When “God cares” doesn’t cut it – Brad Jersak
I remember the day when the assurance that “God cares” no longer cut it for me. Worse, it felt offensive. It particularly seems trite when we’re faced with the unmitigated affliction of children who suffer war, abuse, disability, disease, and painful death.
God cares? How so? The image that gnawed at my mind and heart and evoked anger was a divine king, seated on a throne, telling me, “I care,”… as in, “I have this caring feeling in my heart toward you,” while failing to provide protection, provision, consolation, or healing as families searched through the rubble of homes flattened by earthquakes or hellfire missiles. God cares? So what?!
We need more than a sympathetic sovereign whose hands are tied. We need a real and active divine Caregiver. I conceived of a Caregiving God after the pattern of caregivers in our local care facilities in my city for people who suffer from disabilities. There, usually four residents requiring full-time care are tended to by caregivers who feed, clothe, and care for their medical needs around the clock. While I truly care about the afflicted who live their lives confined to these homes, so what? They need the practical caregiving of those who faithfully work for them.
I don’t have magical expectations about this. I’m not looking for heavenly wizardry, the suspension of natural laws, or the violation of human freedom we may stumble into under the guise of ‘intervention.’
But at some point, come on! Jesus DID say that our heavenly Father IS a caregiver. Remember these words from Matthew 6?
25 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
28 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Is that true or not? How is it true?
Or again in Matthew 10:
29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. 30 And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
Not one of them falls to the ground outside the Father’s care. “Yes,” said Simone Weil, “but they still fall. All of them. And so do we.” Jesus assures us that his Father is indiscriminate in his mercy, for “the sun shines, and the rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous.” And Weil murmurs, “Yes, the sun and the rain… and also the tornadoes and the locusts.” She wasn’t bitter about that (though I might have been). She just wanted us to be honest about how real life works because the platitudes set you up for a blindside next time you have a house fire, bad biopsy results, or your baby is convulsing with a high fever. Weil wants to push us far enough into the realities of human tragedy until we accept life on life’s terms, admit “It is what it is,” and only then, begin scanning for the divine Caregiver who does indeed care.
God cares? How? Where might I encounter the caregiving heavenly Parent in the real world that St. Paul described as “this present darkness.”
As Desmond Tutu once said at a gathering my son Justice and I attended in Spokane, Washington, back in the day, “For whatever reason, since humankind showed up in the world, God does nothing in this world without a willing human partner. But when God has a willing human partner, even a child with five loaves and two fish, that child also has a divine heavenly Partner, so anything becomes possible.”
So, how does God care? Precisely in and through the human caregivers at the homes of people with disabilities in full-time care. They aren’t miraculously healing their clients as I’d wish, but they are with them today, preparing their lunch, changing their diapers, brushing their teeth, and embodying God’s care in real ways. And if God can offer practical care through willing human partners, it begs the question: what loaves and fish will I bring to the lunch? How will God’s caregiving manifest through me? What space am I giving to God’s work among my neighbors through my hands or feet or eyes or heart or voice? And through whom am I receiving God’s care with gratitude and grace? And to whom can I offer support as they provide caregiving beyond my capacity, gifts, or reach?
As I began to see God’s caregiving as indivisible from those who are willing to partner with him, my eyes were opened to what my priest-friend, Lorie Martin, describes as a web of light… a massive network of quiet and nearly invisible human lights who bring hope, comfort, encouragement, and healing across the globe without fanfare. I don’t need or want an easily corrupted spectacle. It doesn’t look like that.
Divine caregiving looks like the fellow I saw stop and stoop to care for two individuals who were strung out and hunched over on the sidewalk in inner city Vancouver. He helped one of the individuals sit up for a while, gently spoke to her, and then began feeding her little nibbles of a banana. He patiently brought the young woman to some level of consciousness with the first nourishment she’d had in who knows how long. He was like an angel. And then I saw the real miracle. She took the remainder of the banana and leaned over, gently speaking to her partner, lifting his face enough to begin stuffing tiny morsels of fruit through his trembling lips. And I said to God, “There you are.” A little spark of light that looked like kindness and care.
Now, it strikes me that I have been so good at noting the overwhelming cares of the world… they are very real, and they’re probably worse now than at any point in my 60 years. But what Jesus is doing is restoring my vision so I can see his everywhere-present care for the world. Some of the recent instances are so beautiful, personal, and precious to our family that I’m not able to share them publicly. But what I can say is that in each case, we encountered the divine Caregiver through the people who willingly offered even a moment, a hug, or a sentence in service of love. I saw in them the light of the God who cares.
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