All Loving Death Practices

By Beth Hayward

Death, dying, and grief provide a rich opportunity to experience an all-loving God.

Theology is only useful if it touches our real lives. It is only as helpful as its ability to speak to the real questions that are troubling minds and hearts. Theology, from this pastor’s point of view, is best experienced in real-time and real-life. I believe that a theology of amipotence can be helpful in one of life’s most significant moments: death. It can shift how we talk about dying, what we do as death approaches, and how we show up to our grief. Thomas Jay Oord’s work on amipotence can help us shift the way we approach death and dying. And it can do so in surprising ways. How might our practices around death and dying be changed if they were informed by a theology which insists God is all loving, all the time?

When I suggest to people that God is all loving and does not have all power, (cannot have all power), one of the most common responses is, “then, what can God do?” I get it. People wonder who they’re going to pray to when life is unravelling. They wonder what kind of comfort they can find in a God who can’t sweep in and make their heartache and pain go away. On the other hand, most are not satisfied with a God who randomly helps some in need while ignoring the pleas of others.

Thomas Jay Oord says that an all-loving God can do a lot. God’s eternal and unchanging nature is love, he says. God can contribute more love to creation than our human minds can ever fully grasp. In his book The Death of Omnipotence and the Birth of Amipotence, Oord proposes that “amipotence is maximal divine power in the service of love.” What a profound concept! I’ll be honest, I’ve held some skepticism about whether an all-loving God is too weak for the mess we’ve made of the world and the depth of pain in our personal lives. That is, until I read Oord’s conviction that “there is no time nor location when God is not there and influencing.” These words penetrated my doubts, landing in my mind and heart like an epiphany. God is everywhere, all the time, exerting the power of love. EVERYWHERE. ALL THE TIME. Real-time, loving God. That is pretty darn powerful. That is much more loving-presence than I can offer through my one, human body. I can choose to embody love within my limited realm of influence, but God’s love is active everywhere, all the time. Consider for a moment that if this is true, God is actively loving in every single moment of your life!

Like pastoral leaders across many faith communities, my work includes walking with people through whatever life brings. I cry with them when their hearts break. I bring the bubbly when joy comes. The weddings and baptisms are fabulous, and a great privilege for a pastor to witness. But it’s the other life moments that bring out the hard questions. The sudden deaths, the broken relationships, the jobs that don’t materialize, the tragic cries of defeat; these are the times when theology most matters. Sitting with people in the raw pangs of loss, holding the damp tissues; this is when they begin to throw their biggest questions at me. They want to know where God was when it happened, why God did nothing to help, and what use is a God like that?

Lived experience with loss and grief can expose the inadequacies and harm of some theologies: the theological idea of God as divine controller has damaged many in life’s critical moments. I remember the young woman, with tear-streaked eyes, asking me why God caused her miscarriage. I’ve seen the confusion in the eyes of people devastated by loss, as they try to make sense of their tragedy as part of God’s good plan. But moments of grief and loss can also open people to the lived experience of an all-loving God. I have witnessed people experiencing the active, luring, presence of God when their hearts are broken and their souls tender. It is as though grief thins the veil between the spiritual and material. These become moments when the only spiritual support people need is to find words to express what they have experienced and affirmation that their spiritual experiences in grief are, indeed, an amipotent God at work.

Consider these stories:

•     While planning a funeral for the partner of a self-professed atheist, the grieving spouse looked me in the eye and said; I’m sure my beloved is still with me, because a songbird flew in front of my face in my darkest moment.

•     A peripheral Christian, (that’s the term I’ve coined for people who once went to church religiously, were hurt by church, became disillusioned, and have returned to tentatively hang around the edges), speaking of the tragic death of the father of her children, told me how close and real God felt in the countless kindnesses offered by friends following the death.

•     A grieving mother, faithful follower of Christ her entire life, told me that her dead son showed up in the family’s backyard, not in human form but she knew it was him; he reassured her that he was alright, and she was not alone.

These raw encounters with death all point to a God present in grief, revealed through birds, human kindnesses, and in the realm of the unseen but very real. Loving God in real time. What is equally as surprising as the presence of an all-loving God, is the fact that each of these people spoke so clearly of their encounter with transcendent holiness. Their awareness of God’s loving presence was comforting and—in their own way—they were able to speak about it.

