A Gospel for the Shamed
Various passages
I really appreciated Mike Shea’s teaching at our
congregational retreat. Many times I’ve
felt that God provided the right speaker with the right message at the right
time.
I’ve been thinking and processing the gospel more in
my own personal walk with God and had started this gospel series. Without coordinating topics or passages, Mike
Shea gave us a weekend of understanding the gospel/justification/union with
Christ. I feel like perhaps we as a
church have turned a corner in understanding the gospel. And perhaps this will change how we pray for
ourselves/others, how we counsel one another and hold each other accountable,
how we discuss things in our small groups, etc.
We’ve been talking about the gospel and how its not a
one-size-fits-all message. The gospel is
a multi-faceted story that maps on to our personal stories, and today I’d like
to see the gospel from the perspective of shame.
We can reread Ge 3 from the perspective of shame (not
guilt)
2:25, they were naked and the felt no shame.
Genesis 2:25,
3:6-10
25 The man and his wife
were both naked, and they felt no shame.
6 When the woman
saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and
also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some
to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were
opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together
and made coverings for themselves.
8 Then the man and
his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the
cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man,
“Where are you?”
10 He answered, “I
heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
(v. 7) The
first thing Adam and Eve felt was shame.
They immediately covered themselves.
They were naked before, but the immediate consequence of the fall was
that shame entered the human experience.
(v. 8) Then
Adam and Eve heard God and they hid.
(v. 10) They
hid because they were afraid, afraid because they were naked.
Adam did not say they were afraid because they had
eaten the forbidden fruit (something they had done). They were afraid not because of guilt but
because of shame/nakedness. Shame seems
to be the primary feeling, not guilt.
We live in a world of shame.
Shame is an intense and spontaneous thing. It’s immediate and instinctive. It goes deep within us.
Perhaps for many of us, it is the feelings of shame
and embarrassment that are a lot stronger than feelings of guilt. There’s something
Maybe some of us feel shame because
Things we’ve done. It’s mixed with guilt. We’re ashamed of things we’ve done, ways
we’ve failed, regrets we have, addictions we have. We feel shame for lustful thoughts,
pornography, masturbation, sex outside of marriage. Eating disorder, homosexuality, mental
illness, etc.
Thing we haven’t done. We may feel
shame not for our “too-badness” but our “not-good-enoughness.” We didn’t get into a prestigious enough
school, we don’t have the impressive career, we’re not smart or thin or
athletic or attractive or popular or successful enough. There’s a feeling of personal inadequacy,
inferiority.
What others have said.
Maybe you were teased in school for being too fat, too
scrawny; not good at sports; weren’t “cool”.
Or maybe you felt ignored; the message was, you don’t matter.
Maybe you’ve had parents who seemed to say, you’re not
good enough. They never said the “I’m
proud of you” that you so longed to hear.
Or maybe some has mistreated you. Maybe you were abused; maybe you were
raped. Maybe you feel like you’re cheap,
damaged goods, worthless, without dignity.
Shame is a vague, undefined heaviness
that presses on our spirit...It is a feeling that we do not measure up and
maybe never will measure up to the sorts of persons we are meant to be. This
feeling, when we are conscious of it, gives us a vague disgust with ourselves,
which in turn feels like a hunk of lead on our hearts.
The difference between guilt and shame
is very clear--in theory. We feel guilty for what we do. We feel shame for what
we are. A person feels guilt because he did something wrong. A person feels
shame because he is something wrong. We may feel guilty because we lied to our
mother. We may feel shame because we are not the persons our mother wanted us
to be.
Lewis Smedes, Shame and Grace (1993), 5, 9-10
We
feel shame for who we are, and so since Genesis 3, we cover ourselves. We hide.
Our practical gospel:
We’re not trying to earn our own righteousness, we’re
trying to make our own covering. We’re
trying to make ourselves acceptable, presentable, attractive and admirable.
We’re trying to save ourselves from our shame. We make coverings for ourselves:
We work so hard to be cool, attractive, educated,
wealthy, popular, powerful, successful.
We do a lot of good works, we serve, we give mercy,
we’re active at church.
We build walls of protection, we keep people at arm’s
length, we avoid rejection.
We have lots of secrets, skeletons in our
closets. We don’t want to bring shame to
ourselves or our families, we want to save face. And so we put on the smile and pretend that everything
is fine.
Mike Shea mentioned the doctrine of expiation as one
way the gospel addresses shame. I’d like
to look at another way.
The Fear of Rejection Destroyed
Lewis Smedes says that the underlying problem of shame
is the fear of rejection, fear of abandonment.
