Healing The HealersExemplo

From the Chaos: Preaching in the Wake of Mass Violence

There exists a maxim that warns preachers to “preach from your scars, not from your wounds.” Generally, this is a good rule of thumb. However, this rule cracks under the weight of trauma. In the aftermath of a traumatic incident, the minister must serve their congregation as a wounded preacher. 

Whether at vigils the same evening or in the weeks following, preachers must contend with what to say to a community that is hurting, shocked, and full of (sometimes unanswerable) questions, even as trauma may render them speechless. And, yet, the preacher is called on to speak in the midst of the unspeakable. 

Often preachers feel pressured to have answers or feel the need to make meaning out of traumatic incidents that, by definition, stand outside of our meaning-making capacities. Yet, both silence and quick answers can be problematic for communities experiencing trauma. Instead, in the aftermath of such incidents, the preacher should be willing to preach the brokenness without trying to make meaning or reconstruct the shards of fractured reality. 

Gratefully, pastors have a language for honoring this brokenness found in scripture and traditions.  At the same time, sacred texts and traditions (including many laments) remind the wounded faithful of the presence and promises of God, holding these truths in trust for the community for those times when it is hard to believe. 

In the wake of trauma, preachers should likewise hold the reality of brokenness in tension with the promises of healing and hope that hum in the background, even if such hope is not presently palpable. Indeed, by naming the broken shards of traumatic experience from the pulpit and by being willing to preach from a wounded place, the preacher in fact blesses the experience of trauma as not beyond the grace, presence and reach of God.