In a Time of So Much Human Cruelty, What If God Is One of Us?

"I was hungry and you fed me…thirsty and you gave me something to drink…a stranger and you welcomed me…naked and you gave me clothing…sick and you took care of me…in prison and you visited me….whatever you do for the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you do for me.’”       --Matthew 25, parable told by Jesus, excerpt

What if whenever we donated groceries for a food insecure family or provided free medical care to an indigent person, or whenever we showed mercy to a lonely senior, or visited someone in prison, we were actually caring for God? Actually loving God directly? Seeing God in that hurting person?    

That’s the question Joan Osborne asked in her self-titled 1995 song, “What If God Was One of Us” when she sang, “What if God was one of us, Just a slob like one of us, Just a stranger on the bus, Tryin' to make His way home?”  That’s a pretty radical idea. That God: the creator of all that exists; God, who lit the fuse on the Big Bang; this God is also in you, me, and everyone, but especially in the hurting of our world. God in folks whom society far too often ignores or worse, even hurts, neglects on purpose.

What if God is one of us?

What if God is with the hungry and the thirsty, the tens of thousands of Gazans, waiting in a mile-long queue to find food for their empty bellies? What if God is the stranger, an undocumented person, dragged away by masked agents, stripped of all legal and human rights, detained in an inhumane prison? What if God is one of the 16.9 million Americans who will lose their Medicaid health care coverage under the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” championed by the President and his followers?

I’d say God is “one of us” in a very real ways way. Each of us has inherent worth and dignity because we are made in the image of God. Whenever one of us is treated without mercy, or thrown out on the streets, or deported to a nation where they might be killed, or denied health care, we are doing that to a child of God.

Maybe even to God.

My faith tells me that job one for a Christian is to seek out, see, love and care for the least among us, our brothers and sisters in the family of God.  Now not everyone in my tradition feels or acts this way. Not long after shepherding the “BB Bill” through the House, Speaker Mike Johnson posted on social media.

“‘All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.’” …Then commenting on that Bible passage, Johnson wrote, ‘soli Deo Gloria,’ Latin, meaning ‘glory to God alone.’”

So, let me get this right.

We “glorify God” when we fund a tax cut for the wealthiest by slashing health care for the poor and food stamps for the hungry? The government can choose to give away billions to folks who already don’t pay enough in taxes, but please, PLEASE, don’t attribute such heartless acts as being “of God.” Or blessed by God. Or somehow reflecting God’s will.

God has and will always, be on the side of the powerless, those who have had few powerful friends on Capitol Hill lately. The Bible is very clear about our responsibility as people of faith and humans, to our neighbors.

Deuteronomy 15:11, “For the poor will never cease from the land; therefore, I command you, saying, ‘You shall open your hand wide to your brother, to your poor and your needy, in your land.’ Exodus 22:20-26:”You shall not oppress or hurt the poor. Leviticus 19:9-10. “A portion of the harvest is set aside for the poor and the stranger.” Proverbs 31:8-9, “Speak out in defense of the poor.” Luke 4:16-21, “Jesus proclaims his mission: to bring good  news to the poor and oppressed.” 1 John 3:17-18, “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees one in need and refuses to help?”

And my favorite, Matthew 25:34-40, “What you do for the least among you, you do for me, Jesus.” But when we turn our backs on the lost, lonely, and neglected, we turn our backs on God, in a way. Turn our hearts away from God.

Too many Christian leaders use faith like a fig leaf to cover over the shame of their actions towards the poor. I don’t revel in judging fellow believers, but I cannot stand by when they use the language of faith to justify actions that do not at all reflect God’s love and mercy.

What if God is one of us? What if every time we fail to help the helpless, we fail God? What if when we show mercy and love, we love God?

Something to think and pray on in these troubling times.

(The views expressed in this essay do not necessarily reflect the views of the people and church I serve nor the United Church of Christ.)

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.

 

 

     

Good or Great? America: What Will It Be?

 

"America will be great if America is good. If not, her greatness will vanish away like a morning cloud".     --The Reverend Andrew Reed, English Congregational minister, 1830

Are we the good guys anymore? America?

My God I so want to believe in this ideal, this myth, this civic self-understanding and shared aspirational dream. I think we might have once seen ourselves as good.  

Good. As in decent, humane, merciful, and generous.

The kind of nation that takes good care of its own, especially the poor and vulnerable, the unhoused, the ill clothed, the unemployed, and the sick. Can we claim that truth? Are we a nation that can be depended upon by our allies, that when freedom is on the line in some far away place, America will always stand with those peoples who seek to be free?  

Is that us?

Are we a country that still remembers that so much of our cultural vibrancy and economic strength comes from migrants and immigrants, folks who travel to our shores and borders seeking a new home and new opportunities? My paternal great-grandfather Edward believed that when he came here in 1876 from Ireland as did my maternal grandfather Armand, who immigrated from Canada in the early 1930’s. Both sought work and a new life.

Would those men be welcomed today? Or maybe turned away? Or who knows? Tracked down by masked government agents, arrested without a court hearing, thrown in an anonymous black van, then whisked away to some secret prison, maybe even never to be heard from again.

I still want to believe that America celebrates religious diversity, that our country is a place where you can believe what you want, and you can choose not to believe too. Whether Christian or Jew or Muslim or agnostic or atheist, America is supposed to be a place that honors and respects freedom of religion and freedom from religion too. Our founding forebears, the ones who put their signatures on the Declaration of Independence on July 4^th, 1776: do we really imagine they would have favored a Christian theocracy, or Christian nationalism? Seriously?      

Freedom of thought and speech and freedom of the press: those still apply here, right? That you or I can be flag waving or flag burning patriots and trust that those rights are both guaranteed by our Constitution.  How amazing is that?

I mean I think that the press’ job is still to be a bulldog when it comes to the government, to cover Uncle Sam without fear or favor.  I don’t think our press is supposed to be like a fawning little puppy or fox, yapping out “HURRAH!” anytime those in power pass this law or approve that budget. 

Should we be worried when a major news outlet pays $16 million to the President because his feelings were hurt by a new story? You’d think “No way!” That could never happen. Certainly not in a news organization whose forebears include Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite.

And yet this week that’s exactly what happened.

Can we be good, America, without a free and courageous press? I don’t think so.

And as the Declaration we’ll all celebrate on 4^th says, “The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.” Translation: no Kings in America, then, now, or ever. And also, no dictators, no tyrants, no despots, no bullies, and certainly no civilian head of government with too much unchecked, unchallenged power.

Two hundred and forty-nine years ago, we left behind the monarchy and all the tyranny that always comes when too much power is given to too few, or to the one. Some may think that is great. But not me. Wannabee royalty is never good for America.

Not in 1776. Not in 2025.

Good or great?  What will it be America? Thank God that choice is still in the hands of we the people. Happy Independence Day!

(The views expressed in this essay do not necessarily reflect the views of the people and church I serve nor the United Church of Christ.)

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.