers.  There really are people in this world, maybe even in your own life, that have malicious intent against you or others.  Our job is not personal revenge, but to entrust ourselves to the God who fights for the poor, the oppressed, and the needy against the arrogant and the powerful.  Let your prayers reflect your life.

With no cursing of disease, sickness, and death, it comes out sideways in an unkind sort of “snarky-ness” toward each other. What I am proposing is that our anger, our rage, even our vengeance needs recognition, just like our sadness does. Our bitterness must have an outlet, not directed toward one another, but toward the evil itself – and even toward God because God is big enough to handle our rage, whereas other humans are not.

Victimization needs a voice, and a bit of raging and cursing is the means to do it.

Giving voice to our deep anger is cathartic and therapeutic. Our speech needs to be congruent with the intensity of our pain because where there are no valued words of assault for victims, the risk of hurting each other becomes much higher. Despair with no voice and no one to hear will eventually transition to harming others.

Spiritual problems require spiritual implements to solve. And the tool of imprecatory psalms is a major way of not only pushing back the dark forces of this world but is the means of spiritual assertiveness against all forms of heinous acts and acerbic words from depraved people, evil systems, and horrible circumstances. God’s wrath is an expression of God’s love because God is not okay with evil taking root in the lives and institutions of humanity.

Prayer is our privilege of coming to the God who upholds justice and righteousness. For if God is for us, who can be against us?

Read more