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The God Who Cares
From the sermon series: God, Our Ally
Text: I Peter 5: 7, 10
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
August 18, 1985
Transcription of the spoken sermon
Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you. …The God of all Grace,
who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, establish
and strengthen you. I Peter 5: 7, 10
God is our Ally; He is a God Who cares. He cares about you, a creature of His
making, a child of His love. He cares about all that pertains to your life and
touches your existence. He cares about you so much that that which affects you,
affects Him. He is not an impersonal determiner of your fate nor an impassive
observer of your pain or your pleasure. He cares about you.
He cares about the whole creation. He cares about the twists and turns of human
history. He cares about His Kingdom, His rule present and coming. God is
engaged with us; He is engaged with the movement of history. In that
engagement, He is for us, on our side, at our side.
This has been emphasized from various angles in this series of messages. The
focus today is on the personal dimension of God's relationship to us. The message
is a personal address to you. God cares for you. He enters into healing closeness
with His people. He is our Ally.
The text is from the first letter of Peter - a simple, concise imperative with a
beautiful promise Cast all your anxieties on him (the imperative);
For he cares about you (the promise).
Let us begin with the promise declared in the text: God cares about you.
That simple declaration contains a whole world and life view of things. It is a faith
statement. It affirms a total perspective on the cosmos, history and human
© Grand Valley State University
�The God Who Cares
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
existence. It is a statement about the nature of God and the meaning of life. All of
that is embraced in the promise of our text that God cares about you.
Let me remind you of the place we left off in the last message - the watershed of
faith decision - There is No one, or There is Someone.
Both alternatives, as I indicated last week, are faith decisions. If you want to
study the question in depth, I would refer you to Hans Küng's great study on the
question of God in the thought of the last two centuries, Does God Exist? Küng
cites one of the leading logicians and epistemologists of our time, Wolfgang
Stegmuller, who asserts:
The academic expert, concentrated on his special field (mathematics,
history, natural science,) does not like to be told that basic assumptions of
his thinking are metaphysical in character; the metaphysician does not
like to be told that his mental activity rests en a prerational, premordial
decision; philosophers of all types - apart from skeptics - do not like to be
told that the kinds of skepticism that are to be taken seriously are
irrefutable; and skeptics themselves, of all shades, do not like to admit
that they cannot prove their standpoint. Such a complex assessment more
or less provokes the indignant protest: "This cannot possibly be your last
word. One way or another, there must be a solution of some kind." To
which I can only reply: "The solution is in your hands, at any time. Make
up your mind. Decide." (Metaphysik, Skepsis, Wissenschift, pp. 1-2)
Without belaboring this point, I do think it is important for us who have decided
to believe in God to know that one can also decide not to believe in God, but in
both cases it is a faith decision. We are the people who have decided to believe in
God. Thus we have Someone, not No one. That is a fundamental life decision.
But having made that fundamental decision, we still have to determine the nature
of the "Someone" to whom we look and before whom we bow.
Stoicism appeared in Greece in the Fourth Century B.C. and continued to find
expression into the Roman period into the Second Century A.D. At its center, it
was Pantheistic, believing that God was the principle of Reason that permeated
all reality. The Cosmos was a vast machine grinding on its way according to the
Divine Logos, the Divine Rationality. The individual found his peace in bowing to
his fate. At the heart of things was not a heart, but a principle of reason,
impersonal, unfeeling, untouched by the pain and pleasure of humankind. We
might call this view of things fatalistic because whatever will be, will be. The
world was not seen as capricious and arbitrary; it was moving rationally, but
without a Personal Center. Perhaps we could say there was Something, but not
Someone.
Stoicism produced strong persons. We still use the term "stoic" to describe
someone who bears unflinchingly life's adversity. A dash of stoicism would do us
© Grand Valley State University
�The God Who Cares
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
all good. However, we must recognize here a world and life view which teaches
fortitude in the face of whatever happens because of a belief in a cosmic
determinism, a universe permeated by a divine principle but wholly indifferent to
the human cry, be it an anguished prayer or a joyful exclamation.
Sometimes we understand a teaching best by setting it in contrast to another. Our
text makes a great claim, which is quite different from the stoic view which says
that at the heart of things is not Someone, but Something – an impersonal
principle of Reason.
