Thomas Oord’s book, God Can’t, has taken us on a journey that has helped both deconstruct some unhelpful and probably unexamined theological beliefs, and has also served to offer insight into new ideas that work toward reconstructing a sound theology as it relates to God, free will, determinism, and evil in the world. Oord has encouraged us to embrace the following ideas: God can’t prevent evil singlehandedly, God feels our pain, God works to heal, and God squeezes good from bad. In conclusion, Oord addresses one last piece that we need for our reconstructive purposes: God needs our cooperation.
This concept may make us extremely uncomfortable if we hold a belief that keeps God powerful in the sense that God doesn’t really need anyone or anything to do whatever God wants to do. We may be more comfortable with the more popularized concept that God invites us to cooperate, which is quite different. Oord notes:
Many people accept the less radical form of this fifth belief. It says God invites us to cooperate with God’s work to promote healing, goodness, and love. We can participate in God’s plan to make our lives and the world better… The more radical form says God needs us and others for love to win. Our contributions are essential to establishing overall well-being. Without cooperation, God cannot attain these positive outcomes. Creatures play a necessary part in God’s goals to restore creation and help us all flourish (Oord, God Can’t, 95).
Oord understands this cooperative dance with God as indispensable love synergy:
Indispensable love synergy. Synergy means energies or actions working together. It comes from the Greek word synergeo, and biblical writers use it to describe creatures working with God. Indispensable indicates that God requires creaturely cooperation for love to reign. Neither God nor creatures generate positive outcomes alone. The “love” in “indispensable love synergy” identifies God’s way of working and how we must respond to experience true happiness. God needs our positive responses to foster flourishing… Not even God can save the world singlehandedly… Indispensable love synergy implies that what we do matters. Really matters. Our lives are not extraneous; our actions are consequential. We make an ultimate difference — to ourselves, to others, and to God. Our lives and actions count! (95-96)
If we have eyes to see this, we realize this is the dominant reality throughout the Bible. Even in the Jewish myth of Noah and the Ark, God doesn’t drop a container ship out of the sky ready to load up the animals. Throughout the Bible people experience the nudge of God to move forward with what God is doing. God needed Abraham to move away from his homeland to what would become Israel in order to create a new faith community and people. God needed Moses to go back and challenge Pharaoh. God needed Joshua to lead the charge into the Promised Land. Fast forward: God needed Jesus to say “Yes!” countless times to communicate, model, and embed the Good News with those he encountered. God needed the disciples to do the same to move the Good News from a very localized Jewish movement to a global, multi-cultural phenomenon. Oord notes, “Indispensable love synergy says creatures must cooperate with God for love to reign. My friend Nikki nicely sums up what’s at stake: ‘If God needs me to co-labor with God’s loving plan, then the people around me literally need me to act. They need me to do what God wants done to bring about peace, harmony, justice, etc.’” (104).
Because God’s love is uncontrolling, and because God is Spirit, God needs physical people with hands and feet and mouths and wallets with open minds and hearts to follow God’s lead. How do we foster cooperation with God in indispensable love synergy? Oord:
The psychologist-theologian Mark Gregory Karris captures the meaning of love synergy when he talks about “conspiring prayer.” In this form of prayer, “We create space in our busy lives to align our hearts with God’s heart, where our spirit and God’s Spirit breathe harmoniously together, and where we plot together to overcome evil with acts of love and goodness.”… Karris says the traditional view of petitionary prayer considers God the sole agent of change. It’s like rubbing a rabbit’s foot and hoping something magical happens. “The petitioner believes that if she prays hard enough and with the right words along with the right behavior, God will, without any cooperation from other agencies, instantly fulfill the request.” By contrast, says Karris, conspiring prayer “is a collaborative dialogue, a friendship, a two-way street, an intimate dance between lovers…” When I pray, I share my worries, concerns, requests, and more. I “listen” for a still small “voice,” believing that although I may be mistaken, that “voice” may be God calling me to love a particular way. I ask God how I might play a role in establishing compassion and justice in the world. I thank God for working beyond my small sphere of influence. And I often commit to imitating the loving ways of Jesus (105).
