Unspeakable: Preaching and Trauma-Informed Theology

By Sarah Travis and Paul Scott Wilson

Unspeakable probes the relationship between trauma theory and Christian theology in order to support preachers in the task of crafting sermons that adequately respond to trauma in the pews and the world at large. How might sermons contribute to resiliency and the repairing of wounds caused by traumatic experiences? This book seeks to provide a theological lens for preachers who wonder how their 'beautiful words' can address suffering amid traumatic wounding. Preaching is a healing discourse that proclaims gospel, or good news. Gospel is a complicated reality, especially in the face of trauma. Drawing on various theologies and insights from trauma theory, Unspeakable challenges the notion of a triumphant gospel, seeking an in-between perspective that honors both resurrection and the trauma that remains despite our desire to get to the good news. It builds on images of the preacher as witness and midwife in order to develop homiletical practices that acknowledge the limitations of language and imagination experienced by traumatized individuals.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Release date: Jun 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9781725267992

Sarah Travis

Sarah Travis is an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. She teaches worship and preaching at Knox College, University of Toronto.

Book preview

Introduction

The Failure of Beautiful Words

In Advent 2017 , I was writing a series of sample sermons for a denominational website. The Hebrew text for Advent 3 , Year B, came from the prophet Isaiah (Isa 61 : 1 – 11) . The prophet offers a spectacular vision of restoration, as those who mourn in Zion begin to heal and repair what has been devastated:

They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.¹

It was one of those experiences of writing a sermon in which the words flowed until, suddenly, they stopped. Neither my tongue nor my brain could articulate a message of hope. I was unable to translate the good news of this text into a credible gospel for today. I simply could not find images of contemporary hope that were adequate to illustrate the magnitude of restoration promised by the prophet when compared to the magnitude of devastation experienced by so many in our world. I was stuck on images of Aleppo, Haiti, New Orleans . . . places where death, destruction, and ongoing trauma resist any easy hope. It seemed almost a sacrilege to dare to even whisper about restoration in spaces and places where restoration is not imminent or perhaps even possible. How can we imagine restoration in the face of traumatic realities? Restoration implies some kind of return to a former state, a return to the before; yet, with trauma, there is no going back to a pristine former state. Jennifer Baldwin, who writes about trauma-sensitive theology, has suggested that restoration is cultivating resiliency and repairing the wounds of the relational injury with or without restoring the relational connection between perpetrators and victim/survivors.² While I longed to say something in my sermon that would cultivate resiliency and the repairing of wounds, the words simply would not come.

Coincidently, serendipitously, I had earlier in the day printed an article written by Shelly Rambo, for an unrelated project. Rather than flail silently at my computer, I turned to the article, unexpectedly finding coherence and possibility for my sermon in Rambo’s work on trauma. She writes about being in New Orleans twenty-nine months after Hurricane Katrina and discovering the ongoingness of trauma. She says, Hurricane Katrina was not simply a singular event that took place in August 2005. It is an event that continues, that persists in the present. Trauma is what does not go away.³ Rambo writes about theological silence in the face of traumatic events⁴ and the danger that we proclaim the good news before its time.⁵ The life that emerges post-trauma is uncertain, tentative and murky,⁶ and thus resists any easy attempt at restoration. Rambo’s wisdom and experiences echoed in my own silence and brought to light the extent to which I was not trauma-informed. I was frozen in my response to traumatized communities. The sermon on Isaiah was eventually written, but with a muted gospel. The only thing I could utter was a passive kind of ministry of presence:

In our rush to make everything ok, to solve the problems,

To seek resurrection from the dead,

We might miss the opportunity to suffer with others.

In this season, in-between death and life, life and death,

A space opens up between pain and hope—

A space in which we can stand with those who wait

For something to change.

In this unimaginable territory,

We are aware that there are sometimes no words which will comfort.

Nothing we can do, nothing we can even imagine

That will bring new life where there is only the stench of death.

Instead, we are invited to wait, equipped only with the promise of a faithful God

That life is indeed possible.

The good news here is that God wants more for us,

For all creation.⁷

While I was not content with the outcome of my sermon, it did create within me a desire to know more about how to preach in the face of trauma and the unspeakable events that destroy homes and lives.

