I was in an intensive course all week this week on moral injury and trauma. One of the concepts that continued to come up was the process of discovering and re-discovering a sense of self; in particular, the rediscovery of our sense of self after trauma.
As I was reflecting on this concept while also discerning what to preach this week, I was struck by a feeling of awe as to not only how incredible it is that we as humans have the ability to constantly discover ourselves, to be constantly becoming, but also that our Christian theology professes these cycles of discovery and re-discovery. Cycles that sound like brokenness and repair, failure and redemption, death and new life. I remember that as a kid, I would tell myself that, as an adult, I would have it all figured out. I suppose now that I’ve reached adulthood, all that I’ve figured out is that I don’t have everything figured out. In fact, I’m constantly surprised by both the world and myself. Just when I think I might be able to anticipate what comes next, life, my mind, my body, seems to throw a curveball and, I realize, I’m still in a cycle of discovery and re-discovery. Always becoming. This last year of living in a pandemic only underscored this reality for me. COVID-19 interrupted our collective world view and made us reconsider how we engage life together. The new norms, anxieties, and uncertainties introduced by COVID overwhelmed our individual and communal functioning. One could say, this was traumatic. For many of us, COVID shook us from a presumed state of being into more accurate states of becoming as our world views were challenged. We grew acutely aware of our mental and emotional well-being; of our physical health; and of our mortality. We called our relationships into question – platonic, romantic, and familial. Who did we miss? Not miss? With whom were we safe? We were confronted with the sin of racism and evil of White supremacy through acts of violence and hate towards Asian and Black Americans. The rituals we took for granted, from sitting at our local coffee shops to worshipping in community, were thrown out the window. Then, we had to decide how to respond to each of these awakenings. For most of us, they demanded a reframing and necessitated learning. That which had been, no longer was. No longer is. Instead, we were given the opportunity to re-discover our sense of self, community, and collective being by living into the very human process of becoming. We see this process of becoming throughout the Bible. One example resides in our lessons on covenants. In our readings for today, we hear of the covenants that God had, and will, make with the Israelites. A cycle of discovery and re-discovery. A cycle of brokenness and repair. Of failure and redemption. By the time we get to where we are in Jeremiah, the Israelites had been through trauma both from within their community and due to external events, like war. They were now confronted with rewriting their norms, narratives, and senses of self. You see, during their traumatic experiences, the Israelites had broken their covenant with God.[1] That is to say, their understanding of who they were, entirely shaken. They could easily have chosen this – broken, failed, alone – as their narrative. But God gives another option. God tells God’s people that God will “make a new covenant” with them, that God’s law will be within them and on their hearts, that “they shall be my people,” that they will know God, and that their sins will be forgiven and forgotten.[2] The Israelites were given the opportunity to re-discover to their sense of self and community by choosing to engage the process of becoming by entering into a new covenant with God. This should sound like good news because, how often do we break our covenants with God? God never leaves us, but we sure do leave God. When we do, do we allow that to be our narrative? Something like, “I am the one who left God. The one who broke my covenant with God.” Or, do we find ourselves in the Biblical process of becoming, recognizing that we come from a long line of saints and sinners who broke and restored, failed and were redeemed, and discovered and re-discovered over and over and over again? If this is where we find ourselves, then our narrative can be, “I am the one who broke my covenant with God…and I am restored. I am always becoming.” Our narrative can acknowledge our faults, pains, and traumas both done by and done unto us – while also embracing hope for who we know we could be. This example of breaking and restoring a covenant is just one example of becoming. Other examples do not directly involve God. Rather, discovery and re-discovery, and the possible suffering which occurs, are just part of life. Part of being human. Not caused by God. But, God meets us in this humanity. God knows that we are always becoming. In fact, the only character about whom we read who is being rather than becoming, is God God’s self. Because of this, God walks with us as we journey through our cycles of discovery and re-discovery. As we become who God meant us to be, become more compassionate and loving, become better neighbors, become alive in a new a body, become more aware of our roles in this world. We are becoming because we are constantly drawn towards God, who is Being. I hear a lot of grace in this idea that we, and our world, are never finished. That we can always become more of who we were intended to be. And this grace is only emboldened when we look to the cross. In the cross, we can see how our Christian theology professes cycles of discovery and re-discovery. Cycles that sound like brokenness and repair, failure and redemption, and death and new life. This cycle of death and new life – this is what we witness when bear we witness to Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection. Our Gospel tells us this Truth today when Jesus teaches that a grain that dies will bear much fruit,[3] that Jesus came for this hour to die and be resurrected, drawing us all to him in new life[4] – a cycle of death and life in which we metaphorically, and sometimes literally, get to participate in daily in our constant process of becoming. And God is with us, just like God was with our ancestors, every step of the way in this human journey, even when we are sitting in the despair of our sin, the fear of a pandemic, the pain of injustice, or the fragility of our human nature. So, let us not be surprised when life, our minds, or our bodies throw us curveballs. Rather, let us be curious. Let us acknowledge where we are in our processes of self-rediscovery, give time and space to honor our trauma, allow ourselves to process, and then – when ready – encounter the grace already awaiting us in knowing that nothing is ever final in our cycles of discovery and re-discovery. This Lent, as we draw closer to the new life on Easter which comes from death on Good Friday, may we reflect on how we are always becoming and drawing closer to God who is Being. Amen. [1] Jeremiah 31:32. [2] Jeremiah 31:31-34. [3] John 12:24. [4] John 12:32. |