With Us in Battle

This sermon is dedicated to the men and women who serve our country, especially those who have died in the line of duty. I am convinced that God doesn't take a side in our political squabbles, but that God DOES stay at the right hand of every soldier, sailor, or pilot who is ready to die for the greater good. Let us never forget them.

 “Where is God in the midst of war?” That is a real issue for every soldier, sailor, or pilot who professes to being a Christian. Enlisted men and women who wrestle with that question keep military chaplains very busy, indeed. For some Christians, that answer is easy. Jesus taught us to love our enemies, to pray for those who persecute us, and to turn the other cheek. So, some folks conclude that God wants nothing to do with war. These people are pacifists, and they refuse to fight under any circumstances.

But two facts argue against this conclusion. The first is that our world isn’t what it is supposed to be. While God wants only peace and wholeness for all people, there is always somebody who wants to take away what we have for their own benefit. Sometimes that means that we have to take up arms against them. Imagine what our world would be like now if we had allowed Hitler to continue with his ambitions!

And the second fact is that God has always been connected with war in one way or another. The Old Testament is full of stories about God fighting on behalf of God’s people. These stories are rooted in the ancient belief that every tribe had its own god; and that one of the jobs of that god was to go to battle on behalf of the people who worshipped him. Victory in battle proved that you worshipped the biggest, baddest god on the block. Israel was no different. They relied on Yahweh to lead them into war and to fight for them, as this morning’s reading makes clear (Deuteronomy 20:1-4). That belief was a part of their faith until the Babylonian Exile forced them to reexamine it. (But that’s a topic for another sermon…)

Lots of people still believe this way. The news these days is full of reports about radical Muslims praying to Allah as they kill those who don’t believe exactly as they do. The terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center on 9/11 did just that. But some Christians buy into this kind of thinking, too. Because we believe that God loves us (which God does) and because we see ourselves as faithful Christians (which, in most cases, we are), we fall into the trap of believing that God takes our side in armed conflicts. And that I’m not so sure about.

Even the portions of the Old Testament that are convinced that God goes to war for us have some stories tucked in out-of-the-way corners that cause us to think again. The book of Joshua, for example, contains a little story about an angel who meets Joshua on the evening of a crucial battle. Now, if anyone had the right to expect God to fight for him, it was Joshua! He had been commissioned by Moses himself to take command of the Israelites after Moses’ death. Under Joshua’s leadership, God’s people crossed the Jordan River; and Joshua led them in battle against the Canaanites in order to have a safe home in the Promised Land. On the eve of the battle of Jericho – a battle that, by the way, he was fighting on God’s orders – Joshua had a very puzzling encounter. This is how the book of Joshua tells it: “Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, ‘Are you for us or for our enemies?’ ‘Neither,’ he replied, ‘but as commander of the army of the Lord I have come.’” (Joshua 5:13-14)  Neither for them nor against them? Why, then, is that angel there at all? Maybe it was to remind Joshua that God is far above our political concerns. God is above “taking sides.” Taking sides is for fifth-graders on the playground who are caught up in the middle of petty squabbles. We expect fifth-graders to choose up sides, and to side with their friends. But God? God doesn’t take sides. On the contrary, we are the ones who are called by God to take a side! In the battles that we fight, are we for God… or are we against God?

A story is told about President Abraham Lincoln as he struggled with difficult decisions in the midst of the Civil War. He had invited a group of leaders to the White House to help him in making some of those decisions; and at the end of the meeting one of those leaders asked, “Mr. President, can we pray that God stays on our side?” Lincoln’s wise response was, “Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side. My greatest concern is whether we are on God's side.” No, God doesn’t take sides. After all, both North and South were convinced that God was on their side! On the contrary, we are the ones who are called to take sides; and we are called to be on God’s side.

Are we on God’s side? In particular, are we on God’s side when we must go to war? Surely every soldier is on God’s side when he or she is willing to lay down his life for the good of her country! In the Gospel of John Jesus says, “Greater love has no one than this, that they are willing to lay down their life for their friends.” Sacrifice for a greater good is surely taking the side of a God who has sacrificed himself for our welfare!

And that brings us back to our original question, “Where is God in the midst of war?” If we can’t say that God is on our side politically when we go to war; then where is God, anyway? The story of Joshua meeting the angel might give us a clue to the answer. Although God may not be leading us in battle, fighting for us or against us, God presence will surely be at the side of every single soldier. God certainly is on our side when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves for a greater good. Wherever our soldiers are called to fight; whatever they are called to do in battle; and whether they live or die, God has promised to be at their side.

God has been at the side of our soldiers down throughout our history.

God stood at Lexington when the Minutemen took their first shots at the British, and God shivered with Washington’s troops in the bitter cold of Valley Forge.
God was with our troops at Fort McHenry as the British rained bombs on it; and God stood next to Francis Scott Key on a ship in the harbor as he wrote “The Star Spangled Banner.”
God took cover with the Yanks in the Bloody Lane at Antietam, and charged bravely forward with the Rebels under General Pickett at Gettysburg.
God endured the mud of the trenches during World War I, and walked among the poppies in Flanders Fields where our dead are buried.
God flew with the pilots of the Royal Air Force during the Battle of Britain, and waded ashore with our GIs into the hell that was Omaha Beach.
God sweltered in the steaming jungle rivers of Vietnam, and endured captivity with our prisoners of war in the Hanoi Hilton.
And even today, God stands guard duty in the burning heat of the deserts of Afghanistan.

Wherever there are soldiers, sailors, or pilots who are willing to lay down their lives for those of us at home, God is there, too – with them in battle, in life and in death.

Thanks be to God for his presence with them.
And thanks to them for their courage and their commitment. We will never forget.