My dear friend, Susanna Ballard, gave a sermon on shame last year, and I want to share it with you. It speaks on a topic I've long wanted to write about. May the message encourage you as it did me. May it bring healing and restoration.
Sources:
Brene Brown's Ted Talk “The Power of Vulnerability.”
Forrester, John A., Grace for Shame: The Forgotten Gospel.
Manning, Brennan, The Ragamuffin Gospel.
Smedes, Lewis B., Shame and Grace: Healing the Shame We Don’t Deserve.
Wimberly, Edward P., Moving from Shame to Self-Worth: Preaching and Pastoral Care.
Wright, N.T., John for Everyone, Part Two.
Word Count: 4059.
Jesus and Peter: The Good News of Grace for Shame.
I want to proclaim to you today that the good news of the Gospel is not only forgiveness for sin, but also freedom from shame. The deepest healing for shame comes through the love and acceptance that God extends to us through Jesus, his son.
Shame has a history as old as sin. The story of Adam and Eve tells of the beginning of sin and our separation from God. Adam and Eve’s sin led to guilt because of their disobedience - their wrong actions. But it also led to shame. In fact shame was Adam and Eve’s first response to their sin in the Garden. Genesis 3 tells us that “they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves. They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.”
Guilt and shame are both consequences for sin and “the origin of shame [is] sin” (Forrester 126). “The church has responded much more helpfully to the sin-consequence that we name ‘guilt,’ than to the sin-consequence that we name ‘shame’ (126). Guilt is less painful to talk about because it’s less personal. It has to do with our actions, what we’ve done, not who we are. The solution God offers for guilt is repentance (which means turning from wrong thinking or behavior and turning toward God) and forgiveness. However we also need an appropriate response for shame. Adam and Eve didn’t hide the apple, which was the evidence of their sin. They hid themselves. The solution for shame is God’s unconditional love and acceptance.
For those of you who are unsure if you’re familiar with shame, let me explain. It’s that feeling of not being good enough, the fear of being rejected, of feeling left out or not invited, of being critiqued by someone you care about, or worse, someone you want to be liked by. Shame also comes from sin: from hurting someone, taking advantage of someone, indulging to the point of excess. We’re all vulnerable to shame.
I’m not talking about the shame that leads to modesty. It is sometimes called discretionary shame to distinguish it as the good shame. This shame helps us protect what is private from the public sphere. For example, discretionary shame keeps us wearing a socially acceptable amount of clothing (no bathing suits in church) and helps us regulate our self-disclosure (keeping intimate stories for intimate friends, and some stories just between you and the Lord). Discretionary shame protects what is vulnerable.
But the shame that Jesus encounters in the lives of the people he ministers to is not discretionary shame but a harmful shame. It’s the shame that is internalized as a message of unworthiness; the mindset that something is wrong with you.
Shame takes root at the core of someone’s identity and says “I’m not good enough,” or “I don’t earn enough,” or “I’m not thin enough,” or “strong enough.” You fill in the blank. Think of the things your children struggle with that create shame: not reading early enough or still wetting the bed. Think of the ways that it seemed like you never measured up when you were a child. They can still be really painful memories. And it’s a sneaky kind of inner voice because it determines how you see yourself and you might not even be aware of it!
Shame turns into the fear that because of something defective about us we’re not worthy of love and belonging. Which is what we all live for. Right? Human connection. And this feeling or belief actually keeps people from experiencing love and belonging. Shame is the fear of disconnection. It’s the feeling that if other people know it or see it, we won’t be worthy of connection.
Jesus himself was very familiar with the impact of shame because shame was the cultural currency in first century Palestine. In many cultures today, shame and honor still delineate rigorously enforced class systems. Think of the racism in the American south only two generations ago when it was unthinkable for a white person to mingle with people of color. Similarly, in Jesus day it was “legally forbidden to mingle with [those] who were outside the [Jewish] law: [sharing a meal] with beggars, tax collectors, and prostitutes was religiously, socially, and culturally taboo” (Manning 59).
Yet we see Jesus reaching out to many people heavily laden with the weight of shame. These are people who have been labeled unworthy of love and belonging, either because of what they’ve done or because of how others have treated them.
- Jesus enters into their social isolation as in the story of Jesus eating at the house of Zacchaeus the tax collector (Luke 19). Zacchaeus could easily have been nicknamed ‘the man with no friends’ because of his sinful choice to extort his fellow Jews. Though Jesus knew about his public disgrace and his shameful behavior, he chose to enter Zacchaeus’ shame by seeking out his company. For Jesus, Zacchaeus is worthy of love and belonging in spite of his sin.