We fear that if people really knew what was inside, what would they think of us (hence all
the covering)! They’d look down on us, they’d
despise us, they wouldn’t love us, they’d reject us.
Grace: to be accepted without regard to whether we are
acceptable.
The surest cure
for the feeling of being an unacceptable person is the discovery that we are
accepted by the grace of One whose acceptance of us matters most. (Smedes, 108)
Grace overcomes
shame, not by uncovering an overlooked cache of excellence in ourselves but
simply by accepting us, the whole of us, with no regard to our beauty or our
ugliness, our virtue or our vices. We
are accepted wholesale. Accepted with no
possibility of being rejected. Accepted
once and accepted forever. Accepted at
the ultimate depth of our being.
(Smedes, 109)
Samaritan Woman
A woman of shame and rejection, avoiding people. She’s an immoral woman (5 husbands, on number
6), she comes to the well at the heat of the day—to avoid people.
Jesus talks with her, and she feels nervous. “He doesn’t know who I am!”
Jesus says, “I know you completely, but I still accept
you. I offer myself to you.”
When the
worst is already known, and love is still given, there is nothing left to fear.
Now, instead of shame and avoidance, she runs into
the village, “Come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”
She wanted water because in her shame, she wanted to
avoid coming to the well. She wanted something to help her avoid people.
She found Jesus and dignity and acceptance, so that
she didn’t have to avoid people anymore.
She found something to free her
from avoiding people.
Often we want something to help us in our own coping
mechanism/covering: to be more attractive, presentable, respectable—to keep up
our image, to keep “covering ourselves.”
We want Jesus to
make us more attractive, to help us improve our image.
Jesus offers
something that frees us from worrying about our image!
Jesus goes deeper.
He addresses the underlying issue: He embraces you!
You’re still a sinner with faults and warts, but
you’re accepted and loved, freed.
The gospel is that we repent
of caring so much about what other people think, repent of trying to find
our value/significance in image or people.
Repent of our self-gospel of trying to make our own covering.
And then we believe, we trust that in Christ, we are already accepted, loved. We don’t need people’s approval
because we already have God’s approval.
Reflection in Children
The trusting child does not have a worry
in the world about whether he is smart enough, or handsome enough, whether he
has accomplished enough with his life, or been good enough to be acceptable to
his parents. He trusts that the someone
who holds him, warms him, feeds him, cradles him, and loves him will accept him
again and again. Trust is the inner
child we rediscover in an experience of grace.
(Smede, 109)
Although there are
exceptions, generally young children with good parents are free. In their simple innocence, they’re don’t think
about making themselves “good enough to be accepted.” They just believe they are.
So my kids, jump on me, Noah wants to be held.
Noah sometimes is a little clingy. He wants us to hold him. Never have I sensed him thinking, “Gosh, I
have a dirty diaper. Maybe he won’t want
to hold me now” “Oh no, I spilled the food.
Maybe he won’t like me now.” No,
when he raises his hands to be held, there’s no fear of him not being good
enough for me.
He’s free. That’s
gospel living.
Caleb is sometimes messy with his peeing. I get frustrated and scold him, be careful!
Sometimes I whisper, “I will always love you!” And then he says, “But I should be careful
when I go potty. Daddy doesn’t like it
when I’m messy.”
“Yes, Daddy doesn’t like it when you’re messy. But Daddy will always love you, even when
you’re messy.”
That’s the gospel.
Daddy will always love you, even
when you’re messy! There is
security, no fear of rejection. The
power of shame is taken out at its root!
I know sometimes its might be little intimidating or
uncomfortable to come up to me and just start talking or joking around. Elijah and Caleb, they run up to me, climb on
me, jump on me. They don’t worry about
what I think of them. They never
hesitate to talk to me. They already
know they’re accepted. And they’re free.
Reflection in Marriage
Marriage is meant to be a relationship
of radical acceptance. Providing a safe
environment is one of the greatest gifts you can offer to another person. We long to know that another accepts us at
our worst. When we are convinced of
this, the fear that we will be rejected is banished. We do not have to hide our unattractive
sides. We are free to work on areas of
our lives which need to be changed and receive help from another. Rather than being condemned for our failures,
we are looked at through hopeful eyes of what can become through Christ. In this gracious atmosphere, we can blossom. (Preparing
for Marriage, Redeemer, p. 3)
In the best of marriages we
see this freedom emerge. When there is
no more fear of rejection, when there is an assurance of complete and committed
acceptance, then we’re free to be naked.