An initial step in rethinking death and dying, through the lens of amipotence, is to encourage people to give voice to what they have experienced. A pastoral conversation can ensue. Where was God when this happened? Do you think it possible that an all-loving God was present when you sensed the closeness of your beloved, or when in your acute pain people reached out to you with compassionate kindness. Perhaps God was also present when you experienced a deep awareness of his presence, that you were not alone. Was this new for you? Did you expect this kind of experience of the Holy? Do you suppose this was not an anomaly? Whether it’s as we consider our own death, or when we ache for what has been lost, these tender moments seem to open in us an attunement to God’s all-loving presence.

A second step in rethinking death and dying through the lens of amipotence is to reimagine the rituals and practices that surround these significant times. These are critical pastoral moments for those experiencing loss, but they also provide opportunity to connect with people who might be going through similar experiences, or—more than that—those who will at some future time.

For years, as I led Christian funerals, I used the form and content in which I was trained. It went like this: quote sentences of scripture, pray for God to be present, remember the dead, promise those gathered that we will all live eternally with God through Jesus. Send them off promising the certain hope of resurrection to eternal life. I had been well-taught that this would be true to our faith and helpful to those who gathered—the believers. It might even stick for those who had rarely, if ever, been in church.

Eventually I realized the inadequacy of the ritual for people who were confused about how God could let this all happen. So, I gave up the form, leaving behind things like quotes from scripture and rote prayers. People in funeral pews increasingly consisted of the unchurched, those who have left the church, and the peripheral Christian. I would look out and feel nothing but vague ambiguity when I spoke these sentences; there was no resonance. So I dropped the formality of the send-off because which one of us is certain in the hope of eternal life, and besides, most people are just struggling to figure out this life, not the eternal one. Theological fine points, once deeply reverberating in the hearts of believers, sounded empty to many people in that funeral service.

I started to take a more intuitive approach. The pre-meeting with family and all the listening I could muster helped to hone my practice. I gave up offering the usual formal, rote, and precise words, in favor of looking into the eyes of the grieving. I opened my heart to the hearts before me. I discovered that there was no need to deny an all-powerful God. I only needed to draw people’s eyes and hearts toward the signs that an all-loving God is present and active in the hell they are walking through.

It was around this time that I encountered Oord’s language of God bringing love to all places at all times. This always-loving-God, now described by him as amipotent, when laid beside these pastoral moments of loss and grief, helped me to realize that it’s not theology I need ‘to teach’ in times of dying. Instead the broken hearted need an affirmation of what they already know: that God is indeed very close and loving. People don’t need me to explain God, they need me to affirm, to reflect back to them, that their experience of God is valid and true. I don’t need to defend the power of an all-loving God; the grieving can often reveal the profound experience of God’s embracing love. There is truth in this—we experience grief and loss deeply because we have known love. The powerful, all-loving God goes before us.

My experience, as a seasoned pastor, is that death pulls back the veil between the seen and unseen. Death is a great leveler in the spiritual lives of people with all faith and those of none. Certainly, I hear platitudes of “he’s in a better place,” “I wonder if they’re causing trouble in heaven,” “It was her time.” But when I get just a bit closer, I meet people whose hearts are torn open, whose usual defenses are laid low, and who dance the line between the material and the spiritual world with depth, insight, and tenderness that leaves me speechless.

Amipotence can quietly and persuasively alter our death and dying practices. When people are scared that their loved one might not be in heaven, devastated by the loss and wondering how they will continue—an all-loving God offers a real and trustworthy response. Is it possible that our culture’s tendency to avoid the topic of death, might be tied up in some outdated theology that says God is scheming against us? But if God is everywhere, all the time, exerting love and luring us to love, we might just have a theology that can ground and guide our lives, especially in critical times. Maybe we’d be wise to spend less time denying that God is all powerful and more time orienting one another to the countless ways God is all loving, all the time, in all places.

Bio: Beth Hayward is Lead Minister at Bedford United Church, on the east coast of Canada. That’s where she puts her theological ideas to the test, as she accompanies a diverse group of people through all that life brings. She blogs and podcasts regularly. You can find her through her website, https://www.bethhayward.org/ and her podcast, https://soulsinsoles.podbean.com/.

OORD’S DRABBLE* RESPONSE

Beth Hayward thoughtfully addresses practical questions arising when one believes God is amipotent. She gives special attention to experiences of loss, grief, and death. I agree with her that it’s deeply meaningful to know that God is present and empathetic during our most painful moments. I particularly appreciate her emphasis on the importance of rituals and practices in navigating such times. When we understand God as always loving and never controlling, we no longer need to blame God for untimely deaths. This is a powerful message—one that pastors like Beth can affirm openly, without hesitation or crossing their fingers.

For more on Oord’s view of grief in light of the Paris attacks, see this article.

* A drabble is an essay exactly 100 words in length.