- Jesus also heals the illnesses that caused individuals to live in shame. Think of the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years (Mark 5). Her shame because of her bleeding condition had kept her ritually impure - no one would even have touched her for 12 years because in their culture her shameful impurity would have passed to them. That lack of touch for so long is a remarkable level of disconnection, but also not uncommon for adults today with physical disabilities. When Jesus asks ‘who touched me?’ the woman is terrified to reveal herself. Jesus is not upset at her for touching him. He praises her for her faith at reaching out to him.
- Jesus publicly defends shamed people like the woman caught in adultery whom he protects from public stoning (John 8). The same story tells of Jesus also commanding righteous living of her in response to the freedom from shame. He says “go and leave your life of sin” (John 8:11).
- He restores shamed people to community, which is a part of what shame steals. Shame brings isolation. For example the man possessed with a Legion of demons who had been relegated to life among the tombstones in a cemetery. Jesus heals him and then commissions to “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you” (Mark 5:19). Jesus is saying ‘go and be in community with other people and rejoice together at your freedom from shame.’ Jesus commissions him to praise God.
Jesus responds to the cause of their shame and restores them. When Jesus accepts them as friends and treats them as equals, he shows them that they matter to him as people. Jesus gives them a sense of dignity as he removes their shame and humiliation. Additionally, “because Jesus was looked upon as a man of God and a prophet, they would have interpreted his gesture of friendship as God’s approval of them. They were now acceptable to God. Their sinfulness, ignorance, and uncleanness had been overlooked and were no longer being held against them” (Albert Nolan, Jesus Before Christianity, 60).
And then there’s the shame story of Jesus’ own disciple, one of his closest friends, Simon Peter. Whose experience of and grief about his shame could have prevented him from entering into a powerful public ministry of sharing the gospel and shepherding God’s people. Peter’s shame is rooted in his betrayal of Jesus.
Simon Peter, originally a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee, was called by Jesus to be his follower. As Jesus traveled throughout Galilee, teaching in the synagogues, preaching the good news of the Kingdom of God, and healing every disease and sickness among the people, Peter and Jesus’ other disciples went with him, watching and listening to learn from Jesus. Peter would have witnessed Jesus’ healing miracles, heard his teaching on forgiveness, been rebuked for not having faith during the storm at sea. Peter was the first among the disciples to profess faith in Jesus as Messiah. As the time for Jesus’ death came near, Jesus foretold that his disciples would desert him during his last hours. Peter assured Jesus that if all the others fall away, he never would!
Matt 26:33 tells us: Peter said to him, “Though all become deserters because of you, I will never desert you.” 34 Jesus said to him, “Truly I tell you, this very night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.” 35 Peter said to him, “Even though I must die with you, I will not deny you.” And so said all the disciples.
And yet as Jesus goes toward his death - first his midnight trial by the Jewish leaders, then the public trial by Pilate, then the mocking, beating, humiliation, pain and shame of his crucifixion - where was his disciple, one of his closest and longest known friend Peter? It was just as Jesus had foretold. Three times Peter, who deserted Jesus and fled at his arrest, denied knowing Jesus or having any association with him. Matthew tells us that the final time a bystander draws a connection between Peter and Jesus, Peter “began to curse, and he swore an oath, “I do not know the man!” (Matthew 26:74).
At the darkest time of Jesus’ earthly ministry -- at the time when a friend’s faithfulness would have meant the most and when betrayal would hurt the most -- it was at this time that Peter denies his master, his friend, the one to whom he had just hours before claimed his allegiance unto death.
What must Peter have been feeling as he turned away from his teacher at the moment of his darkest hour. Why would he do that? It could have been fear of public shame or fear of persecution or fear of being cast out by his community. While the Gospels don’t tell us about Peter’s emotions during his betrayal, Matthew tells us that as soon as he realized what he had done, when the rooster crows, Peter “went out and wept bitterly” (Matt 26:75). Grief and shame at his own cowardice must have followed Peter every day after that.
Shame is like a toxic waste that affects the soil of our hearts: the plants that grow from it will always be affected by the shame, no matter how big or beautiful or striking they may appear...or how hard they try to be good. Shame feeds the roots and infects the entire plant...yet most of the time we’re unaware of its influence on our thinking because the message of shame is so deeply ingrained.
I’ve worn glasses since I was 10. Who else wears glasses here? Have you ever had the sad misfortune to go looking everywhere for your glasses only to realize that they’re on your face? When you see through them day after day, your body stops telling you that you’re wearing them and your glasses become an invisible lens through which you see the world. Shame is like that. It becomes integral to the story we tell ourselves about who we are. As a lens, it also affects how we see others. We interpret people’s words and actions to mean more than or something other than what they really mean - we assume people see us as a lesser person. But because it’s like a glasses lens, we don’t even see it!
