Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on July 2, 2023. Based on Romans 6:12-23.
Brené Brown is a researcher in the field of social work. She catapulted to fame in 2010 when she gave a TEDx talk called “The Power of Vulnerability.” Her research is primarily in the area of leadership, vulnerability, and shame, and how they are all connected. It’s important to recognize that “guilt” and “shame” are separate concepts that are only loosely related. American culture is primarily built on a guilt-innocence paradigm. If you do something wrong, you are guilty and deserving of a proportional punishment. If not, you are innocent and do not deserve punishment.
Many cultures around the world, including that of Biblical Judea and several regions of the US, are built on an honor-shame paradigm. Brown grew up in such a culture in Texas. Shame is less factual and more emotional. Shame is about whether or not you measure up to your community’s standards. Often, these standards relate to gender and family roles. For example, maybe you are seen as not “manly” enough if you don’t act in a certain way. That doesn’t really incur “guilt,” because you haven’t actually violated any laws, but it does incur shame.
Shame is a powerful force embedded deep in the human psyche. Shame leads to being outcast, and in a primitive society, being outcast is nearly a death sentence. At the least, it’s an exclusion from the continuation of your family line.
Brown has studied the impact of shame on relationships for more than two decades. The challenge we face is that building a loving relationship requires vulnerability, but vulnerability then exposes us to the pain of shame. She wrote, “We desperately don’t want to experience shame, and we’re not willing to talk about it. Yet the only way to resolve shame is to talk about it. Maybe we’re afraid of topics like love and shame. Most of us like safety, certainty, and clarity. Shame and love are grounded in vulnerability and tenderness.” She also said that shame needs three ingredients to grow: secrecy, silence, and judgment. But what kills it is empathy.
Sin is associated with both guilt and shame. In a sense, guilt is easier to deal with. Suppose I steal something and therefore incur guilt. I can deal with the guilt by making restitution to the victim and possibly by being punished by the government, whether I’m fined or imprisoned. Now the guilt is dealt with by a proportional response. Shame is MUCH harder. Forever after, I would be branded as a thief and shunned by society. There are lots of jobs I wouldn’t be eligible for, and many of my friends would abandon me.
I think the best definition of sin is whatever separates us from each other or from God. In a sense, then, shame is sin. Shame causes us to hide from God, like Adam & Eve did in the Garden of Eden. Shame prevents us from confronting our guilt and repairing our relationships. Paul wrote that the “wages of sin is death.” Well, that death takes the form of shame that keeps us from thriving.
As I thought about the way sin and shame control us, I was reminded of some parasites that turn animals into zombies. Have you ever heard of those? They are fascinating. I don’t really understand how they work, except that they somehow take over their host’s brain. The Ophiocordyceps genus of fungi lives in an insect. The fungus controls the host insect’s brain and steers it to a place with the right temperature, humidity, and other conditions for the fungus to grow. When it matures, the fungus sprouts stalks and disperses spores to take over other insects.
Here’s another one. The Euhaplorchis californiensis is a kind of worm that grows in a carpet-like layer atop the brain of a California killifish. They can live and grow there, but they can only reproduce inside the guts of birds. So when they are ready, they force the fish to swim near the surface of the water and otherwise behave erratically so that a bird will see it and eat it. This is a more subtle form of control, in that the fish still basically behaves normally but does a few things that are risky. The worm basically suppresses the fish’s survival instincts.
Sin is like that Euhaplorchis californiensis worm. It burrows down inside of us and makes us do things we wouldn’t otherwise choose to do. We fail to notice things that might harm us. The first few steps are innocuous enough, but gradually, we ignore the risks inherent to our behavior. Or like the Ophiocordyceps fungi, we let sin and shame steer us towards an environment where they can grow and blossom. We surround ourselves with people who encourage the wrong behaviors, or we hide from those who would help us escape the grip of our bad habits. Eventually, we become fully consumed by our sin and our shame.