Our text claims that at the heart of things is not Something, but Someone - a
loving, gracious Presence. He cares about you.
Care is an interesting word. Henri Nouwen in his meditation, Out Of Solitude,
points out the ambivalence of the word. For example, if one says, "I will take care
of him!" it is probably the announcement of an impending attack rather than an
expression of tender compassion - but it could be either.
The word "care" has also come to be used as an expression of apathy and
indifference. "I don't care." Given various alternatives, one may simply shrug
one's shoulders and say, "I don't care." That may mean all alternatives are equally
satisfactory, but the "I don't care" usage has come to mean not infrequently "I'm
really not interested in any alternative - it doesn't matter to me."
But, as Nouwen points out, care in its original and deepest sense has nothing to
do with indifference and apathy and certainly not with belligerence. The root of
care is in the Gothic, Kara meaning “lament.” He writes:
The basic meaning of care is: to grieve, to experience sorrow, to cry out
with. (p. 340
Nouwen declares,
I am very much struck by this background of the word care because we
tend to look at caring as an attitude of the strong toward the weak, of the
powerful toward the powerless ... we feel quite uncomfortable with an
invitation to enter into someone's pain before doing something about it.
(p. 34)
Yet, he continues, who really helps us? What kinds of persons make a difference?
Is it not, Nouwen asks,
Those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, cures, have chosen
rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender
hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or
confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who
© Grand Valley State University
�The God Who Cares
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
can tolerate not-knowing, not-curing, not-healing and face with us the
reality of our powerlessness, that is the friend who cares. (Ibid.)
Thus the friend who cares is not the one with the ready solution, the quick fix, the
explanation for it all, but precisely the one who is present with us, present to us,
owning his own powerlessness and lack of simple answers. To be present with
another in their pain is often avoided and evaded by us. Nouwen is quite right
when he says,
Our tendency is to run away from the painful realities or to try to change
them as soon as possible. But cure without care makes us into rulers,
controllers, manipulators, and perverts a real community from taking
shape. (p. 36)
Nouwen is speaking about human community, human caring, but what he says of
the horizontal relationship, person-to-person, sheds great light on the care of
God for His people. Our text affirms, "He cares about you." That contains a
whole world and life view; that claims there is Someone; that Someone cares.
That care is the opposite of apathy and indifference. That care is not manipulative
and controlling. That care is a loving, gracious Presence with us in the pain and
pleasure of our human existence.
Many times we might wish that the God Who cares about us would show His
hand, intervene, demonstrably move things around to fix matters for us. We
would like God to be a manipulator, controlling things from His throne room
beyond the ambiguity of history's drama. A not infrequent cry of anguish is, "Why
don't you do something?"
The people to whom Peter wrote were enduring persecution and knew great
suffering and hardship. I am sure they would not have been offended at God's
moving in on their situation even if it did infringe on the arena of freedom He
carved out for the drama of history.
But just here the insight Nouwen shares on the nature of care illumines the care
of God for His people.
To cure without care is to do violence to the subject of the cure. That is not God's
mode of operation. He cares; that means He grieves, experiences sorrow, cries
out with. Speaking of Jesus who is the reflection of the heart of God, the writer to
the Hebrews says,
For we have not a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of
our infirmities… (4:15)
Stated positively: He is touched. He is affected by that which affects us.
© Grand Valley State University
�The God Who Cares
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
Again, let me stress that our text contains a fundamental world and life view.
There is not No one, but Someone; not Something, but Someone; not a
manipulative controller, but a loving, gracious Presence.
M. Scott Peck is a psychiatrist. He wrote a book in 1978 entitled, The Road Less
Traveled. In that book he speaks of God and of Grace, although at the time he
was not consciously a Christian. The response to the book made him examine the
Christian Faith and he received baptism. He begins his book with the
straightforward statement,
Life is difficult.
He claims that most of us do not recognize this fact, but rather,
... moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of
their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally
easy, as if life should be easy. (p. 15)
He writes about the disciplines by which the array of problems life presents can
be handled. He writes about Love and Growth and Religion and then, in the final
quarter of the book, he writes about Grace. His insights are so fascinating because
he came to them from long experience as a psychotherapist. From his experience
He came to believe in
a powerful force originating outside of human consciousness which
nurtures the spiritual growth of human beings. (p. 260)
The religious, he explains, ascribe the origins of this grace to God. He calls the
force love, but then asks where love comes from and his answer is from God.
