Holy Week, The Answer to Church Trauma?

It’s Holy Week, the most transformative week in the church calendar. As I have sat with the scripture passages for this week, I have been struck by a thought: perhaps Holy Week is the answer to the tragedy that is spiritual abuse and religious trauma. The research surrounding religious trauma and spiritual abuse is growing. Many are asking, how do we help people heal from such atrocities. At Restor(y), we not only want to ask how do we help people heal, but how does the church heal? How can the church be restored in such a way that religious trauma and spiritual abuse are no longer happening within the body of Christ? This week I have become ever more convinced that the answer to that question lies within Holy Week. A church that properly understands and celebrates Holy Week will be one in which spiritual abuse and church trauma cannot occur. That may seem like a bold statement, especially as all churches celebrate Holy Week in some fashion and clearly many are still perpetuating harm. And so the key factor is that Holy Week must be properly celebrated and understood. How do we properly understand and celebrate Holy Week? By fixing our eyes on Jesus. 

There is a verse in John’s account of Holy Week that has captured my heart and imagination this year. It follows John’s retelling of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. John describes a group of Greeks who have come to Jerusalem for the Passover festival approaching Philip and saying to him simply, “Sir, we want to see Jesus” (John 12:21). This request, “Sir, we want to see Jesus,” has been stirring in my heart since Palm Sunday and I have sensed the Lord reminding me, “Kayleigh, they need to see me.” I’ve been in pastoral ministry for seven years, and I am also a pastor’s kid. I know the temptations of Holy Week. I have made jokes about Easter being the “Superbowl” weekend of pastoral ministry. The temptations to attract visitors, to make the production quality the highest it is all year, to come up with the bigger and better outreach ideas are large, and the truth is, these things are not necessarily bad in and of themselves. However, when they become the main thing, when we forget that what people truly need is to see Jesus, we begin walking down the slippery slope towards becoming a church capable of perpetuating church trauma and spiritual abuse. Do not be fooled, any church can cause such harm, all that is required is that we take our eyes off of Jesus. 

Do not be fooled, any church can cause spiritual trauma, all that is required is that we take our eyes off of Jesus. 

Holy Week calls us to set our eyes on Jesus, on the behaviors of Jesus that should shape our church cultures, for they are the ones that shape the Kingdom of God. Today, I want to share several behaviors of Jesus from Holy Week that I believe if we seek to set our eyes on and then model in our churches we can become faith communities that no longer perpetuate church trauma and we will guard ourselves against perpetuating spiritual abuse. Those behaviors are: humility, lament, and self-emptying power. 

Humility

Watch Jesus closely throughout the stories that make up Holy Week and you will encounter humility. From his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, in which he chose to ride a donkey rather than a warhorse, to his washing of his disciples’ feet, to his full surrender in the garden of Gethsemane, and then his silence before his accusers and ultimately his death on the cross, it all displays radical humility. When describing Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, John quotes Zechariah 9:9 to remind the people that Jesus’ riding on the donkey fulfills the prophet’s prophecy regarding the messiah. Yet, John adjust’s Zechariah’s words just a bit and adds the phrase, “Do not be afraid” to the beginning. Do not be afraid, for your king is humble. A humble king is not consumed with protecting his throne and guarding his fame. A humble king is most concerned with the care of his people. He has no reputation to maintain, no image he is concerned about, rather his thoughts are consumed with caring for and loving his people. This is a humble king, and therefore, we need not fear his rule. There are many people who are currently afraid of the church. They fear pastors and church leaders. They have encountered too many faith communities who are most concerned with preserving their image, too many faith communities who have led in such ways that demonstrate that care for the other is not their top priority. These people have left the church and fear returning lest they once again are harmed by a church consumed with maintaining its reputation. A church that celebrates Holy Week by placing their eyes upon Jesus is one that places their eyes upon a humble king, and then seeks to model the humble behavior of that king. It is a church whose thoughts and actions are focused on caring for and loving others. It is a church with no need to care about reputation and image, but one that will gladly join its king Jesus in riding a humble donkey, in serving others sacrificially, of dying entirely to self. When this behavior is at the center of the church, spiritual abuse cannot remain. This is a church that we need not fear. 

