QUOTING SCRIPTURE TO JUSTIFY THE UNJUSTIFIABLE

NOTE:  Last Sunday we interrupted our Summer Sermon Series to look into the current national uproar over detaining and separating immigrant children from their families and the use of scripture to justify these actions.  There was no set sermon.  To set the stage for our discussion, we presented some relevant bits from scripture as well as other information that was current in the larger conversation and then we attempted to separate fact from myth.

Romans 13:1-14
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God.  Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.  For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.  Do you wish to have no fear of the authority?  Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval;  for it is God’s servant for your good.  But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain!  It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer.  Therefore one must be subject, not only because of wrath but also because of conscience.  For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, busy with this very thing.  

We began with a story that in currently circulating on the internet, pointing out that we cannot verify whether it is truth or not but given all that we are seeing and hearing it is entirely possible:

• from fb – 6-16-18
• This is real, folks.  A friend who is a flight attendant posted it this morning.  God, forgive us.
• "Through all the adversities we faced last evening with computer outages, cancellations and delays, nothing prepared me or my crew for 16 passengers.  Sixteen.  All dressed in black and gray cheap Walmart sweat suits, quietly boarding the 12:30am flight.
• "Children!  Thirty-two scared eyes looking straight forward dazed.  We try to speak, yet none speak English.
• "During the beverage service, one of the crew comes to me in tears.  They can’t face these children that have been ripped from their families with a smile.
• "These children were probably ranging in age from 11, to the most adorable little girl maybe 6 years old.  At 2:30 in the morning, deplaned here in Miami not knowing if they will ever see their loved ones again that they were separated from in Phoenix.
• "Those sweet innocent children, dressed as criminals silently deplaned with the same fear as our initial meeting.  Except for the little girl.  She looked up at me as she turned left for the main cabin door, with tears of fear streaming down her face.  I’m not sure the protocol, but I leaned over hoping to offer some hope, she hugged me, which was returned - much to the scowl and comments from the adult escort.
• "I pray that these 16 scared little souls, as well as all the other thousands, find their way to reuniting with their loved ones.
• We are trained yearly in hundreds of possible scenarios as attendants.  Something like this isn’t remotely one of those.  I had only met one of my crew a few years earlier, the rest never.  Thank God, we had one another to lean on to not only get through the flight, but also maybe some glimmer of hope for those babies."

We then read the quoted passage from Romans 13.  To set the context for using any one passage as justification, we followed that with a few choice bits from the Old Testament and considered using them instead:

• Genesis 7:21-23, in which God drowns the entire population of the earth: men, women, children, fetuses, and animals.
• Exodus 12:29, in which God slaughters all Egyptian firstborn children and cattle because their king was stubborn.
• Numbers 16:41-49, in which the Israelites complain that God is killing too many of them. So, God sends a plague that kills 14,000 more of them.
• 1 Samuel 6:19, in which God kills 50,000 men for peeking into the ark of the covenant.
• Numbers 31:7-18, in which the Israelites kill all the Midianites except for the virgins, whom they are allowed to rape as spoils of war.
• 2 Kings 2:23-24, in which some kids tease the prophet Elisha, and God sends bears to dismember them.

​​​No one -- we hope -- would use any of these to justify our nation's actions against children and yet there they are in scripture.  We then went on to read the next few verses of Romans 13 - verses that were left out of AG Session's justification:

• Love for One Another
• Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.  The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

​And finally, we finished with Matthew 18:1-7:

• At about the same time, the disciples came to Jesus asking, “Who gets the highest rank in God’s kingdom?”
• For an answer Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, and said, “I’m telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you’re not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in.  Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God’s kingdom.  What’s more, when you receive the childlike on my account, it’s the same as receiving me.
• “But if you give them a hard time, bullying or taking advantage of their simple trust, you’ll soon wish you hadn’t.  You’d be better off dropped in the middle of the lake with a millstone around your neck.  Doom to the world for giving these God-believing children a hard time!  Hard times are inevitable, but you don’t have to make it worse—and it’s doomsday to you if you do. ​

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And then we talked about it all -- for a long time.  Since it would be impossible to recreate a free-ranging conversation.  I will simply say, I love this community of believers and seekers.