Coming out of lockdown: healing from trauma

Genesis 45. 1-15 , Matthew 15. 21-28

Today

We’re back! Well, some of us.. in masks… keeping an appropriate distance.

At times during the pandemic I have found myself describing the virus as being like a lens- magnifying those things which were there before. 

We have seen that neighbourly care can be really important; that we all need hugs; that too much news makes you tetchy; that nothing tastes better than a freshly -baked loaf of bread; that our homes are important, but they’re not everything; and that we miss our friends from church.

 

And what about our faith? I think I have learned that I need to make time to stop each day and pray and read my Bible; that I am aware of relying on God much more when life is difficult; and that I somehow need to share my faith more with the people around me.

 

 

I’m sure you have your own things you have learned.

 

One of the things that we’ve missed is the opportunity to come together in our churches. Here we can share together our journey of faith, week by week. We can learn from each other and offer up all we have and are to God. And when we read the Bible together we can ask what the lens of the Bible has to show us about our lives, our God and our faith.

 

So let’s look together at the story of Joseph

Thanks to Andrew Lloyd-Webber, we all feel we know the story of Joseph and his amazing technicolour dream-coat.

This is a part of the story towards the end of Joseph’s long and involved tale. 

Joseph, now a top-ranking Egyptian official, reveals his true identity to his brothers. There follows a scene of great weeping, kissing & falling on necks – not very socially distanced!

 

But Joseph has been very distant from his brothers. None of us can forget how Joseph had been sold into slavery by his brothers – to the ‘hairy Ishmaelites’ - that’s how Joseph ended up in Egypt.

 

In lockdown I managed to read Meg Warner’s book about Joseph. It was reviewed in July’s “Reform” and I can really recommend it. Meg Warner calls the story of Joseph  ‘a story of resilience’. 

 

Meg is the new OT tutor at Northern College in Manchester. Her book is really interesting – she goes through the whole story of Joseph as a story of someone suffering a series of traumas, and asks how his faith helps him to survive and even thrive. Alongside Joseph’s story she tells something of her own story and her own need for resilience on the face of trauma as well. She, too, uses the image of a lens – as she talks of these Bible stories as a lens which helps us to understand how life is for people of faith, and how faith helps us to live life.

 

Throughout the terrible things which Joseph endures he somehow finds God with him – as he experiences the hatred of his brothers, the selling into slavery, the incident with Potiphar’s wife, the spell in prison, the appointment as Pharaoh’s special advisor, and finally the reunion with the brothers and then his father.

Not only is God with Joseph, God takes care of him and steers him and his family through to a place of prosperity and life.

 

I don’t think it’s too dramatic to say that we have been through a global trauma as we have faced this global pandemic. You might have experienced great loneliness, weariness or depression; we know that over 46,000 people have died – leaving families and friends in mourning; you might have missed out on family celebrations; you or your family might have suffered financially; and we know that our young people’s lives have been turned upside down by the cancellation of exams and the current frustration about predicted results.

 

Our trauma is unlikely to have been exactly like Joseph’s trauma, and yet the God of Joseph has been with us and remains with us, and in Jesus offers healing and life.

 

So let’s turn to the Gospel reading

Jesus and his disciples have travelled out of Galilee, North to the region of Tyre and Sidon. They are in a foreign place – and a foreign woman comes to ask help from Jesus. She is an outsider, who does not belong with Jesus and the disciples. But she recognises the healing Jesus offers and comes to ask for healing for her daughter. 

 

Here is another person facing trauma – her daughter is described as being ‘tormented by a demon’. We don’t know the detail, but we do know what it is like to see the one we love most suffering – it is traumatic.

And so she risks the further trauma of rejection by Jesus.. and begs for his help.

Jesus at first seems to want to reject her –  “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”. 

But she persists, even when he calls her a ‘dog’. 

Jesus accepts her reasoning that even the dogs can beg for scraps, commends her faith and heals her daughter. 

Perhaps Jesus himself experiences trauma, as he has to learn to expand his understanding of who can receive God’s grace, that day. But in the end Jesus sees her a someone worthy of the grace and healing God offers and makes this woman one of the cared-for people of God. 

 

So coming back to us.

It is not enough for us to sit here today and just feel better that we are back.

 

Of course we give thanks to God that God has walked with us through these 5 months. Like Joseph, we thank God for the point we have reached and like Joseph we might well be feeling relief and joy! 

 

As we enjoy being church together  - even in this rather strange way -  we need to ask how we have known God with us – 

and how we can carry that knowledge with us into the future as we continue to find the resilience to handle the long-lasting effects of the trauma we have been through.

 

What does it mean to say God is with us? 

How is God leading us into the rest of 2020 and beyond? And what does it mean for us to be followers of Jesus?

 

As we re-open our churches we need to remember the woman who was a foreigner but who knew her need, and experienced God’s grace in Jesus Christ.

We need to ask ‘who is this church for?’.  If our answer is ‘this church is for everyone’, we need to further ask ‘how can we make that fact known to people who are currently outside these walls? And how can we make this a place of healing from trauma?’. 

We are followers of Jesus – that means that we go with God, and we invite all others to journey with us, too.

 

I’d like to end with a poem – or is it a prayer? – written by Bernard Thorogood. 

Bernard was the URC’s General Secretary from 1980 to 1992 – he died in April this year, having retired to Australia. I commend his little book of “Old Grey Prayers” – written a few years ago. The illustrations are by his son, Neil, who has just joined us in the synod, as minister of Trinity-Henleaze and Thornbury.

I will give Bernard the last word…

 

Today, tomorrow and in all weathers,

may I follow him?

When life is going well and when it is hard,

may I follow him.

When I can make sense of things – and when I cannot

may I follow him.

 

Sometimes it all seems a story, far, far away

that does not connect with me,

         and I wonder if I am right to pray 

         that I may follow him.

 

And as the years pass, and I become less mobile,

I can only sit; be quiet and wait

on the slow ride home.

 

Lord Jesus, stay with me.

 

Amen.