This book wonders about the implications of traumatic experience for preaching. In particular, it looks at the theological implications of trauma, aiming to support preachers with a theological lens as they think through the effect of trauma on listeners and how this may impact the way that sermons are prepared and received. I was inspired to write this book by a young man who has experienced multiple traumas. He reminded me that beautiful words are not enough to atone for the effects of trauma. Safety cannot be restored with words but only at the level of the senses.⁸ This is true whether the cause of trauma is relational injury or an unexplainable mystery. If safety cannot be restored by words alone, what does this mean for preaching that is so dependent on words? Annie Rogers claims that trauma has its own language—the language of the unsayable.⁹ What can we say in the face of unspeakable grief and trauma?

Trauma occupies the sanctuary. Perhaps more than ever before in history, because of the easy availability of global news, we are aware of the terrible things that occur. It is not necessary here to recount all the traumatic events that occupy our minds, but it is helpful to think about the various levels and categories of trauma that shape traumatic experience in the here and now. Types of trauma may be cultural, personal, collective, historical, institutional, or global. I want to be careful not to collapse or homogenize experience of trauma—not all traumas are equal; rather, their effects depend on the specifics of individual experience and available resources for coping. Traumatic experience is not limited to war zones or plane crashes. Trauma happens in our homes, our neighborhoods, and our churches. It comes with the death of a loved one, it comes with relational abuse, it comes in the form of illnesses that spread through communities. None of us can escape its impact, regardless of the degree to which we are personally afflicted.

Preachers carry the stories of many: those known personally to us, as well as those that occupy the larger social space. When one begins to unpack the layers of trauma present in our culture and thus in our pews, it is astounding. As our communities become more multicultural, our awareness of postcolonial trauma is increased—war, terrorism, and oppression of all kinds. Today, there are millions of refugees roaming the planet, searching for a place to rest their heads. In my Canadian context, there is an awareness of generational and ongoing trauma among Indigenous populations that have been subordinated and disenfranchised by colonialism. Gun violence is a tremendous social evil that results in terrible fear and trauma for whole communities. Cultural experiences of racism and sexism result in traumatized populations, with trauma that often carries forward from generation to generation. In our pews, individuals suffer from the traumas produced by natural human experience—the death of loved ones, injury and illness, even childbirth. There are also traumas produced by others—including the traumas of domestic violence and sexual abuse.

Trauma impacts our life together as an ecclesial body. We preach not only to trauma survivors but also to those who have been impacted by the trauma experienced by others. Perhaps more difficult, we preach to those who have been perpetrators of trauma. Sometimes, we preach to communities that have been traumatized by terrible local events. Sometimes, as in the case of 9/11 or COVID-19, it is a whole nation that is traumatized and desperately seeking a word from the pulpit that is adequate to the situation. In the summer of 2020, the world was facing two pandemics: COVID-19 and the rise of anger about the treatment of black lives following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. COVID-19 separated us from each other, caused economic suffering, and created an atmosphere of fear rooted in the deaths that continually mounted. Churches faced various kinds of trauma as they were shut down and experienced economic and relational consequences. The death of George Floyd led to mass protests and a tidal wave of frustration and anger that swept across the nation and the world. Preachers everywhere struggled to find adequate responses to unimagined situations.

Preachers exist in communities that have diverse reactions and responses to traumatic events. What determines which people and communities will move forward and which communities are unable to imagine a way forward? Does preaching have a role to play in the manner in which communities respond to, and heal from, traumatic events?

Trauma and Theology

In her book Trauma and Grace, Serene Jones asks, How can ministers craft sermons that speak to the plight of trauma survivors without retraumatizing them? How do we make theological sense of what happened on the cross in a way that speaks to the experience of traumatized victims without glorifying violence?¹⁰ This book takes up that challenge. As preachers, we are always trying to make meaning out of chaos. What theological resources can we draw on in order to lead toward healing? Rambo positions this work as a two-world practice—"it is the work of transfiguring the world—working between the as is and the otherwise."¹¹ This kind of transfiguration, or transformation, works at the levels of imagination and language, both of which are central to preaching.

At the most basic level, preaching must respond in some way to suffering—the suffering of those who are listening and the suffering experienced by others that invades our own lives through the news and social media. Preaching must respond to the deepest forms of human suffering and proclaim what God is doing, if anything, to alleviate suffering. It must name out loud such hope as is to be found.

