Who Wants a Sweaty God? (Part 1)

(The 2026 Crop of Timothy Seed at Sugar Creek, MB)

When I was a teenager, I broke a girl’s leg. At a fun Sunday ball game, she was the pitcher, I the batter, and I drove the ball into her shin.  Not proud of that. But what I remember most is what happened several days later. In our youth baptism class. our pastor, Andrew Plett, suggested we all gather round and pray for her. I have the vivid memory of her running out of the church healed, and I was greatly relieved.

That was 38 years ago, since then I've seen few miracles and I worry whether my prayers work. Do they work in the sense of me moving the real hand of a real God? What would the naked hand of God look like if it ever appeared? What would make an event a "God moment"?

Can I show you a perspective I’ve learned from two master theologians? Part one is inspired by Katherine Sonderegger's Systematic Theology: Volume 1, The Doctrine of God. Part two coming in a few weeks is C.S. Lewis, especially from the collected writings on prayer in How to Pray. This parable of George and Jane has helped me pray. 

A Parable of Two Banquets

Imagine attending two banquets. As guests arrive at the first banquet, they quickly realize that George is running this event. He dashes about serving punch, adjusting the sound system, mixing the salad, and generally solving any glitches that arise. There is nothing he won’t do. He has helpers, but they don’t seem to do much. One of them exclaims, “George is amazing! We don’t do anything until he needs us. Often when we start something he jumps in and does it for us. We love it!” 

George sweats profusely as he rushes about, but everywhere people are praising him for how hard he is working and how quickly he scurries to answer their every request. You can tell he likes it.

At the second banquet, guests are told its Jane’s event, but they don’t see her and they wonder if she’s even there. The banquet is clearly ready, and helpers are bustling, but where is Jane? Eventually she is seen through the kitchen door at the back, relaxed on a barstool, wineglass in hand, chatting with the janitor. At first that makes the guests uneasy; is there no one in charge here? What if we need something?

Out on the floor, a helper is folding napkins into exquisite swans for each setting. Someone comments, “that’s quite the work of art!”

He replies, “Jane taught me this years ago.”

Another helper is carving the roast beef: “Wow”, a guest exclaims, “that beef looks amazing!”

“Jane has a great supplier” the chef replies, “and I use her secret marinade”.

So goes the whole evening. The banquet unfolds with a team of helpers working with skill and confidence, but rarely does Jane seem to do anything. Even when a problem arises, she’s mostly directing from the back of the kitchen. But she is present, everywhere. She is behind and in everything that unfolds. The helpers all know why this banquet is working. Its because Jane is the ultimate servant leader. Her genius lies in her vision for the event, in anticipating problems, and in bringing out the best in her team to address the needs of the guests.

So back to our question of how God works in the world. Is it George or Jane who most reflects God’s way of working in the world? I suggest it’s Jane. Like Jane at the banquet, God is everywhere in the world. He speaks, He acts, He lives with us and responds to our prayer. But God always* appears at His work mediated, as some part of creation (His “helpers”). Even when God speaks in an audible Voice so clear we hear Him like a trumpet, He comes as air waves of sonic energy vibrating hairs on our ear-drums, sending an electric impulse to our brains cells—in other words, mediated through His helpers. These created realities are not God, they are His helpers doing His work at His banquet. And yet God appears.

God may appear by thundering on Mt. Sinai, casting His people into exile in Babylon, being born a Baby in Bethlehem, healing a leper, or descending in Fire at Pentecost. But everywhere He is working behind or within some created reality or creature, mediated in the world. 

Lord, Help My Unbelief!

This is why believing is so hard. We all become atheists if we expect God to be like George, since on George's terms God will appear absent. A George-like God does not exist.

But a Jane-like God leaves plenty of room for atheism too. We see His helpers, wind, fire, humans, even his human book the Bible, but never His naked Hand. In fact, the Bible teaches that no one can see God, except in this Jane-like way, and live.* Frederich Buechner said famously, “If there’s no room for doubt, there’s no room for me.” If God were to appear without this mediation, and thereby remove the possibility of doubt, we would all instantly pulverize in the sheer Potency of His holiness. This intent to work through helpers means there's a place for me in this world.

But see also how humble this God is! God works in such a way that his helpers can have the glory and honor to themselves, so to speak. Its the beauty of the sunset itself that speaks to me. To ascribe this beauty to the Lord is an act of spiritual vision not forced on me by the sunset or by God. God is like Jane at the back of the kitchen while the helpers get thanked for the meal. Praise be to this humble Lord!

God's helpers are many and various. Listen! Even a Jewish peasant nailed to a stick is God appearing as His Helper! Here God's Helper is God on the cross. The church as the extension of the incarnation--messy, sinful, but verily the Body of Christ--is God from the back of the kitchen. Everywhere God works by making His helpers glorious. Everywhere God could be mistaken for His creation. It is genuinely creation's own glory we see when we look about us. But God appears therein! 

But this sure makes for hard believing. If God will be this way, every event in creation has at least a plausibly different explanation than that God did it. Sometimes we just want a God like George. But understanding God to be like Jane is the first step in detoxing from the secularity that has leached into our souls.

But how does this return us to prayer? In the parable part 2, George gets a fatal disease and sets about to pray to a God who runs the world like Jane. Now we will really see how hard faith is.

*There is a debate to be had about whether Moses saw God unmediated or not. See Ex. 33:20, Deut. 4:15, I John 4:12, but on the other hand Ex. 24:9-11.

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