Berean Baptist Church Rhode Island
  • Home
  • Christian Education
  • Prayer & Meditation
  • Pride
  • Food & Clothes - Outreach Ministries
  • Staff
  • Lent 2021
  • Current Sermon Series
  • Trauma & Grace
  • Epiphany 2021 Sermon Series
  • Advent & Christmas Sermon Series
  • Pride 2021 Sermon Series
  • Past Sermon Series
  • Event Calendar

Current Sermon Series
Trauma & Healing

A sermon series inspired by the book Trauma and Grace by Dr. Serene Jones

Trauma & Healing 1 - July 4, 2021
Mark 2:23 - 3:6
Spiritual Bypassing

In our story today Jesus meets a man who is disabled due to an injured hand. 
Disability would have almost certainly ensured unemployment and poverty for this man and perhaps his family
and poverty, history teaches us, in this time and place meant being reduced to slavery or begging to survive
and also to disease and a very short life.  
The pious religious folks want to debate the finer points of Sabbath law
Jesus wants to heal the man and give him the possibility of a full and joyful life
Spiritual Bypassing is using spiritual and/or theological argumentation to distance us from the actual faithful practice
of accepting and caring for those who are vulnerable and suffering.  

Trauma & Healing 2 - July 11, 2021
Psalm 137
Testimony - Telling the Story of Our Injury

Psalm 137 is a particularly difficult scripture to read and apply
It contains the raw emotions of anger and grief and the wish for a violent retribution against those who have
attacked Judah with violence and cruelty
This Psalm reminds us that God is a willing and compassionate partner when we need to vent our pain, our grief and our anger
It challenges us as American Christians to cease our avoidance of lament
and it reminds us that by telling our stories and naming the injustice and cruelty we see
God reveals to us a path of redemption, of healing, and of justice.  

Trauma & Healing 3 - July 18, 2021
Ezekiel 34 & John 20
Witnessing - Creating Safe Space for Story-Telling

The prophet Ezekiel shares an important but unsettling message from God
The religious leaders and pious people of faith are letting their neighbors suffer
poverty, hunger, disease, injustice.  
God sees this because God pays close attention to the vulnerable. 
God is attentive

John 20 tells the story of Thomas inability to believe in the resurrection of Jesus
but what if he isn't being stubborn or prideful
What if he is so traumatized by the crucifixion of Jesus he literally cannot believe, he cannot find hope, he cannot experience joy? 
Trauma has that impact on people
And the thing that heals Thomas and allows him to live in hope again
is that the God who pays attention to those who are suffering 
pays special attention to him, hears his painful plea and visits him restoring his hope and his life. 

Trauma & Healing 4 - A New Story
Isaiah 54

Part of healing from trauma, according to Dr. Jones in the book that has inspired this sermon series, is that the person or people traumatized can imagine and live into a future that is not completely controlled by the past trauma. 
If our scripture today from the prophet Isaiah, God delivers a message of future hope, a new story, to the people of Israel exiled in Babylon.  Beyond their trauma, even in the midst of its aftermath, God is creating a future free from the loss and pain that they know.  

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Christian Education
  • Prayer & Meditation
  • Pride
  • Food & Clothes - Outreach Ministries
  • Staff
  • Lent 2021
  • Current Sermon Series
  • Trauma & Grace
  • Epiphany 2021 Sermon Series
  • Advent & Christmas Sermon Series
  • Pride 2021 Sermon Series
  • Past Sermon Series
  • Event Calendar