This past spring my husband and I decided to put a sign in our front yard. It is a sign of welcome to our neighbors, written in English, Spanish, and Arabic. I braced for pushback, but none came. Instead, we have been thanked. We have made new friends. We have gotten a “thumbs up” from a couple of young men from Jordan. We have had happy conversations in Spanish. Our neighborhood turns out to be a place where we remember that all people have their origin in God because God made heaven and earth.
Unfortunately, we often struggle to remember this truth. We make the grave mistake of assuming that the life of faith is about deciding who is in and who is out, who is on our side and who is not.
What if we commit to being on God’s side? What if we decide to love our neighbors as we love God? What if we live out that call in wondrously varied ways? Imagine a society in which embodied compassion is the norm. Imagine choosing to let go of categories of prestige and privilege. Imagine conversa-
tions where we honor the image of God in one another.
Being on God’s side means being friends of God, who has befriended us in Jesus, as we proclaim that everyone comes within Jesus’ saving embrace. Being on God’s side looks like remembering that the Maker of heaven and earth dwells within the cells of every single person and creature on the planet.
In choosing us, God takes the extraordinary risk of hoping we will choose life—not only for ourselves but for our neighbors, our communities, and our earth.