Sermon: Posttraumatic Growth

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, AR
July 9, 2006; 5 Pentecost, Proper 9, Year B
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

Gospel Reading: (Mark 6:1-13) -- He left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, "Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him. Then Jesus said to them, "Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house." And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.

Then he went about among the villages teaching. He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. He said to them, "Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them." So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.
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Maybe you remember Mark's account of Jesus' first return home after he has begun his public ministry. The visit was something of a disaster. His family tried to restrain him, "for people were saying, 'He has gone out of his mind.'" Yet, out of that painful encounter Jesus developed an expanded vision of family. "Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother." (Mark 3:19f) The conflict and trauma of that event produced in Jesus a broader definition of relationship.

Today we read Mark's version of Jesus' second visit to his hometown, and it also is a disaster. "They took offense at him." Luke's gospel elaborates on this story, concluding it with an enraged mob threatening to throw Jesus off the town cliff.

This is traumatic stuff. Imagine the family arguments. Imagine the pain. His hometown is probably a village of only a few extended families, their lives and histories deeply interwoven. They reject his calling and his ministry; they reject him. "And he could do no deed of power there," with some minor exceptions. No hometown celebrity welcome for Jesus. He's cut down and cut off from his roots. In Nazareth, his hometown, he is a failure and an embarrassment.

That's the kind of experience that can take the wind out of your sails. It's the kind of judgment that can produce self-doubt or bitterness or resentment. But in a remarkable display of resilience, immediately Jesus sends out the twelve, gives them his authority, confidently tells them to travel light, and if they also experience rejection, he tells them to move on and don't let any of the rejection stick to them -- "shake off the dust that is on your feet." His response to his failure and rejection at Nazareth is to expand his work through his disciples. That's not unlike what happened at the cross. On the cross, Jesus absorbed trauma and defeat, and God used his experience to create something new, expansive and powerful.

Every life has trauma. Many of us suffer repeated traumas. There is an ancient spiritual tradition that the strength of our souls is uniquely created by our particular experiences of woundedness. Paul's mysterious "thorn in the flesh" became for him the catalyst for his remarkable confidence that God's "power is made perfect in weakness," helping make him the resilient, courageous apostle he was.

In 1955 a couple of psychologists studying the lives of people who had experienced terrible trauma coined the term "posttraumatic growth" to describe the "flowers of hope and renewal that can grow from the ruins of a catastrophic event."* It is not unusual for someone whose internal world view has been turned upside down, or whose external circumstances have been upended, to launch a spiritual struggle that takes them to new places. When we are forced to ask questions like, "How could God let this happen?" and "Where was God?", we open ourselves to new possibilities for growth.

An article on trauma in the current issue of Utne magazine offers some real-life examples. The article tells of a renowned doctor who suffered a heart attack followed by a stroke. He lost his vocation, his capacity to drive, lost his purpose and felt useless. He wound up in a psychiatric unit under suicide watch.

"The former healer found himself swept up in an existential crisis. His identity fell away and left him with no choice but to dig deep within. It was then that he bumped into a spiritual core that had long been dormant, rediscovered his faith, began going to church, and regained his desire to live. He turned his energies toward mentoring youth in faith and writing a book on spirituality... He has found new meaning and purpose in life."** Posttraumatic growth.

The psychologists who coined that term have studied people "who have survived an astonishing range of trauma -- triggered by events such as death in the family, being held hostage, sexual assault, or medical emergency -- [people who] report coming out of the experience with positive results. A recently published book by Matthew Sanford tells his story of recovery from an auto accident when he was 13. His father and sister were killed and he was left paralyzed. Today he is a paraplegic yoga instructor who says, "I think that I'm a better person than I would have been."***

Gina Ross calls trauma one of the "four paths to spirituality," along with prayer, meditation, and sexuality. She's the founder of the International Trauma Healing Institute. People like Gina Ross help others to face trauma and heal it. Our cultural tendencies incline us to ignore or bury our traumas rather that to face into them as catalysts for our growth. But in so many ways, it is our traumas that make us who we are.

I know one of my early traumas was during my entire fifth grade year. It was 1962. In my wider environment, my hometown was rocked by the crisis following James Meredith's enrollment as the first black student at Ole Miss. There were days of riots, followed by months of military occupation. Our family car was inspected by troops from the 82nd Airborne Division every time we left our neighborhood. Our town was divided and traumatized. My fifth grade teacher was an unreformed Confederate, and she labeled me an "inter-grationist" (as she said it). She tried to make my life miserable, and pretty much succeeded. I fought back by requesting that we sing Battle Hymn of the Republic during morning devotionals, and, for one year only, cheering for the New York YANKEES, just because they were Yankees. Years later, I learned that during the three years around my time in fifth grade, she had done the same business of picking on one student in her class each year. I was told that the other three had to be hospitalized with nervous breakdowns during their year with her. I'm pretty sure that she helped make me who I am. I've kept up with the other three kids also. One doctor, one dentist and one international scholar. I think they found some internal metal from their fifth-grade trauma as well.

Within Christian life, there are three essential claims that ground our courage to face our traumas. First, we are God's beloved children. Nothing can change that essential identity. There is nothing that you can do which will cause God to disown you. Nothing. You may turn your back away from God, but God will never turn away from you. We are God's beloved children, and that identity is indelible, no matter what failure or trauma we may have experienced. Second, Christ is especially present with us in every moment of trauma or suffering. The cross is God's expression of solidarity with us in our misery, failure and embarrassment. Jesus is our wounded healer, intimately with us in our most vulnerable moments. We can never suffer alone. Third, what God does best is resurrection. If God can bring salvation for the world out of something as horrible as the unjust torture and execution of an innocent young man from Nazareth, imagine what God can do with your own traumas.

Paul writes in today's reading, "I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong."

How can your traumas turn into your spiritual growth? Your deepest identity and vocation may be linked to what you can gain through your suffering.

I'm hopeful that this ancient spiritual wisdom about individual growth through trauma can also be embraced for our corporate growth. What if as a nation we could look at our experience of trauma on September 11 as a motivation to seek healing for our interconnected planet? I feel some of the energy beneath the growing support for the Millennium Development Goals is part of our nation's creative and healthy response to our own experience of trauma. What if out of those ashes came the end of extreme poverty in all the world? What if love truly overcomes fear? In the long run, it always does. That's the power of resurrection. That is the way of Christ. In Christ, we can all become wounded healers. It's what God does best.
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* Joseph Hart writing in the magazine Utne, Trauma? Get Over It; July-Aug, '06, p. 41f)

**. Ibid.

*** Ibid. Matthew Sanford's book is Waking: A Memoir of Trauma and Transcendence, published by Rodale.