Enchantment phase
Disenchantment phase
Maturity phase: When we see the
good and the bad, and we accept and embrace the whole person. You’re free!
Marriage is a commitment of love and faithfulness, a
promise of complete acceptance: we accept the good, we accept the bad, we
accept the whole person.
In that covenant of safety, committed love, marriage
is a place where the covering is taken off and you are naked before one
another. There is no more hiding. Everything is exposed.
Couples: may I remind us that this is what our
marriages are supposed to be. We do not
reject one another, we do not complain about each other’s shortcomings. We say, I see the good and I see the bad, and
I embrace all of you.
Parents: may I remind us that this is what we want to
give to our children. May they never
have to wonder about our love for them.
No matter what they do, may they feel completely loved and accepted.
Marriage and parenting should picture the gospel. It pictures our gospel freedom.
I recently had a phone conversation with my Dad,
asking him to pray for my sermon at a recent pastors’ conference. He assured me, Paul, you are God’s
instruments. Don’t worry about
anything. God wants to use you. Paul, I’m proud of you.
I caught a glimpse, in my Dad’s eyes, I cannot
fail. I don’t have to do anything to
make my Dad accept me or feel proud of me.
And he wanted me to feel free!
Don’t worry, God will use you.
And that reminded me of my Heavenly Father.
It is often
through human relationships that
God’s grace and acceptance are experienced.
We can know this in our minds, but its when we feel
the full love of our parents or as parents, or when we feel the full embrace of
our spouse, or the complete acceptance of a deep friendship—often that’s what
unlocks our hearts to experiencing the gospel.
We taste it.
Church, we
can preach the gospel to one another through our showing unconditional
acceptance. We see the good, we see the
bad, and we accept the person. We
demonstrate grace, gospel, and that produces “safe places.” We don’t have to put on masks—we feel fully
accepted.
Max
Lucado tells this story in his book No
Wonder They Call Him Savior:
Maria and her daughter, Christina, lived on the
outskirts of a Brazilian village. Maria's husband had died when Christina was
an infant. The young mother got a job and set out to raise her daughter. And
now, fifteen years later, the worst years were over. Maria's salary was
reliable and provided food and clothes. And now, Christina was old enough to
get a job to help out.
Christina had a way of throwing her head back
and filling the room with laughter. She also had that rare magic some women
have that makes every man feel like a king just by being near them. But it was
her spirited curiosity that made her keep all the men at arm's length.
She spoke often of going to the city and dreamed
of exciting avenues. Just the thought of this horrified her mother. Maria was
always quick to remind Christina of the harshness of the streets.
Maria knew exactly what Christina would do, or
would have to do for a living. That's why her heart broke when she awoke one
morning to find Christina gone. Maria knew immediately where her daughter had
gone. She also knew what she must do to find her. She quickly threw some
clothes together, gathered up all her money and ran out of the house.
On her way to the bus stop she entered a
drugstore to get some pictures. She sat in the photograph booth, closed the
curtain, and spent all she could on pictures of herself. She boarded the next
bus to
Maria knew Christina had no way of earning money
and was too stubborn to give up. When pride meets hunger, a human will do
things that were before unthinkable. Knowing this, Maria began her search.
Bars, hotels, nightclubs, any place with a reputation for streetwalkers or
prostitutes. She went to them all. And at each place she left her picture-
taped to a hotel bulletin board, fastened to a corner phone booth. And on the
back of each photo, she wrote a note.
It wasn't too long before both the money and the
pictures ran out. The weary mother wept as she boarded the bus to go back home.
It was a few weeks later, young Christina
descended the hotel stairs. Her face was tired. Her brown eyes no longer danced
with youth but spoke of pain and fear. Her laughter was broken. Her dream had
become a nightmare. A thousand times over she had longed to trade these
countless beds for her secure pallet. Yet the little village was, in too many
ways, too far away.
Her eyes noticed a familiar face. She looked and
there on the lobby mirror was a picture of her mother. Christina removed the
photo. Written on the back was this compelling invitation: "Whatever you
have done, whatever you have become, it doesn't matter. Please come home."
She did.
For those of us who feel shame, who feel we have a lot
to hide, who feel profoundly inadequate and deeply fearful of rejection, we
recognize these feelings run deep. We do
not want to minimize or trivialize your struggles.
But we do want to point to our gospel hope:
There is no more fear of rejection. You are fully accepted. “Whatever you have done, whatever you have
become, it doesn’t matter. Please come
home!”
When the worst is already known, and love is still
given, there is nothing left to fear.
You feel free!