To explain the miracles of grace and evolution, we hypothesize the
existence of a God who wants us to grow - a God who loves us. To many
this hypothesis seems too simple, too easy, too much like fantasy; childlike
and naive. But what else do we have? (p. 269)
I cannot develop here the extended argument of Peck and his purpose is different
from mine in this message. But his final word expresses vividly what I would
express from our text and I find it fascinating that the truth of the text coincides
with the data gathered by a contemporary psychiatrist prior to his conscious
Christian commitment. He writes,
The fact that there exists beyond ourselves and our conscious will a
powerful force that nurtures our growth and evolution is enough to turn
our notions of self-insignificance topsy-turvy. For the existence of this
force (once we perceive it) indicates with incontrovertible certainty that
our human spiritual growth is of the utmost to something greater than
ourselves. This something we call God. The existence of grace is prima
© Grand Valley State University
�The God Who Cares
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
facie evidence not only of the reality of God but also of the reality that
God's will is devoted to the growth of the individual human spirit. What
once seemed to be a fairy tale turns out to be the reality. We live our lives
in the eye of God, and not at the periphery but at the center of His vision,
His concern. It is probably that the universe as we know it is but a simple
stepping-stone toward the entrance to the Kingdom of God. (p. 312)
Again, Peck's purposes are different in his book than mine in this message, but
his discovery of that positive, nurturing force from beyond ourselves – in a word,
his discovery of grace – is the heart of that reality to which the text points.
God cares about you. That means that Reality is benevolent. That means that in
the human experience with joy and sorrow, victory and defeat, agony and ecstasy,
there is a loving, gracious Presence that undergirds us, overshadows us, nurtures
and sustains us.
The text contains this promise: God cares about you.
The text contains an imperative: Cast your anxieties upon him.
We could translate this directive with the word "cares", thus achieving a beautiful
parallelism, Cast your cares ... He cares...
The words in the Greek language are not the same, however, just as their
meanings are not the same in English. The "cares" of the first part of the text are
anxieties, worries; it refers to anxious caring, the exercise in futility in which we
all engage when we worry about things beyond our control.
The Greek word Merimna comes from a verbal root which means "to divide."
Anxiety distracts and divides the mind so that there can be no peace of mind, no
wholeness. The instruction of the text then is to take those matters, which are
eating away at us like an acid dissolving our peace and serenity, and handle them
up and throw on God. The tense of the verb to cast is aorist in Greek, which
speaks of a single decisive action. Clearly, Peter is pointing to a conscious,
deliberate action. The problem with anxiety is that it is a vague dis-ease whose
cause (or causes) are not always readily apparent. Peter would counsel us to set
down and determine to the extent possible what it is that is jabbing away at our
peace of mind, what it is that is "eating away" at us. Once determined, "pitch it,"
turn it over to God.
Such an imperative is found elsewhere in Scripture. The Psalmist's word is
perhaps being cited here by Peter:
Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you. (Psalm 55:22)
Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, taught us,
© Grand Valley State University
�The God Who Cares
Richard A. Rhem
Page 7
... put away anxious thoughts ...
...do not be anxious about tomorrow ... (Matthew 6:25, 34)
St. Paul wrote,
…have no anxiety, but in everything make your requests known to God in
prayer and petition with thanksgiving. Then the peace of God, which is
beyond our utmost understanding will keep guard over your hearts and
your thoughts, in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4: 6-7)
Of course, the fact that these biblical references can be lined up does not make
the accomplishment of the action any easier. Indeed, just the bold imperative,
"Stop worrying!" can increase anxiety and we must be sensitive when dealing
with others caught up in anxious care that we do not add to the load of their care,
guilt because they are worrying and not trusting.
But this message has as its aim to point to the possibility of peace of mind and a
restful heart not simply by offering the imperative, "Cast your anxiety on him,"
but by lifting up the promise that grounds the imperative, namely, "because He
cares about you."
The imperative calls for a conscious, deliberate action - a decision. But it is not an
act in isolation, but an action on the basis of a new vision of reality.
