Is God on our side?

How just a few responses to a recent sermon of mine illuminated the text and my message even more.

For all my years of ministry, sermon response, which was sometimes called talk back, has been a valuable aspect of worship. Rather than the pastor going up as an expert and being unquestioned, the churches that I’ve pastored have valued communal response to the sermon. I greatly value hearing from the congregation after I share and I have been enriched by it time and again.

Recently, in my effort to slow us down and embrace the provision and protection of God, I remarked that our greatest power against evil forces doesn’t come from our earthly power but rather from the fact that God is on our side.

That phrase—“God is on our side”—is a powerful one and one that has been abused and is currently being abused by Christian nationalists. So, of course, some of the respondents to my sermon had some questions about my usage and I honor their questions. It’s worth some talk back.

What’s the difference between a lover of justice saying God is on their side, as opposed to a Christian nationalist? Naturally, there are genuine political differences, but if both groups think they have the allegiance of God in their politics, we run into some major issues.

Are we just creating God in our own image? Are we considering our own politics and then just assuming God sides with us? There are real consequences to such language and behavior, not to mention a genuine lack of humility. While I do think God is on the side of the poor and oppressed, I don’t think we could haphazardly speak for God as such.

Instead, we should be less concerned with whether God is on our side, but rather, whether we are on God’s. We should be forming ourselves to the politics of God, as we discern it across time and in our community, not forming God to our own politics.

Of course, that’s easier said than done. In fact, most people who utter that phrase—“God is on our side”—probably think they do that very discernment. Most professing Christians think they are doing what Jesus would do. Every Christian believes that they are Christ-centered. I laughed recently when one resigning pastor left their church to pursue more “Jesus-centric” movements. Quite a dis at wherever she was leaving!

At my most gracious, I think we’re all trying to follow Jesus as closely as we can. But an openness to being wrong, to learning, and to growing is essential to our discipleship. Rather than pronounce that God is on our side, which I did (thank God for the wisdom of my congregation), we should be aspiring to be on the side of God, and never rest on our laurels.

For my part, from what I can discern from the scriptures and from our tradition, God is on the side of the lowly and the destitute, the poor and the oppressed. God liberated the Israelites from enslavement, and honored Israel’s fidelity to God when they did not pursue worldly power. When Jesus arrived on earth, he announced he was there to liberate the oppressed and bring good news to the poor and the needy. Mary declared that he would fill the hungry and send the rich away empty. God’s allegiance to the oppressed is what should inform our political posture.

God’s preferential option for the poor, as it has been called, poses an uncomfortable question for the many. I wrote briefly about this in “Jesus Takes a Side”, where I asked:

“If God is for the oppressed, is God for me? Perhaps the better question is: Are you for God? Will you be on God’s side? Will you take the side of the oppressed? What does that mean for your life and your political commitments? What will it cost you and what are you willing to renounce as belonging to God, not to you?”

The oppression we face isn’t just a matter of individuals, but rather systems of oppression. As individuals, we are going to be both victims and perpetrators of oppression, regardless of our social location. We live in this world and are tied to its broken systems. As we interrogate ourselves, we must focus our action on confronting these systems, and that should not and cannot be reduced to individuals and their own politics. It’s so easy to point the finger. But our struggle isn’t against people, but against the principalities and powers that cause death and oppression. We must root our action in disrupting and agitating and changing those systems, while considering all those who are affected by them to join God in this anti-oppression work.

The Spirit continues to move in this world, and if we feel settled about God’s alliance with our politics, we may miss where She is going. We have to remain agile and nimble as we follow Jesus, while also holding on to the openness so we can continue to move where God is going next. It can be hard to have such a posture because it is difficult to admit when we are wrong and when we’ve missed the mark. We might feel defensive or be in denial about how we’ve caused or advanced harm. But God is gracious and God’s love doesn’t fail us. It’s never too late to turn around, to do something new, to learn something differently, to grow in a different direction.

God is always present and always faithful. In the sense that God wants us to be cooperating for oppression and death to end, God is on our side. We are on God’s side when we act for freedom for the afflicted. May we continually be formed to follow God radically as a liberator of the oppressed.