A Prayer for the Traumatized Savior

Here’s a Prayer to the traumatized Savior
Who no one,
Not one disciple
understood

Here’s a prayer to the mysterious Jesus
Who was beyond ken
who told stories and parables
and riddles
and answered questions with questions
and ministered to the hurt behind the questions
and only maybe, maybe answered 5 or 6

Because Jesus knew that ministry is not about answers
But walking with people in their hurt
and listening to their stories
and sitting by the well
waiting

Here’s a Prayer for the Jesus who saw people
really saw them, and called them, each
by their chosen name, and did not care
if it was different than their birth name, what miracle

This is a prayer for Jesus who felt more at home
with Lazarus Mary and Martha (or maybe there was just Mary
and we conflated one woman into two?) and believed in found families
and who had to retreat there when the crowds became overwhelming.

A prayer for the Savior who had to nap and escape to the middle of lakes
and the tops of mountains.
A prayer for the Savior who cursed fig trees and flipped tables
and yelled at the hypocrites and screamed SHUT UP, when the waves got too scary.
Here’s a prayer for Jesus, survivor of trauma, even before
Even before they went on that hill to the cross
And called misfits and the marginal to do the work with them:
tax collectors, widows, outcasts and those with foot in mouth syndrome

Here’s a Prayer to Jesus–who said, look for me in the most unlikely places
the immigrant, look for me on the edges of society.
Do not worry about me getting you,
Look for me among the lost sheep, the prodigal
the poor, the hungry
look for me among the imprisoned
those who speak gibberish
the sick
those without power
those without citizenship
the queer ones
the naked
the children
the lonely

This is a prayer for Jesus–who does not care about branding
or power, or how many people are Christian,
how many Christians we produce
Christianity is not a product

Here’s a prayer for Jesus,
Who is sitting with all of us
after a worldwide pandemic
from which we all hold grief and trauma
and from which, I still haven’t shaped the right prayer
So I’m sitting with Jesus–who knows what trauma is
and is making the prayer with me.

Feel free to use/share/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

If you care to support me, please do so at my GoFundMe for my Doctorate in Creative Writing as a Public Theologian at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Here (and many thanks to all those have supported my first 2 and half years I could not have done it without you!)