I appreciate Oord noting that he may get it wrong. Truly, we all have the capacity to both get it right, kind of right, and really wrong depending on how clogged our ears are with our personal inculturation. The Apostle Paul penned a verse that, properly translated, gives up hope even if we are off at times:
We are assured and know that [God being a partner in their labor] all things work together and are [fitting into a plan] for good to and for those who love God and are called according to [His] design and purpose. (Romans 8:28 Amplified Bible)
God is our partner, working a plan with unconditional and uncontrolling love as God seeks to work with us in the renewal of all things. When I was wondering whether I should stay put as a pastor in Illinois, or start a new church in the Kansas City area, or come to Napa, I called a seasoned pastor to get his input. He said that if I had done all the due diligence work necessary, was doing my best to discern God’s voice, and my intentions were to honor God, I really couldn’t go wrong. God would work with me in the decision I made. That brought great comfort. Still, the process can be laden with real fear and anxiety, as Oord admits:
I sometimes fear what government or religious leaders might do to me and others. I fear I will succumb to unhealthy desires for fame, power, and wealth. I’m afraid my children will make foolish decisions. I fear I’ll die before I grow old, although I fear the aches of growing old too! I’m afraid I’ll make sexual choices that hurt my wife and others. I fear what the earth will be like for me and others because of climate change. I fear violence, war, and torture. I’m afraid I’ll be betrayed or falsely accused. I fear I’ll grow tired of fighting for what’s right. I’m afraid my past choices will hamper future happiness. And more (111).
What might God be calling you to do? Not as a polite invitation, but because something needs to be done? Sometimes events that shake us shape the need we are invited to meet. A lot of people enter the field of psychology because they experienced trauma and want to help others who have had traumatic experiences, too. Some are struck by a need they cannot ignore, and they act. Darlene Tremewan noticed 100 years ago that some members of our church needed food and our Food Pantry was born! Jeni Olsen was wrecked by two teen suicides that happened pretty close to each other, and Teens Connect was born. My friend saw a need to meet in the slum of Huruma outside Nairobi, Kenya, and Furaha Community Centre went from a back-stoop tutoring program to one of the top schools in the region (thanks significantly to CrossWalk, I might add!). Some of the most recognizable charities in the world were born similarly – someone saw a need and felt a nudge from God. Fred Teeters has had a growing concern regarding immigration, and is working to get involved in doing something to help those who are here for asylum awaiting their court date.
These larger, high profile concerns that God needs our help with are inspiring, and yet we need to also recognize the more common experiences that are also critically important, as Oord notes:
I don’t want to imply that only dramatic acts of courage matter. Sometimes the best we can do is far from heroic. In the midst of horrific evils, depression, and pain, the best we can sometimes do is stay alive. Saying, “I’m still here,” may be the most loving action we can take. Taking another step or another breath may be all God asks of us, given our circumstances… Whether acting heroically, simply staying alive, or something in between, God smiles when we affirm our self-worth (114)… Because I believe God does not and cannot control, what I do every moment makes a difference. When I’m confident and accomplishing goals, my life matters in ways that seem important. On days I’m feeling low, depressed, or not confident, my life matters in ways that simply amount to living another moment, taking another breath, moving another inch… And that counts too (116).
When we know we are truly needed to respond to a situation, the human race often responds with great enthusiasm. World War II caused an entire nation to sacrifice in ways that simply would not have been considered apart from such a need. When natural disasters strike, people respond to the need with great generosity, as we have witnessed firsthand. When we really see the need and that we are needed, we tend to move, don’t we?
My friends, the needs abound in the world, and they are not going to go away by themselves or by God waiving a magic wand. Out of uncontrolling love, God desires to see every evil addressed from the greatest, most obvious examples to the most private, personal sources of pain. God cannot heal it alone. God is not passively inviting you to join in on such significant, make-your-life-meaningful work. God needs you. And you need the work. The La-Z-Boy, couch potato life is not living, it’s existing. It doesn’t deliver for you and it certainly doesn’t serve to make the world a better place. God needs you and you need the role you play. Significance and meaning contribute to a flourishing life.
What are you sensing God saying to you? What is the need? What is the nudge?
May we share the insight of a spiritual giant from the 16th Century, Teresa of Avila (104):
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Questions to Process
1. How do you feel about the idea that God needs us for love to flourish?
2. Why do the No God and All God views fail to establish that our lives matter?
3. Why does the view that says God could control mean God is condescending?
4. What does the relentless love view say about the afterlife?
5. How does God work to protect us?
6. Why does it matter to say our lives — every one of us — matter?
7. How might God be calling you to cooperate?