God protects us from nothing

but sustains us in everything

Photo by Rod Long on Unsplash

In his book The Healing Path, clinical psychologist and spiritual director James Finley writes: “the presence of God… protects us from nothing, even as it inexplicably sustains us amidst the trials and tribulations of this world.”

God does not protect. But God sustains.

This has long been my theology, intellectually speaking. For many years, I have seen Emmanuel — God-with-us — as God’s modus operandi, believing that God chooses to embrace human vulnerability, becoming one of us in order to walk with us through life and death and into life, so that there’s nothing in which we would be alone. So that God might be truly present with us in all things.

I thought I had long outgrown what I tend to think of as vending machine god — you know, the god whom you beg for safety when the airplane starts to shake, or to whom you sigh “thank God,” after narrowly avoiding getting t-boned by a distracted driver. Which is not to say I don’t pray these prayers… I am human! I just don’t think God doles out divine protection on a first-come-first-served basis. Again, my theology is that God is with me in all things — so even these “help me!” prayers are perhaps more affirmations of that than anything.

But…. this Easter season, I am wrestling, in a deeply embodied way, with this theology that God does not protect, but God sustains. The psalmist gives words to my anguish:

“How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all day long?” (Psalm 13:1-2a, NRSV)

Because, when there are so many bodies suffering — vulnerable and unprotected — and especially those of children, I desperately want my childhood theology to be true. I want God to protect. I desperately want God to ensure bodily safety and well-being for those who ask.

A few days ago, I told my spiritual director, “I am angry with God.”

I am angry that God would not protect the people of Palestine from being slaughtered.

I am angry that I am limited in my capacity to keep my own children safe, knowing there is only so much I can do to protect them, that so much is outside of my control.

And I am angry that God would not protect God’s own child from the violent machinations of a hyper-vigilant, self-protective empire. Put simply, I am angry that God let Jesus die.

I am really, really angry with God.

(Perhaps this is not the confession you were expecting to hear from a priest. If that is the case, well… it’s lovely to meet you, fellow human. There’s room for what you’re wrestling with here too).

It was a consolation to encounter another human expressing big feelings about God on Sunday, as one of my favorite stories in scripture was read:

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with [the disciples] when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe." (John 20:19-31, NRSV)

I have often reflected on Thomas’s insistence on seeing and touching Jesus’ wounds. I have preached about how he gets unfairly portrayed as “doubting Thomas,” when it is his insistence on experiential, embodied knowledge that leads to Thomas being the first person whom John records as affirming the risen Christ as God.¹

But until now, I had never considered his anger — nor that of the other disciples, for that matter.

I wonder if he was angry at God for allowing Jesus to be killed. Angry about what the toxic alliance of state and religion had done to his Rabbi. Angry about how Jesus was taken from his disciples in the most brutal and excruciating form of execution imaginable. Angry about the fear these events had inflicted upon the entire community of Jesus-followers. Angry about the uncertainty of the future and his own vulnerability in the face of it.

And I wonder whether all of this anger was a mask for profound, agonizing grief. Thomas’s insistence on data, then, was a means of protecting his own heart from the possibility of being broken anew.

When facing anger, it is so easy to revert to self-protection. To deflect, to defend, to deny. But Jesus chooses not to protect himself in this moment from Thomas’s feelings. Instead, in vulnerability and compassion he opens himself to Thomas. Welcoming Thomas’s need to know, and with it, his anger and grief, Jesus invites his friend to touch his wounds.

This image is much more awe-inspiring to me than, say, Michelangelo’s concept of a sky deity touching fingers, ET style, with the first human. In a moment that is achingly tender, astonishingly intimate and so very loving, God gives access to God’s own broken body. The wounds of Christ speak to the wounded heart of Thomas — and all who would dare to gaze upon them — “You are not alone.”

My spiritual director said to me, “God sustains and does not protect because God longs for us to experience oneness with God.”

God does not insulate us from pain and suffering, or from the grief and anger that accompany this being human.

Instead,

God is wounded with us.

God dies with us.

God grieves with us.

Even in rising to new life, God is still marked by the wounds of the world — changed by being human.

The invitation to reach out and touch these wounds might lead us to understand that the same is possible for us too — that in all the ways we are wounded, we can also choose the way of courageous compassion. Transforming our trauma instead of transmitting it, as Fr. Richard Rohr teaches.

Instead of self-protection, we can open ourselves in vulnerability and tenderness. Our wounds can be windows — portals to oneness with God and one another.

This understanding is what allowed Finley, whose life as a child and young adult was marked by horrific physical, sexual and spiritual abuse, to conclude: “…my trauma was the opening through which God accessed me, sustaining me and letting me know I was not alone in the midst of my difficulties.”

It is important to note that none of this is about trauma for trauma’s sake (or “trauma porn,” as the kids say). The glorification of suffering is ultimately dehumanizing, as it minimizes the lived experience of those experiencing embodied horrors. Anger over the suffering inflicted on others — and that which we have experienced — is a necessary and healthy response.

And, our anger needs somewhere to land. Somewhere where it will be received with compassion and understanding, tenderness instead of defensiveness.

This is where divine solidarity meets us — right smack in the middle of our suffering. This love confers dignity on all who suffer. It keeps our souls intact and soft, capable of being moved by the suffering of others — open to being healed, freed, and changed.

1. Mary Magdalene is the first to declare “I have seen the Lord,” and the other disciples say this too. “Lord” is the Greek kyrios, which means “master.” Thomas adds “my God,” the Greek theos, to his confession.