Peace and Quiet

October 5, 2025 sermon at Ascension Lutheran Church, Montreal, QC by Rev. Charles St-Onge. Text: 1 Timothy 2:1-4.

Transcript

It’s the cry of parents everywhere: “All I want is some peace and quiet.” The Quebec group La Chicane put it this way in their song, “Until Sunday”: “Until Sunday, I’m taking a vacation from my life. I’m jumping in my car and going away to crash. Anywhere where it’s warm and I don’t need to think. Somewhere I can unplug and disconnect. Somewhere there’s no one but me.”

That isn’t the kind of peace and quiet Paul is thinking about, but it comes from the same desire to get away from the chaos of sin to a better place. It’s the peace and quiet of neighbours living together well, going about their business and, as my youngest would say, “being no drama llamas.”

God is a god of order. Paul writes to the Corinthian church that “God is not a God of confusion but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33). The entire bible book of Leviticus is devoted to keeping things legal and organized and curbing our desire for revenge. The fourth of the ten commandments given to Moses was about honouring our fathers and mothers to that there would be peace in the land. That means showing respect for kings and those in authority as well. 

Martin Luther explained why this can be hard. “We certainly feel our misfortune, and we grumble and complain about unfaithfulness, violence, and injustice. But we are unwilling to see that we ourselves are scoundrels who have rightly deserved punishment and are in no way better because of it. We spurn grace and blessing; therefore, it is only fair that we have nothing but misfortune without any mercy.” (Martyin Luther, Large Catechism, 4th Commandment)

Paul wants us to live peaceful and quiet lives, and that means giving thanks even for our governments. But what should we Christians do when our governments do not bring peace and quiet? What do we do when our political leaders seem to relish disorder and chaos? The Lord makes two good points about this in the letters of Paul the Apostle 

First, we must recognize that we are sinners governed by other sinners. This is true both of how Jesus leads on the right in the Church and how he leads on the left in our worldly governments. On October 26 we’ll remember the German reformation of the Christian church that started over 500 years ago. Sinful humans had forgotten that the Church exists to freely proclaim the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ. If reformation was needed among the humans who read the Scriptures and praise the Lord, don’t you imagine it might more often be needed within our governments, even as Luther wrote? 

How do we know when a government is need of reform? Luther also wrote that the “natural human propensity is not to act with justice, let alone decency, but rather as a judge in one’s own case.” Three centuries later Lord Acton of the United Kingdom would put it this way: “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” But governments always involve exorcising power. So corruption is bound to creep in and need adjustments from time to time. 

In his booklet on whether Christians could serve as soldiers, Luther reminded his readers that “All laws that regulate men’s actions must be subject to justice, their mistress, because of the innumerable and varied circumstances which no one can anticipate or set down.” When a government becomes more fixated on the law than on justice, an adjustment is probably due. As the Lord spoke through the prophet Isaiah: 

1 Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees,
    and the writers who keep writing oppression,
2 to turn aside the needy from justice
    and to rob the poor of my people of their right,
that widows may be their spoil,
    and that they may make the fatherless their prey! (Isaiah 10:1-2, ESV)

There has never been a perfect government in the history of our fallen world. They go through better times, then they decline, then they get reformed, and the cycle repeats. Here’s just one example. Who do you think said this? “There was little help to be had from the laws, which were constantly undermined by violence, political engineering, and, most importantly, graft.” It was not written about our modern world, but rather by Tacitus, a Roman historian, who lived in the generation after the Paul the Apostle himself. 

We obey the government – more than that, we give thanks that we even have a government, however imperfect - not because it is a beautiful, perfect reflection of the Lord’s will, but because God is a God of order and, to paraphrase Churchill, the Lord governs through terrible governments that are better than anything else we’ve come up with. 

Second, and even more important, Christians are to respond to whatever government they have in prayer. “I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions.” We beg the Lord to give wisdom to our leaders, we intercede for those in need of governance, and we give thanks that the world is not in complete chaos because of our sins. 

We pray not just individually but collectively in worship. We come together in a calm and collected assembly. We peacefully and quietly receive instruction in the Word, receiving God’s gifts, and are thereby strengthened to go out into the chaos of the world as salt and light.

Christians support the government while being in and of themselves a higher government, and displaying that in how they interact with each other and their neighbours. We don’t ask “is this legal,” or even “is this moral,” but “is this right and God-pleasing”? Is this appropriate for those redeemed by the cross of Jesus Christ?

Consider the crucifixion. Jesus, God’s son, was obedient, but obedience of such a kind that it shamed not him but we who crucified him. It made us look like fools and revealed how something “perfectly legal” could obviously be cruel and unjust. Slowly, over time, a government in need of reform changed. You can believe that change happened because faithful Christians modelled a different way, and even under the most corrupt of systems, interceded for the king and other authorities. 

Let us then give thanks for the peace and quiet we have, however imperfect it might be. As they say in Minnesota, things can always be worse. We thank the Lord Jesus, who redeemed us by his blood, that they are not. Amen.