Sin, Shame and Salvation

Joshua 5:2-12Teddy is almost always picked last to play on the baseball team during recess. He isn’tvery strong and a little awkward when running. When it is finally his turn to bat heactually hits the ball but as he starts to run towards first base the bat gets caught betweenhis legs causing him to fall on his face. The kids laugh. The teacher noticed that Teddy’sdrawings in class often had scenes of violence or blood in them.Kathy is one the heaviest kids in her class. During English she accidentally dropped her pencil beside her desk. As she reaches down to get it her shirt rides up to expose her stomach. The boy beside her comments out loud, “Nice one fatty Kathy,” The namestuck. Kathy began to look at food differently. She decided that either she wasn’t goingto put anymore in or the food she put in she would be get out by any means possible.Sam is becoming increasingly aware of sexuality. Certain images and thoughts arousehim. He does not quite understand what to do about this. Sam notices that his mother always refers to anything sexual as “sick” and his preacher talks a lot about the disgustingviews of sex in the world. Sam realizes that it would probably be better if he did not talk to anyone about how he is feeling.The kids are beginning to notice a stutter that Jared has been developing. He always felta little uncomfortable speaking in public but now that his dad left his mom always seemsto be yelling at him. Money is tight and home life has certainly been better. Drugs promise both escape and money.With her last three boyfriends Sarah was given a reputation for being promiscuous. Each boyfriend seemed dumped her for another girl, in her mind each girl seemed to be prettier than her. Feeling pretty low she remembered some really great experiences when shewent to youth group in junior high. Building up the courage she went on Saturday nightonly to be met with stares and a few whispers by the kids who were their.Brent is having a harder time coming up with explanations for his absences at work dueto his depression. It was hard enough during the interview to steer clear of the one year gap in his resume when he was in and out of the psych ward trying get stabilized onmedications. He’s starting to hear comments about how nice it must be to be able to takeso much time off. Brent isn’t sure anymore if he is actually is lazy or not.It has been almost five years since Reg and Susan’s son killed someone while drivingdrunk but people still tend to look down at their shoes passing them on the sidewalk.If you haven’t found yourself somewhere in one of these stories fill in your ownexperience here. Most of us have both experienced and likely caused others toexperience some level of shame.

2Some argue that shame is a near universal human experience. Some of those writingfrom a theological perspective go on to say that perhaps it is shame that best characterizesthe nature of sin in contemporary society. We tend to think of sinful nature in terms of disobedience and guilt. Though there is much overlap there are also significantdifferences between shame and guilt. Guilt is usually the response to acknowledging thewrong you have done. Shame however, moves beyond wrong

doing

. One writer expressed that, “to distinguish shame from guilt it is crucially important to grasp guilt’semphasis on

wrong doing

as opposed to shame’s emphasis on wrong being.” Guiltrecognizes the wrong

done

. Shame points to us

the wrong. Another person wrote thatshame “awakens ‘the piercing awareness’ in us that we are ‘fundamentally deficient insome vital way as a human being.’” In all of the stories that I opened with not one of thecharacters had essentially

done

something wrong rather, all of them were placed in asituation in which they were made to feel as though they

were

bad. Shame may appear asthe result of our wrongdoings but it is perhaps more fundamentally something we receive passed down often from parent to child and from generation to generation. Shame is thatlingering heaviness that convinces that we are not good enough and that we are notdeserving of good. It is the fear of being exposed for what we think we really are. Thefear that if people

were

exposed to who we really are then they would no longer love usor stay with us.If sin might be better understand in terms of shame as opposed to guilt than what doesthis mean for our understanding of salvation? We often talk of salvation as being pronounced innocent. This works in the arena of guilt. It is the classic image we tell of God as a courtroom judge who pronounces the defendant innocent of the crimescommitted. This makes sense when what is wrong can be localized to a particular act of transgression. But how can we be delivered, saved, from chronic experiences of shameand worthlessness?

3Most of us are probably familiar with the passage in Romans in which Paul states, “I amnot ashamed of the Gospel.” Now, perhaps you have thought of this already but Paulwould likely not be saying this if there were not some reason why he or other believersmight find themselves ashamed of the Gospel. In fact it takes only basic overview of theBible to notice how central the role of shame is in the experience of God’s people.We can of course begin with Adam and Eve’s awareness that their nakedness, their exposure to one another created a feeling of insecurity, of threat, of shame. Thisdemonstrates a basic component of shame. Shame is often the fear that if people trulysee who we are they will not accept or love us and that ultimately they will abandon us.We can also recognize an aspect of healthy shame that demands that some level of trustneeds to be established before we are willing to reveal ourselves to another person.However, a pervasive fear of being exposed comes close to the heart of shame.The Israelites were also no strangers to shame. In numerous occasions the Psalmists criesout about the shame and disgrace he is experiencing.Psalm 44 laments that,now you have rejected and humbled us;you no longer go out with our armies.You have made us a reproach to our neighbors,the scorn and derision of those around us.You have made us a byword among the nations;the peoples shake their heads at us.My disgrace is before me all day long,and my face is covered with shameThe prophets also live in an uneasy tension with shame,Jeremiah writes,7 O LORD, you persuaded me, and I was persuaded;you overpowered me and prevailed.I am ridiculed all day long;everyone mocks me.8 Whenever I speak, I cry out proclaiming violence and destruction.So the word of the LORD has brought meinsult and shame all day long.