Shame patterns often surface the most in your most intimate relationships. My husband, Dan, has given permission for me to share an example from our relationship. If Dan’s been having a busy day or has a lot on his mind, and I mention a small project on my mind that we haven’t finished, he interprets my comment to mean, “Dan, why haven’t you done this yet? You’re not efficient enough. You should have finished this already.”
Without the healing ministry of Jesus to help bring healing for our shame stories, we often choose one of two standard responses to hide our shame.
- The first option I’ll call ‘pretending.’ It’s the path of least resistance. All we must do is lower our ideals to the level of our ability to meet them. Instead of feeling bad about something, we just pretend that whatever we did or said or didn’t do or say was actually the right thing to do. We can be tempted to lower our ideals whenever we feel bad about something. This is often the route that addicts take to make sense of their behavior, to live with themselves as they pursue their addiction while ‘persuading’ themselves that they are just fine the way they are.
- The second option I’ll call “perfecting.” It is much more labor intensive and produces a very hard working person. This option requires that we make ourselves acceptable enough to satisfy the ideals we already have. In order to succeed under the direction of this option we have to raise our achievements to match our ideals. This option produces “the star moral achievers among us, but they are often the most burdened by a feeling of their unworthiness” (Smeeds 106). But do you remember what I explained about the plants which grow in soil laden with toxic shame? No matter how hard the plant tries to fix itself, it can never rid itself of the soil it’s planted in.
If the story you tell yourself begins with “I’m not good enough,” then naturally you will try to do whatever is in your power to compensate. You will work tirelessly to live up to your own (or other’s) unwritten rules and expectations. You expect that relationships come with conditions (because acceptance only comes with a good enough performance, right?). You don’t allow yourself to make mistakes (or admit them) because mistakes only confirm the negative self-talk in your head. You are over responsible - if there’s a problem, you caused it...even if you’re not sure how.
So what are we to do with the ubiquitous problem that no one can talk about which steals our connection with others and causes the fear that we are not worthy of love? I’ve already shared two responses most often chosen - the pretend option and the perfect option. Those responses do not solve the root issues, but instead serve as coping mechanisms.
Earlier I shared with you a few of the many stories from Jesus’ earthly ministry that speak to God’s response to our shame. God loves us unconditionally. We don’t have to prove ourselves to God or earn our way into His favor. We are loved, accepted, and not alone. The point I hope that you take home today is that “the experience of being accepted [by God] is the beginning of healing for the feeling of being unacceptable” (Brene Brown).
To illustrate my point, let’s return to the story of Peter’s restoration to see the unfolding of Jesus’ response to the betrayal of his dear friend. You can find it in John 21:15-17. The disciples have already seen Jesus twice after his resurrection. In John 21, Jesus appears to them a third time and shares an early morning meal with them on the beach. After the meal, Jesus calls Simon Peter away and asks him three times the same haunting question, “Do you love me?” He asks three times for the three times Peter denied Him during Jesus’ nighttime trial. Each time Peter replies the same: “Yes Lord, you know that I love you.” I found especially poignant the remarks of one scholar about Peter’s betrayal:
“The question of Jesus is conditioned by the relationship that had existed between Jesus and Peter during the ministry of Jesus and the peculiar rupture of it at the trial of Jesus, together with Peter’s undoubted grief, not to say shock, caused by the crucifixion of Jesus and the guilt that must have haunted him on account of his own behavior. Peter must have been conscious of the fact that he had forfeited all right to be viewed as a disciple of Jesus, let alone a close associate of his in his ministry, through his repeated disavowals of any connection with him. When one contemplates how Jesus had prepared Peter for responsible leadership among the people of the Kingdom and for the mission to Israel and the nations, this was a profoundly serious failure which called for a process of re-establishment commensurable with the seriousness of the defection” (Beasley-Murray 405).
Jesus’ response to Peter, and to the other shame-bound people I named earlier, is what Christians call grace. Grace is the beginning of acceptance because it offers us acceptance before we become acceptable. God offers all of us grace through Jesus Christ to heal our shame and guilt, both of which come from sin. We experience God’s grace as forgiveness for our wrong choices. This grace answers our guilt. We also experience God’s grace as acceptance. When we choose to believe, and are ready to accept God’s offer of complete acceptance, affirmation and love, we have begun the journey of recovery from shame. God’s grace gives us power through the Holy Spirit to put off the heaviness of shame and begin to live into the person God sees us to be, our true self not burdened by the labels of shame.
When are we ready for grace? When we are “bone tired of our struggle to be worthy and acceptable.” (Smeeds 109). We are ready for grace when we can say, “I can’t do it anymore.” God is always ready to throw his arms around us and fully accept us, but He will never force us into his embrace of acceptance. We have to be still and quiet long enough to hear Him say, “I Love you just the way you are” and to believe this to the core of our being.