Theology has always tried to answer questions of human suffering, and our theology must evolve alongside current understandings of trauma. We must have the courage, confidence and clarity to re/form our theology and liturgy so that it continues to make use of the best knowledge of our time for the benefit, growth, and health of individuals, communities and society.¹² Thus, it is imperative that our theology and practice meet up with trauma theory. This is contextual theology—it begins in experience. When our theology and practice intersect with Christian theology, the task may involve rethinking some of the claims of Christian faith. Trauma shatters our most familiar frameworks of theology; it speaks of things we don’t necessarily want to hear or to know about the situation of others and the activity of God. In the words of Serene Jones, How do people, whose hearts and minds have been wounded . . . come to feel and know the redeeming power of God’s grace? At the heart of this question sits a vexing problem:

When people are traumatized, a kind of cognitive/psychic overwhelming breakdown can occur. When this happens, it becomes difficult for victims to experience the healing power of God’s grace because their internal capacities (where one knows and feels) have been broken. It is hard to know God when your knowing faculties have been disabled. It is hard to feel divine love when your capacity to feel anything at all has been shut down.¹³

While the church is a place in which many people are able to find connection and healing, it can sometimes be a place in which trauma is ignored or unalleviated. Baldwin writes, The church, in its ignorance of traumatic processing is too often a place of misunderstanding and re-traumatization.¹⁴ She goes on: A theology that is ignorant of trauma process is more likely to harm than offer good news.¹⁵

Preaching and Trauma

Preaching is a healing discourse that proclaims gospel, or good news. Gospel is a complicated reality, especially in the face of trauma. Rambo writes that the good news lies in the ability of Christian theology to witness between death and life, in its ability to forge a new discourse between the two.¹⁶ So much of this is inarticulable—but what does preaching do with that which lies at the edges of our comprehension?¹⁷ Trauma exceeds familiar logic—it shatters what we know about life and death and tests our articulation and comprehension of grace. As witnesses to both trauma and grace, we seek to name presence and power in the places where life is least discernable.¹⁸ How do we know ourselves, and know God, when our bodies and minds have experienced deep pain or violence? Trauma can do terrible things to the human person, and preachers have a responsibility to understand and respond to the marks of trauma left on the souls of our listeners and our communities. Preaching has a role to play in creating safer communities.

Trauma has a tremendous impact on our relationship to grace and gospel. The primary task of Christian preaching is to express good news, but good news in the face of trauma is neither straightforward nor easily expressed. I was a student of Paul Scott Wilson, and like many other preachers in North America I have been influenced by his The Four Pages of the Sermon. It is a profoundly theological model of sermon preparation that focuses on God’s action in the world and in the text. The trouble of the text and our world is viewed through the lens of God’s gracious action. However, in the face of trauma, there is a pause, a disconnect, between trouble and grace. Even when we can perceive that God is acting, there is no easy movement from trouble to grace. Is this space between life and death, trouble and grace, perhaps productive?

The intent of this book is to equip preachers with an awareness of traumatic experience so that they may respond adequately to the trauma that is experienced by listeners, avoid retraumatizing, and participate in a healing discourse. Ultimately, there is grace given by a God who loves the world passionately, but how do we preach grace in the face of woundedness? Drawing on the work of theologians in conversation with trauma studies, such as Shelley Rambo and Serene Jones, and in conversation with homiletic and trauma literature, this book asks, What is a credible expression of the gospel for those who have experienced an absence of grace, especially when the imagination may be incapacitated, and language loosed from its moorings?

I am best situated to speak from the lens of practical theology and homiletics. As a preacher, I am always wondering how we begin to talk about the questions of suffering that occupy our minds and hearts. As a homiletician who works with postcolonial theories and the hope of decolonization, I am aware of the ways that colonial histories and legacies impact the lives of those to whom I preach, as well as the implications of oratory power. I have had intimate encounters with trauma in my own life, although I have not faced complex trauma—mine were discrete incidents that were always insulated by grace, such as a car accident and a life-threatening childbirth. There was one event, however, that stretched the limits of my capacity to cope with trauma.

On a bright and cold January day in 2006, I was in a staff meeting at the church where I worked. During that meeting, I received a phone message from my husband saying that my younger son had been taken to the hospital. I got in my car and drove—worried, but not desperately so. However, when I was ushered into the trauma room in the ER, the bottom dropped out of my world. Sam, then fifteen months old, was surrounded by doctors and respiratory therapists. There was a nurse in the corner desperately trying to record everything