Lament

We talk about lamenting often here at Restor(y) because we believe it is a critical component of trauma healing. Holy Week reminds us that lamenting is not only a healing behavior but a preventative one. After Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, we see him engaging in several moments of lament. Luke’s gospel presents us with a weeping Jesus, crying over the city of Jerusalem because they are missing the kingdom of God being made known in their midst. They are too busy looking for a kingdom of power and might to notice the one of humility and sacrifice Jesus is bringing, and this moves Jesus to tears. He is grieved, he is lamenting. His lament continued even moving him to action as all three synoptic gospels describe Jesus entering the temple and flipping over the tables of the money changers. Once again, this is Jesus lamenting. He is deeply grieved and angry over the way in which the temple had become a place of oppression and abuse of others. He turns the tables over because the money changers were charging exorbitant fees, taking advantage of the poor and the foreigner who simply want to come make the passover sacrifice to worship God. This abuse of those who are there to seek God, angers Jesus and moves him to action. He laments through protest. When churches place their eyes upon this lamenting Jesus, they too are called to grieve the ways in which the church of today is missing the kingdom of God in their midst. By closely watching Jesus weep over Jerusalem, the church is invited to ask, where are we looking for a kingdom of power and domination rather than one of humility and sacrifice? By observing Jesus flipping tables in the temple, the church is asked to consider if there are practices within our own churches that are harming others, that are oppressing others, that are creating any hindrances for those who are seeking to come and worship? If there are, are we willing to join Jesus in flipping those tables and clearing the temple? Matthew’s gospel tells us that once he had cleared and cleaned the temple, he stayed there healing and teaching (Matthew 21:12-14). If we desire for our churches to be places of healing, then we must regularly cleanse them through lament that moves us to action. 

Self-Emptying Power

Power. It is at the center of what leads to church trauma and spiritual abuse. The church has often fallen into the temptation of understanding power the way the world does, as something marked by might and domination. We impose these definitions upon God, and then we seek to embody them in our churches. Pastors and church leaders often embrace the teachings of the world that cause them to wield power more like a strategic business leader and less like a shepherd. However, a slow and attentive walk through Holy Week invites us to consider a new definition of power. There are several places throughout the Holy Week narrative in which Jesus both teaches on and displays a power that is marked through self-emptying. In John’s gospel, he speaks about his glorification (John 12:23-30). This word glory is one we often associate with power, yet the way Jesus describes it is all together different. Jesus closely aligns his glorification with his crucifixion. The way in which he will be glorified, the way he will bring glory to his father’s name, is not through a grand display of domination or strength, but through embracing the humiliation of death on a cross. If we are to continue reading in John’s gospel, we find the foot washing account which begins this way, “Jesus knew the Father had given everything into his hands and that he had come from God and was returning to God. So he got up from the table and took off his robes. Picking up a linen towel, he wrapped it around his waist. Then he poured water into a washbasin and began to wash the disciples’ feet” (John 13:3-5, emphasis added). Jesus’ act of washing his disciples’ feet was a direct result of his understanding of his power. His power led him to self-emptying service. His power caused him to love his disciples’ and love them completely. Ultimately, it was his power that led him to the cross and kept him upon the cross, for his power is not separate from his love, his love is his power. In what way do our churches model power that is self-emptying? In what ways do those of us who serve as pastors and church leaders demonstrate power that is marked by love and service? If we continue to define power as the world does, we will continue to see churches cause harm. However, if we set our eyes on Jesus and allow him to define power for us, if we model our behavior after his, we can prevent abuse from happening within our faith communities. 

Jesus’ actions throughout Holy Week, from his entrance into Jerusalem to his death upon the cross, all model for us a Savior who is humble, laments, and demonstrates self-emptying power. This is the Jesus people need to see. This is the Jesus people are looking for. When our churches choose to celebrate Holy Week by fixing our eyes on Jesus and asking him to equip us to imitate his behavior, we can move our churches towards restoration and form faith communities that no longer perpetuate harm. How is this possible? Because the humble, lamenting, self-emptying Messiah Jesus is not dead, he is alive! 

Happy Easter, may our churches be places of great hope this Holy Week and all year long.