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I just want to share with you today that I am witnessing the most wonderfully connected community that I have seen in a while. Wednesday nights from 6:30 till 8:00pm RELATA gathers. It is our first run at this course after our pilot program last spring that so many of you were part of. 11 tables full of people grace the Great Hall, eating together and sharing their stories of belonging, achieving, loving, and meaning and the paradoxes they hold.
And, I might add, a lot of amazing people who have no particular association with Epiphany have shown up to be part of knitting our broader community back together. It’s exactly what we hoped for when designing RELATA. It is something we created together. I wrote, you gave feedback, we iterated in committee, and then we washed and repeated over and over again into the RELATA experience that reminds us that we belong together. RELATA after all means the Totality of All Relationships.
It is a beautiful thing, and we’re going to keep doing it. The next session starts January 8th. Sign up and bring a friend.
As part of the RELATA team, my job is as story prompter, which has required me to do some reflection on my life. And what I have come up against are some things that I haven’t thought about for a long time. I’ve opened some shut doors, only to remember why I had shut them in the first place. There are things that I am not proud of. There are things that I want to forget. There are shadowy corners of shame in my life.
And yet, that is what we’re going talk about today, shame. The instinct is to hide the experiences that provoke shame, and it is not an unreasonable instinct. People are judgy. Things that we’ve done, things we’ve said, things we’ve seen, things we’ve taken, lies we’ve spoken, and errors we’ve left uncorrected, is fodder that can provoke judgement by people-and differently from person to person depending on what triggers them; you never know…which is why we hide, we hold back, we compartmentalize our transgressions putting them in a closet with a sign on the door that reads: SHAME ON YOU!
As I discussed this sermon with our Communication Director, Jad Baaklini, he suggested that the minute I bring up shame people’s minds will track to that thing they are never going to tell anyone and the sermon’s over… you’ll have lost everyone.
So, I’ll pause for a moment, to let your minds track to the closet door with the sign that reads SHAME ON YOU! Open it. Peer inside. And as you do hear this: God loves you. God loves you so much, God loves you completely, unconditionally. Every single bit of you is loved by God. No matter what is in your closet — Epiphany has a place for you. This is a shame free zone!
Now, with this in mind, I’d like to move our conversation to how shame accrues in the closets of our sub-conscious. I’ve identified four ways. I called them the four provocateurs of shame.
There is:
- the shame of screwing up;
- the shame of habits we’ve had or still have;
- the shame of failing to live up to expectations;
- the shame of circumstances beyond our control.
The shame of screwing up, the shame of habits, the shame of failure, and the shame of circumstances. This is what we’re going to talk about today…and as we do, never forget that God loves you.
The first shame provocateur is screwing up; a mistake or accident happens that we just can’t shake. We’ve all made them. Mostly, they are small screw ups. Mostly, the consequences aren’t significant. Mostly, people forget about them, though, you may have somebody in your life who remembers every screwup you ever made, and is happy to remind you about it even years later. But sometimes the screw up is big and has massive consequences, which can provoke deep and lasting shame.
Another provocateur of shame are habits we have had or currently have. These are often addictions like alcoholism, gambling, or shopping, or pornography, or sex, or video games. These are the things that we do that we don’t want to do, and certainly don’t want to share because of the judgment they can provoke at either our failure to work through this thing, or the fact that we were ever involved with it in the first place. This is a shame that looks for deep dark corner in which to hide.
A third provocateur of shame is the failure to live up to some standard: to not hit our number based on the expectations of our spouse or parents or pier set or culture. Everyone else seems to be doing it, and yet we can’t quite get there. So, we isolate, or pretend, or fabricate, or cut a few corners, and shame swells.
