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Thank You, Jesus
Our Broken Theology of Responsibility
Yesterday in Dublin, on a street paved with cobblestones and contradictions, I met a woman named Theresa. A middle aged woman with light brown hair and wind-chilled rosy cheeks, Theresa held a rosary in her hand and a grocery list in the other. She stood on a busy street in a crowded tourist and shopping neighborhood in the cool afternoon air.
She wasn’t begging for money; she had a plan. Chicken, lasagna, bread, detergent, bleach, vegetables. Essentials, not luxuries. She had eight children, a grateful heart, and the weight of a mother who couldn’t provide for her family as she’d hoped. We took her list, walked to the store, and returned 15 minutes later with groceries. Two full bags. Not much, but enough for a few days of dignity. She smiled warmly, looked us in the eye and said, “Thank you, Jesus.”
She knew our names. Neither one of us was named Jesus. I smiled as I passed the weight of the bags from my hands to hers. We walked away, grateful for our beautiful lives.
But something troubled me about her comment. I knew she was grateful and expressed it like a good Irish Catholic. But the idea remained with me, working its way to reason in my mind. What I stumbled upon was a deeper understanding of the human impulse to thank an invisible god for what our own hands, hearts, and communities make possible, while blaming governments, enemies, or fate for every hardship.
Let’s call it what it is: theological gaslighting.
When something good happens; food on the table, rent paid, a child recovering from illness…we rush to thank God. As if God paid the bill. As if God stocked the shelves, or invented antibiotics, or rewired the ventilator. But when tragedy strikes; when children die, when wars rage, when families go hungry, we don’t blame God. We blame the economy. We blame immigrants. We blame weak leadership, corrupt politicians, bad luck. Anyone and anything but the one we supposedly believe runs the minutiae of our universe.
We’ve built a culture on this lopsided ledger of divine credit and human blame. It’s spiritual narcissism disguised as humility. A lazy theology that lets us off the hook.
- Because if “God provides,” then we’re not responsible for the injustice of who gets what.
- If “God is testing us,” then no one is accountable for letting people suffer.
- If “God opens doors,” then nepotism, privilege, and systemic advantage don’t matter.
- And if “God has a plan,” then who are we to question the cruelty built into the system?
- And if the prayers of dying children go unanswered while God helps me find my car keys, “we cannot begin to understand the mind of God.”
I call bullshit.
This is not faith. This is abdication.
Religions have long capitalized on this imbalance. The church wants your praise when things go right, but shrugs its shoulders when things fall apart. The preacher thunders that “God blessed you with that promotion!” but falls silent when your sister dies of cancer, your friend loses his home, your country descends into chaos or millions of innocents suffer and die in a televised war. The faith economy is built on gratitude for the good and excuses for the bad.
But here’s the truth: If you thank God when a stranger helps you buy groceries, you should also curse God when children go to bed starving. If you see the divine in acts of kindness, you must also ask where that same god hides when bullets fly in schools, when floods destroy villages, when injustice becomes policy.
Or better yet…stop looking up.
Start looking around.
Start looking inward.
Theresa didn’t need a miracle. She needed groceries. She needed a system that works. She needed neighbors who noticed, humans who helped, and policies that protect. She needed the people around her to act, not an absentee landlord of the cosmos to be praised for outsourcing compassion to random passersby.
The real miracle is not divine intervention. It’s human decency.
And the real tragedy is not that God is silent. It’s that we keep waiting for Him to speak while the world burns around us.
So, thank God if you must, but understand this: it was your neighbor who fed you. It was the nurse who healed you. It was the teacher who believed in you. It was the activist who fought for your rights. It was the stranger on the street who chose to care.
And when things go wrong, look in the mirror, look at your vote, look at your silence, your apathy, your allegiance to systems that create suffering. Blame the real architects of injustice. Including yourself, if you’ve ever benefited from it.
Because maybe it’s time we stopped thanking God for doing our job.
And started doing it better.
