on submission

(This is excerpted from my December Tethered Letter, a monthly long-form letter including reflections on faith, creativity, and home life along with the latest news and recommendations. You can sign up to receive these here. )

Recently I’ve been wrestling with what it means to live in a posture of submission. Submission, in a few words, is accepting where we’re placed, taking up the responsibility bestowed on us in that place. Inherent in the concept is that we are submitting to a particular authority who has been placed over us.

These days a lot of people are talking about submission, whether they realize it or not. We’re in heated debates around the clock about what we’re to do with all of these authorities in our lives, passing down public health regulations, or perpetuating broken unjust systems, or seeking to overturn lawful systems. What do we do when the local church we’re a part of decides to do something we don’t think is right? What do we do when our state or national leaders do the same? How do we even know what’s right in a given situation? Do we protest? At what point do we rebel? Do we sit down and shut up and see what happens? 2020 has brought this question to the forefront: whom do we serve?

Our typical response to this question places authorities in our lives in opposition to each other. We say “I serve God alone,” which is true at its core, but is usually said in the context of refusing to submit to the authorities God has placed in our lives. I find it striking that throughout 2020 believers on all sides of the political spectrum have been using this phrase. I have used it more times than I care to count – to make a point, to justify my actions and the actions of others, to affirm the truth, to affirm myself in the eyes of others. Our motivations are never just holy or evil, it seems, but always a tangled mess of affections driving us in opposing directions.

I’ve come to believe that for followers of Christ, submission goes deeper than a tacit affirmation of God’s authority over all other authorities. Submission to authority, in Scripture, is one of the most powerful and holy postures we could ever take. And of course, that means it is the hardest one for us to assume.

Peter makes a point of its importance in 1 Peter 2:

“Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, 14 or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. 15 For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. 16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. 17 Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.”

Submission to God (the Final Authority) necessarily puts us in submission to the human, flawed authorities He places over us – family, church, and state. It also puts us in a place of submission to those around us; we are to honor everyone, to submit to one another (Ephesians 5). These are not, ultimately, to be warring circles of authority. They are separate, yet they are interlocking. The authorities in these circles carry responsibilities that differ from circle to circle. Parents nurture and discipline their children. The church nurtures and disciplines the saints. The state nurtures and disciplines society. The state is not ultimately responsible to raise and discipline my child, unless I abdicate that role in some form. The church is not responsible to govern the nation, and the nation is not responsible to care for the spiritual life of its people.

These are all things that bear more clarification and in-depth wrestling than I have time for in this letter, of course. My point is not so much about the particulars of each sphere of authority. My point is that God ordains and appoints them all. Too often we use this truth as a Band-aid, or an excuse. We should never downplay the suffering that comes from abusive and unjust leadership. Just because God appoints an authority does not mean that person’s actions pleases Him. The great truth that God appoints every authority in our lives is not a justification for the actions of those authorities. Rather, it is the structure by which He preserves the fallen human race, punishing those who do evil and rewarding those who do good; it is, in the end, a mercy.

So we, who serve Him, who submit to Him as His children – what are we to do with these authorities? Scripture is clear: submit, with the only exception being when they ask us to sin against God. Submission must predicate and transform every interaction we have with authority, including (especially) confrontation.

Unfortunately, I tend to use my freedom as a justification for rebellion, without first doing the hard work of submission. I am free, yes, but I am also under people in authority – authority that God has given to them. The picture that Peter paints (and Paul in Romans 13) is prioritizing submission, even when it is to extremely ungodly leaders. We display humility in the good work of submission so that we have favor in their eyes when the time comes to confront them.

In essence, we are to imitate Christ. We are to live in the light of the Incarnate Word.

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“Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.”

The truth of Christmas is encapsulated in Christ’s submission to His Father – a child taking the nature of a servant. Christ did not use His freedom and equality with God as an excuse to avoid what His Father was asking of Him – which included submitting to the most unjust acts in the history of humankind. And in this act of submission, we see a power beyond any that authority can offer. It is precisely because Jesus submitted Himself to incarnational life, death, and resurrection that He is given the highest place of authority.

Likewise, the power of God lives in us when we submit – to our state leaders, to our church leaders, to our family leaders, and to each other. It does not live in us when we demand our rights. It does not live in us when we seek to overthrow the authorities God has put in place. It lives in us when we follow the example of Christ, who came as a child – the lowest in every circle of authority, the least of these. May His Name be lifted up above every name. May it be that every knee bows and every tongue confesses that He is Lord.

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At the beginning of 2020, Philippians 3:10-14 was lodged in my heart in the first few weeks of January. This passage became a lifeline for me throughout this year, a directional goal – to partake in the sufferings of Christ and in the new life He offers. This year, I’m taking a step back (one chapter back, it seems) toward understanding what it means to actively and passionately submit like Christ did, to more deeply partake in His death and life, to submit in love to those around me. I don’t know how to do this, and I don’t do it well. I only know that the more I look to Christ, the more I will see what it means to submit to God and those around me.

This is what the incarnation of Jesus Christ – the core of Christmas – is all about. And this year, regardless of who’s in power where and for how long, I am determined to enter into the joy and peace of that submission, celebrating the Living God Who came down to our level, that He might bring us up to His.