But the promise of the Gospel is that we don’t have to stay in those dark places where shame grows. Through grace, we are forgiven of our sins. We don’t need to hide from God, for God knows our inmost heart and loves us anyway. God sees us as image-bearers, reflecting God’s goodness, no matter what the world sees. As we do each Sunday, we may approach God with boldness and confess our sins, assured in advance that God will forgive us and wash away all our shame. Rather than let it grow like a parasite in the darkness of secrecy, silence, and judgment, we may confess it in the light and be made clean and whole.
In some Christian traditions, the message ends there. But I say, what’s the point? Why does God forgive us? Why are we freed from our shame? Well, again, in some traditions, the answer is, “so we can go to heaven.” But as a universalist, that’s unsatisfying to me. And anyway, if that’s the only reason, why not wait until your deathbed, live a long life full of debauchery and get your freedom right at the end?
Paul writes, “Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!” He anticipated that argument. The Romans might say, Hey, we’re forgiven, so let’s go wild! Paul says no: that path still leads to separation from God, it still leads to shame, it still leads to death.
We are saved so that we are free from the grip of sin and shame. Instead, we are led to righteousness. Last week, I spoke about the vertical and horizontal dimensions of the kingdom of God. Well, our freedom from sin is what enables us to become aligned on these two axes. We are free to follow God, with no need to worry about God’s judgment on us. We are free to reconcile with one another, with no need to worry about either of us being judged. We are sanctified and we participate in the sanctification of the world.
We are all called individually to the ministry of reconciliation. I have a particular calling that I’ve spoken about, and I know that at least some of you have identified your own particular calling. These are ways that individually we may pursue God’s kingdom. One by one, we go into the world and show God’s love to people we meet. We come here to be spiritually fed, then we go out and proclaim that the kingdom of God is at hand, through our words and actions. We meet people where they are and help them to see God working in their lives.
But the larger question is, what ministry of reconciliation are we called to as a congregation? I can only do so much—I can only be in one place at a time, and I have a job and a family. The same goes for each person—everyone has limitations and obligations. But the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. If we are individually working in lots of different directions, we can affect people at an individual level. But if we all work in the same direction, our efforts reinforce one another and multiply.
On multiple occasions, as recently as last week, I’ve said that our job is not to build a church but to build the kingdom of God. What I mean is that our primary calling is to reconcile the whole world to God and to each other. That’s a huge task, one that is impossible. If we each do a little bit, though, and work in one little corner, God will amplify our efforts and God’s reign will break through. And if we all do a little bit in basically the same corner of God’s kingdom, we will support each other and strengthen each other.
The way that impacts our church, then, is that other people see what we’re doing and want to help, too. They want to be part of the inbreaking of God’s kingdom. They need the support we can give them, and they are willing to give us support when we need it.
I recently read an addendum to Good to Great by Jim Collins. He has mainly studied businesses that far outperformed their rivals, but also did a pilot study of nonprofits and other non-business organizations. An important part of the success of any organization is what he calls the “hedgehog concept.” There is an ancient Greek expression attributed to Archilochus, “A fox knows many things, but a hedgehog knows one big thing.” The hedgehog concept is the ONE THING that an organization does well. It’s at the intersection of what our passion is, what we can do better than everyone else, and what drives resources. In business, “resources” means money. In a church, “resources” means money, yes, but also time and energy and ideas and people.
We have been freed from the shame of our sins. Everyone in this room, everyone watching online, everyone who is connected to this church in any way, has been freed of their sins. And so has everyone else. But for those of us connected to this church, this extension of Christ’s body has been called to do ONE BIG THING to reconcile people to God, to take part in the transformation of the world. We will shortly go to the Lord’s Table to receive spiritual nourishment to strengthen us in our pursuit of God’s kingdom. How will we pursue righteousness? What is our calling? What are we prepared to do, as a church, to spread God’s love, to sanctify one little corner of God’s kingdom? Let us listen to the guiding of the Holy Spirit as we lean on each other and work side by side for the renewal of world. Amen.
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