Deep Withness

An Open and Relational Incarnation Message

Once, when our youngest was about three, he got into trouble. I know it’s hard to believe the little guy would break a rule, and honestly, his transgressions were few and far between, but something happened, and as a result, he was sent to time out.

Later, beyond the time out and after the incident had passed from my mind, I loaded him into his car seat to run some errands. A few minutes into the drive, amid traffic noise, music, and my thoughts, I heard him quietly ask, “But Dad, you still wuv me, right?”

It’s been 20 years, and my heart still aches thinking about his question.

I pulled over, jumped out of the car, opened his door, and gave him a big hug. With my body draped over him and the car seat, I said, “Hey, bud, there’s nothing you could ever do to make me stop loving you.”

I gave him a big kiss on the cheek and looked at him. Haha, for some reason, I remember this scene very well. He just smiled and stared up through the moon roof, as if he knew it all along … as if he was cool … as if there had never been any doubt.

You and I are emerging out of a variety of different backstories, and though I doubt anyone reading this is phrasing the question as my three-year-old did —“But, God, you still wuv me, right?”— the reality is, your backstory could be full of difficult, challenging, and even hurtful experiences. It’d be understandable to wonder about God’s affection for you.

To begin to address that issue, I want you to know upfront that I’m committed to the idea that God is love. I don’t know anything for certain, but by faith, I suspect this is true. It’s a remarkable claim, really, and means more than just God doing nice things.

Put it this way: That God is love is a deeper statement than God is loving. Loving suggests something God may do (or the shadow side of this idea, something God may not do), but love suggests what simply is. And what simply is (as if any of this is simple) is that love is with us. Where else would love be?

If God is love and love is with us, this would mean that God’s not a separate being, an entirely different entity that chooses from time to time to move into our world to do something loving, because, well, God is already here. Love is here. It’s something I call a deep withness.

👉🏼 I suspect deep withness is the reality.

Interestingly, while science has no interest in making claims about God’s presence, the idea of withness is present within what it reveals, as well. It turns out that our best science, both in biological, physiological, and even psychological ways, tells us that everything is connected to everything else—plants and oxygen, soil and climate, gravity and physics, desire and imitation, viruses both virtual and biological, etc.

And, of course, our sacred text hums with this reality …

• The psalmist, in Psalm 139, “Where could I go to flee your presence?”

• Jesus, in Matthew 28:20, “I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”

• Paul, in Acts 17:28, “in him, we live and move and have our being.”

In light of this, one could say that both science and faith harmonize along the idea that nothing is entirely separate; that the entire universe—micro to the macro, immaterial into material, humanity into divinity— flows back and forth in complex waves of relationship. It’s all one song (i.e., uni-verse).

Separateness is an ontological impossibility.

Therefore, broadly speaking, one could also say that americanized christianity, with its interventionist-God coming from somewhere else to order everything in the beginning, only to come back at the end and destroy everything (of course, after extracting a select group of people) is a perspective that is fundamentally opposed to reality. “The greatest ally of God,” as Richard Rohr says, “is reality.”

Reality might be telling us of God’s deep withness; God’s presence to all things, in all ways, across the full spectrum of matter throughout the universe, and across the full spectrum of humanity in all its splendid, interesting, and interconnected shapes and forms.

God with ...

• The physical: throughout our variations of height, skin pigmentation, eye color, or hand dominance. (Who would dare say that the left-handed are out? Hold on, the church did that once.)

• The emotional: in our waves of depression or confidence, hope or pain, guilt or assurance. (Who would say that those who are depressed are out? Oh, yeah, the church did that once, too.)

• The mental: across our range and spectrum of intellect, intelligence, reasoning, and imagination. (Who would dare say the disabled are out? Sigh, been there, done that.)

• The sexual: across a range of phenotypes, chromosomes, desires, and proclivities. (Who would dare say these human beings are out? Oh, wait … 🤦🏻‍♂️)

Reality doesn’t care about what the church says or culture says (or what the church-culture says). Reality just keeps moving on. Deep withness is here. I love the thought of this reality. It helps me. I hope, it helps you.

