17 Honor everyone. Love the family of believers. Fear God. Honor the emperor. – 1 Peter 2:17 (NRSV)
I wonder sometimes if we are in agreement with this verse…until we get to the very end. I can vividly recall a Sunday morning during prayer time when, before leading the prayer, I pulled a slip out of one of the prayer baskets on the altar. It just so happened that the paper I took out was to pray for our President. When I shared with the congregation that this is who I would be praying for that week, you should’ve have seen some of the faces contort and heard the new kind of silence that came over the room.
If we’re totally honest, we don’t always find it easy to honor those in positions of power and authority in our local, state, and national governments. I know what you’re thinking: it would be a whole lot easier to bestow honor on these folks if they lived honorable lives and made honorable decisions. While I can be sympathetic to that train of thought, it’s important for us to realize that there are no caveats listed.
When Peter wrote this letter, he lived in a time when corruption, greed, dishonesty, and selfish gain ruled the day – sound familiar? This was compounded by the fact that Christians were being persecuted all over the Roman Empire and being murdered at astounding rates. The emperor at the time was a man named Nero and he has been noted in history as one of the most wicked men to ever rule. In fact, it’s believed that it was the persecution led by Nero that resulted in the Apostle Peter being martyred.
So how would Peter be able to write these words for the church from a genuine, heartfelt place? It’s because he understood that surrendering His life to Jesus meant to live and love as Christ did. It’s because he understood honor accomplishes more good than hate ever could. It’s because he understood that no one is out of reach of the grace of God. It’s because he understood that his life was ultimately in the hands of God and this world was not home.
Could it be that the new thing Jesus wants to do in His church is to remove the partisan political shouting matches and elevate the prophetic voice He called us to have? It’s been said that the church isn’t supposed to be the voice of any particular political party but instead should be the voice of conscience. What kind of reform could we help lead if we lived out the honor we’re called to show? Could the message of repentance be heard more clearly when the church adopts an attitude and a posture that resembles Jesus? What if honor is the way Jesus intends for the Gospel to make significant advancement?