Finally, the fourth provocateur of shame is provoked by circumstances. Like shame for the circumstances of our family of origin. This could be piqued by poverty, or inherited wealth. It could be provoked by a crime associate with our parents. Or a calamity unleased by war or a totalitarian government under which we were born. Or a birth defect or cognitive particularly unique to our brain.\
This final one is something I explored for the RELATA story prompt about belonging. Belonging is a word that has positive connotations, but in RELATA the way we assess belonging is based on that which we belong to by the circumstances of our birth, which meant for me, the lowest reading group all the way through elementary school, because reading was very difficult for me. My brain was wired in a way now defined as dyslexia. None of my friends were in this group. Everybody in my family was “smart.” And there was shame for me around this group that I was born to belong to.
Sometimes, when the four provocateurs of shame have filled our closet, pressure builds. We ignore it. We pretend it’s not there, but it slips out, in unintended and unconscious ways. And when that slippage happens simultaneously in the lives of millions of people, shame shows up in the culture writ large. We see it in the epidemic of loneliness, and the politics of grievance.
Loneliness, manifests in all sorts of ways: hiding behind screens, working too much, escaping into addictions, or maybe just hiding behind a closet door. It also pops up in the political divisiveness in this country. When we’re hiding our shame, we are also guarding it to make sure that others don’t see it. We are vigilant, ready to lash out to keep any and all away from the vulnerability we feel around the shame we hide. In this way the bully emerges, constantly aggrieved, and perpetually on the offensive to keep at bay others so as to keep hidden the shame they feel.
Understanding the four provocateurs of shame is helpful in easing its grip upon us. Shame is shifty, so, we need to get ahold of it if we are going to eradicate it with the radiance of love. Jesus and the Apostle Paul are helpful in this regard.
Let’s take a look. We’ll start with the prodigal son. You may remember the story. He was a screwup. He made mistakes, and yet, when he returns to his father, full of shame, his father embraces him, loves him, and reminds him that he is included in the household, no matter what. That is how Jesus feels about each one of us.
Then there is shame of habits we just can’t break The Apostle Paul had this issue: “For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” (Rom 7:18-19) “Who will deliver me,” he cries out: “Thanks be to God for our Lord Jesus Christ!” (Rom 7:24-25 / para)
Confess to Jesus. Lay your burdens before him. Do it in secret or do it at the confessional – Give it up to God. But also, seek others who know what you’re going through, who can help carry your burden. That was Paul’s insight in his Letter to the Galatians when he implored the community to: “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal 6:2). That is the recovery community’s model. That is what AA and others are built upon. And when you confess to community, you find out quickly how many other people are just like you. You are not alone.
And for those of us who feel the shame of not being able to live up to something, remember, the rich you man who came to Jesus and asked: “What do I need to do to get into the Kingdom of Heaven?” And Jesus replied: “Love the Lord, your God with all your heart and mind and strength and soul and your neighbor as yourself.” The young man said: “I do these things. “Jesus then added: “Now give away all your belongings and follow me.” But the young man could not do this – and still Jesus looked at him and loved him (Matt 19:16-22). Even if you can’t do it, Jesus looks upon you and loves you.
Here at Epiphany, we seek to mimic Jesus, to love people even if they’re not “living up” to what they want to live up to; to love people even after they’ve made mistakes; to help people carry burdens that seem too heavy to bear.
This is what life looks like in the Kingdom of God and that is what we seek to be here at Epiphany; which sometimes requires opening the closets of shame, because what we know is that the paradox of shame is that, when shared, it diminishes in power.
Here is the irony, when sharing our successes judgment, if not jealousy, can be provoked and division widened. Whereas stories of screwing up, of addiction, of failing to live up, of circumstances beyond our control — these stories of suffering and hurting and fear and fragility, found in our closets of shame, paradoxically, build communities of trust, care and health.
Which is the goal of RELATA. For it is in stories told that community is knit together. A secret sauce bubbles up, named love. Love drives out the darkness. Love gives strength to engage and to forgive. It is a love made known by Jesus. It is a love that accepts us just as we are. We are completely welcome in the kingdom of God, which is where you’re sitting right now. And if you happen to forget, let me remind you, this is a shame free zone.