And there’s more, particularly for those of us interested in the way Jesus lived, for he showed us that to enjoy this deep withness to the fullest, we might consider extending it to others.

I want to approach that sentence again to clarify what I’m not saying; I’m not saying that if you don’t extend withness to others that God is no longer with you. No, God no longer being with you is not possible. The judgment has already been made, and it’s a judgment of love. In the same way there is nothing my children could ever do to make me stop loving them, so it is with God. There’s nothing you could do to make him stop loving you.

So, I’m not saying this is a transactional thing, that you must give love away in order for God to love you. I’m trying to say something less conditional but still very real; less definitive, but still very true … that is, according to the life of Jesus, those who live most resonant with God’s deep witness are those who are interested in being open to and with others. The one accentuates the other.

In other words …

• You’re not earning God’s favor by being hospitable; rather, being hospitable opens you up even more to God’s freely flowing favor.

• You’re not manipulating the machinery of grace by laying your life down for others; rather, by laying your life down for others, you are giving up all control of manipulating anything and fully trusting in grace.

• You’re not proving your good worth to God by going out of your way to help someone; rather, going out of your way to help someone just might prove God’s good worth.

Each of these statements is worthy of careful reflection, but for now, I want to highlight the last idea—that God’s worth is somehow attached to our thoughts and actions. This is both a beautiful and troubling idea.

Let’s suppose, as we’ve already begun to do, that God is not an outside omnipotent deity watching us from a distance but inside of us energizing us to love. And that as we love, God is revealed to the world. We already take for granted that God has no localized physical body, so one can fairly easily see (as if any of this is easy) that moving, working, and helping is a way to actualize God in the world.

Etty Hillesum (I call her Saint Etty for her indefatigable work in the face of Nazi powers), wrote of the importance of our actions and how they “enable God to be God.” I find St Etty’s idea to harmonize with one of my favorite philosophers, Jack Caputo, who says that while God insists, it’s up to us whether or not God exists. And I find Jack’s idea to harmonize with one of my favorite people, Jesus, who, in stories like the one we call The Good Samaritan Story, emphasizes the idea of God needing humans, even those who were formerly thought of as being out “of the fold,” to actualize his love into the world.

Each of these people might be saying that God is in the process of becoming and is doing so by way of our thoughts, prayers, and actions. The deep withness is constantly and forever being birthed into the world, what the theologians from long ago coined incarnation.

But, here during this Advent season, it’s important to note that incarnation isn’t only what happened in the stable on that first Christmas; incarnation takes place all the time, moment by moment—God loving the world by becoming the world, us loving God by becoming God.

Was Jesus God? Yes.
Are you God? Yes.
Haha, do I mean these two statements in the exact same way?
Do I mean to strip Jesus of the unique way he embodied God? No, not really.
But do I mean to strip you of the unique way you embody God? No, not really.

Each of us (along with all creatures and all matter in the cosmos) is caught up in the invitation to partner with God. Open and relational theologian Andrew Davis calls this incarnational back and forth between divine and human, “ethical theosis.” It’s simultaneously the awareness of deep withness, the gestation of its possibility, and the birthing itself into the world moment by moment.

So, with all the uncertain-certain faith I have, I want to say that God’s affection for you runs deep and that you will never be forsaken. Additionally, I think that as you lean into this reality, it’ll catalyze incarnation in you, which just might open others up to the reality that God is with them, too. In this way, deep withness is the hope of the world.

My youngest is now twenty three. He’s a great boy young man. His parents were not perfect (I know this firsthand), but he is emerging out of a context of love; out of a context of deep withness (I know this firsthand). What he makes, creates, does, and lives will be due to the relationship he comes from and his ability to build upon/with that relationship.

So it is with you. You come from something thick, substantive; something entangled and relational … the deep withness. You are not alone.

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PS- since I wrote about him … and since I’m feeling sentimental during these holiday times… here’s my youngest … then and now.

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Deep Withness can be found with a collections of other sermons and essays in Preaching the Uncontrolling Love of God: Sermons, Essays, and Worship Elements from the Perspective of Open, Relational, and Process Theology