Grace heals our shame, not by removing it first, “but by removing the one thing all our shame makes us fear the most: REJECTION. Nothing that could make us unacceptable will keep God from accepting us” (Smeeds 118). Now to clarify, I am not advocating ignoring harmful behaviors, judgmental thoughts, malicious or ignorant choices, etc. I’m not saying that God’s complete acceptance nullifies the lifelong journey of every Christian to turn from sin and follow Jesus. We are a scrambled mix of healthy and unhealthy parts. And even though God does expect us to address our behavior through the power of the Holy Spirit, God also “accepts us with all our unsorted clutter, accepts us with all our potential for doing real evil and all our fascinating flaws that make us such interesting people” (Smeeds 117).
If the solution for shame is as easy as accepting a free gift from God, why is shame so hard to get rid of? Why are many of us still so burdened by our shame experiences?
It’s hard to accept God’s gift because it requires being vulnerable. It requires that you allow yourself to be seen for who you are, not who you wish you were like the perfectionist or who you pretend you are. Brene Brown, a contemporary research psychologist, discovered in her exploration of shame that “vulnerability is the core of shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness. But vulnerability is also the birthplace of joy, creativity, belonging, and love.”
Vulnerability is required for intimacy and God desires intimacy with us. In order for us to receive God’s love, we must first expose ourselves, come out of whatever hiding place we’ve made for ourselves to cover our shame - just like Adam and Eve. If you feel afraid of God because of something someone has told you he is, remember that Jesus is the full representation of the Father and Jesus never shamed people.
Sometimes healing for shame is slow because our shame experiences continued for so long and became so deeply ingrained in the story we tell ourselves about our worth. And that’s hard. And we all have to deal with the things that we’ve experienced. We have to lean into them, bring them into the light where we and the Lord can look at them together. And that’s hard, and can be really painful. But Jesus promises to make that journey with us.
When the risen Jesus met Peter on the shore, Peter hadn’t yet had an opportunity to explain the reason for his horrible lack of courage and loyalty during the time of Jesus’ trial. Yet Jesus doesn’t ask Peter to explain the painful betrayal. Jesus knows.
Instead Jesus asks Peter a question which cuts to the root of Peter’s shame and invites Peter again to intimate fellowship. When Jesus asks Peter “Do you love me?” Jesus is inviting Peter to vulnerability because saying “I love you” requires vulnerability.
Jesus saw Peter’s weakness and he sees ours too, but he also knows his own power to transform your life and sees your life in those own terms. Jesus calls you into the new life and says that’s what you are.
In order to face his shame, Peter needed to believe that Jesus loved him. Facing our shame requires courage to tell the story of who you are, as you are, not who wish you were or who you’re trying to be. The courage to be authentic - even if it’s ugly. It requires having compassion on yourself. In order to accept the love of others instead of pushing people away you have to treat yourself kindly...pride can be a painful stumbling block to letting others love you so we always ask God for humility to let ourselves be loved.
God gives us a lifetime of opportunity to say “yes” to his question: “Do you love me?” It is this question that is surprisingly and powerfully restorative for Peter. It’s hard to believe that our Father whose power made the heavens and the earth and everything in them, extends to us a love that is vulnerable. God reaches out to each of us in love and asks for our own vulnerability in exchange - that we face our needs, begin to feel our numbed emotions, lean into our brokenness, and ask Jesus for forgiveness and healing.
Our God is a vulnerable God. When he asks Peter, he also asks us. To walk in forgiveness for sin and freedom from shame through God’s amazing grace requires vulnerability.
Jesus knew he was worthy. At the time of Jesus’ baptism, God spoke over Jesus saying “This is my Son. The Beloved One.” Jesus’ complete understanding of his own acceptance by the Father enabled him to embrace others burdened by shame.
I can rest because my identity is settled in Jesus. My acceptance and value is settled because God loves me. As a recipient of God’s grace, I have the resources I need in order to become the person God sees me to be. There are times when I experience rejection from other people and my sense of self worth is challenged. Believe me. In those times I remember that Jesus says I am worthy, he says to me, “This is my daughter. My beloved one.”
I want to end with a prayer of surrender that I learned from Dan. If you’ve ever walked the 12 steps you know that step 1 and 2 are first acknowledging you’re powerless over your problem (hurt, habit, or hang-up), and 2) believing that God exists and that he cares about you and that he has the power to help you. In a Sunday morning setting, most of us have already walked steps 1 and 2. Step 3 in the 12 steps is choosing to turn your life and your will over to Jesus. Step 3 is surrendering. A year ago when I asked God to give me a breath prayer, a word to meditate on in prayer, that’s the word he gave me. And I haven’t had a new word yet, so here’s what my prayer has been for the last year: “Jesus, I surrender.” It’s a breath prayer. So will you pray with me now.
If you’d like prayer for anything, a faithful brother and sister will be up at the front and would love to pray with you.