Excerpted from 2023 Lenten Guide: A Season of Renewal, a Lenten Guide for Lectionary Year A from the North Carolina Council of Churches.
Ephesians 5:8-14
For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness; rather, expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly, but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says,
“Sleeper, awake!
Rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”
One way that faith communities can bring abundant light and hope is by addressing religious trauma. Brooks Baer, a specialist in mental health counseling, writes that “religious trauma occurs when a person’s religious experience is stressful, degrading, dangerous, abusive, or damaging. Traumatic religious experiences may harm or threaten to harm someone’s physical, emotional, mental, sexual, or spiritual health and safety” (https://therapist.com/trauma/religious-trauma/).
We depend on light to exist. Physical and metaphorical light offers us safety. Lent is a time to examine the dark aspects of our lives. This passage of Ephesians reminds us of the importance of revealing the darkness in our lives- what keeps us from God and each other. We are invited to expose what keeps our communities from flourishing.
The good news, as Ephesians tells us, is that with light there is healing. When we invite light into the darkness, we welcome healing. Light exposes deep pain and injustice. When things become visible, there is accountability.
Shame, stigma, silence, and pain are often trauma markers. These experiences can also cause a culture of a shame and fear within a faith community if the community caused the trauma.
Many faith communities do not intentionally cause trauma. It occurs for different reasons ranging from unhealthy ministerial practices to a lack of boundaries and accountability. Furthermore, these abuses often happen in secret or in places that lack transparency. They happen in the darkness.
As people of faith, we can challenge our spaces to become trauma-informed. We can eliminate stigma and toxic practices. We can shine light on what is painful, to offer solidarity to those impacted. We can “live as children of light” (v. 8) to make sure our faith communities are places of safety and hope for all. Amen.