That is why I began with the promise rather than the imperative even though that
reverses the order of the text. If once the promise sinks into our minds and filters
down to our hearts, then we begin to see reality as it is; then we gain a
fundamental insight into the nature of God, of human existence, of the meaning
of the world and history. Then we begin to glimpse the Truth that we are
undergirded, overshadowed, loved and graced.
Then we can realize that life is difficult but precisely in the difficulties of life we
are being spiritually trained and disciplined, prepared for a fuller, richer
existence here and now and for fullness of life in the presence of the Eternal God.
The imperative then becomes a real possibility for all of us once we see the truth
of our situation. Then we can act on the text and turn our cares into prayers.
We are not alone. We are not shut up to our own resources and ingenuity. There
is Someone. That Someone cares about us. His is a loving, gracious Presence.
Communion is invited. Conversation is natural. Our cares become prayers and
the consequence of prayer is peace.
Prayer is not talking to one's self. It is conversation with Someone Who cares,
that is, Who is present to us, present with us, in tune, in touch, feeling what we
feel.
© Grand Valley State University
�The God Who Cares
Richard A. Rhem
Page 8
A Methodist Bishop of the last century, Bishop Quayle, tells of a time he sat up
into the night worrying about the Church. There were so many cares that weighed
down that he could not sleep, but simply sat there exhausted, full of anxiety. Then
he says it was as if a voice spoke, the voice of God, saying,
"You can go to bed now, Quayle, I'll sit up the rest of the night."
Have you ever known such a moment when the load of care was suddenly
lightened in the presence of God's loving, gracious presence? Such a moment can
change one's life forever.
We have heard the promise. We have heard the imperative.
Let me close with the prelude to both. Peter enjoins those to whom he wrote who
were in the heat of battle:
Humble yourselves…under God’s mighty hand, and he will lift you up in
due time. (I Peter 5: 6)
That is the key. Have you humbled yourself under God's mighty hand? That is
often where the battle lies. Life can be cruel and tragic and sometimes it is like
swimming through asphalt, but we think we have to do it on our own. With
Henley in his poem of defiant independence we may be "bloodied, but unbowed."
We make it so difficult for ourselves. We fret and grow frustrated, struggle and
complain and just when we think we have made it, the bottom falls out or it all
goes up in smoke.
Why do we fight the God Who is our Ally? Why do we flee that gracious Presence?
Why do we resist yielding to Him Whose service is perfect freedom, Whose
fellowship is perfect peace?
Dorothea Day took Henley's poem and wrote its counterpoint:
Out of the light that dazzles me,
Bright as the sun from pole to pole,
I thank the God I know to be
For Christ - the Conqueror of my soul.
Since His the sway of circumstance
I would not wince, nor cry aloud.
Under that rule which men call chance,
My head, with joy, is humbly bowed.
The outcome of such humbling of oneself beneath the mighty hand of God is a
sense of freedom and release, a sense of being undergirded, overshadowed. Then
one moves on taking life one day at a time, tending to those things that are within
© Grand Valley State University
�The God Who Cares
Richard A. Rhem
Page 9
one's competency and leaving to God the major issues which all the anxiety in the
world cannot alter or control anyway. And you approach life with confidence,
from a position of strength, knowing that the God of all grace, Who called you
into His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself, after your brief suffering, restore,
establish and strengthen you on a firm foundation.
Therefore - To Him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Amen, indeed, so let it be. The Truth is simply this:
God is our Ally.
He cares about you!
Therefore, humble yourself.
Cast your anxieties on Him and rest in His loving, gracious Presence.
References:
Henri Nouwen. Out Of Solitude. Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1974.
M. Scott Peck. The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional
Values and Spiritual Growth. Touchstone, 1978.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
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English
Type
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Sound
Text
Identifier
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KII-01
Coverage
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1981-2014
Format
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Event
Pentecost XII
Series
God Our Ally
Scripture Text
I Peter 5:7, 10
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
References
Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude, 1974
M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled, 1978
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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KII-01_RA-0-19850818
Date
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1985-08-18
Title
A name given to the resource
The God Who Cares
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Format
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on August 18, 1985 entitled "The God Who Cares", as part of the series "God Our Ally", on the occasion of Pentecost XII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: I Peter 5:7, 10.
Community of Grace
Faith
Love
Meaning
Nature of God
Peter
Presence of God