God on our side

A friend showed me a photo he had taken in a parking lot of a slogan emblazoned in vinyl letters on the window of an SUV: Faith Family Firearms. The magical and musical alliteration of this phrase is not lost on me.  Nor is it lost on me that it was not on the window of a Prius.  But it does evoke a number of vivid images - family at table with shotguns along with napkins and side plates – or perhaps the favorite Christmas Oratorio, Handel’s Hallelujah and Handguns Chorus.

I realize that this slogan is a political one  - one of many in the highly polarized public square here in the United States.

What interests me though, beyond knowing when I can buy tickets to the oratorio, is the “faith” part that ultimately seeks to connect God with this political cause.   There is an assumption, or better articulated a presumption, that God is on the side of the gun lobby.  God is above all of these things and does not take sides, since he is God of all.  Right?  I’m not so sure – gun lobby aside.

It would seem in reading the scriptures that God is partial, he does have favorites.  His choosing of Abraham and his seed is a rather significant indication.  All through the Old Testament we are face to face with a God who takes sides.  Despite his partiality, however, he does not always give the upper hand to his chosen people.  If you read through the history of the kings of Israel, you will see that they often consult the Lord before going to battle and discern that their enemies will or will not be given into their hand.  And at times they don’t bother to consult, usually with disastrous results.

It is a good thing to live in the conviction that the favor of God is upon us.  It is a bad thing to then assume that means he supports our every action or cause, political or personal.  The Israelites knew they were God’s chosen people, but did not fall into presumption that they were always right or would always be successful.  This is evidenced by the fact that they actually consulted the Lord.  They did not presume his support but sought it first.

We see also that God shows favor in the psalms.  Psalm 124 begins:

If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, let Israel now say
if it had not been the Lord who was on our side

when people rose up against us,

then they would have swallowed us up alive,
when their anger was kindled against us;
then the flood would have swept  us away,

the torrent would have gone over us;
then over us would have gone the raging waters.

There is humility, not presumption here, underlined by the fact that the psalmist sees God’s favor in retrospect.  Nice use of past tense here:  “If it had not been the Lord who was on our side.”  In looking back, I see the favor of God as he acts on my behalf, not before.  We see in retrospect, that God has been for us.

Jesus, as always, is our model in this, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing. “ (Philippians 2:6-7)  

Presumption creates in us an arrogance or entitlement.  The retrospective observation that the Lord was on our side creates only thankfulness, as we see in Psalm 124:

Blessed be the Lord,
who has not given us
as prey to their teeth!
We have escaped like a bird
from the snare of the fowlers;
the snare is broken,
and we have escaped!
Our help is in the name of the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.