Shame

Growing up in a Christian home, there were only two cardinal sins: drinking and having sex.  It was what separated the good kids from the bad kids.  I don’t think I was the only one who saw the world this way, because it seemed that sex and alcohol were the lines in the sand when I attended my Christian college as well.  From what I saw, once my friends started drinking, they drifted; drifted to different friends and a different kind of party.  The Faithful were betrayed by the rebellious majority and new communities surfaced, without me.  My friends partied because they found loopholes in their guilt complexes and were celebrating their new liberation, free from their Christian guilt and throwing it in my face.  And of course, I didn’t drink and fornicate because I was still being true to who I was.  Faithful.  Loyal.  Righteous.  At least that’s how I interpreted this whole thing.

The first time I got drunk I was 20.  It was at my friend’s wedding.  At the beginning of the wedding, one of my best friends from high school bluntly asked me, ‘do you want to get hammered with me tonight?’  By that point I had been fighting the so-called good fight for several years now and I was growing weary, tired of being left out and beginning to feel lonely.  Without much hesitance, I decided to join him.  We drink and drink and drink and I made a complete ass of myself that night.  The next morning I woke up, feeling like I had ruined something.  I felt ashamed.  The worst part of my shame that next morning wasn’t focused on who I had hurt or that I took advantage of my friend’s family’s hospitality.  No, I felt bad because I may have changed people’s perception, my reputation, and my identity.  I honestly didn’t know who I was on this side of the sin.  For so long my identity was wrapped up in being well behaved; so who was I now?

I continued to make mistakes, hurt people, and myself over the next couple of years; most of the time it was lubricated with alcohol.  I could have learned from that night, realized drinking too much brought with it trouble and been more responsible.  But the pendulum swung and I was no longer in the league of the morally upstanding, I was one of them and they behaved like this.  I became careless.  My shame had won.

The power of shame is not in the gut.  It is in the mind.  Granted, the guilt that comes with shame smolders in the gut like a tire fire but it’s the voice of shame that truly destroys.  It’s a voice telling me that I am not a person who made a mistake, but instead I am a mistake.  I can never go back to being blameless, pure, innocent or whole.   

In the beginning God gave Adam and Eve simple instructions, to take care of the garden (Genesis 2:15). Very suddenly, however, a small piece from the creation, a garden snake, got out of line and began confusing the narrative: God isn’t trying to protect you, God is oppressing you, God is keeping you from great joy.  A confusing conversation between a woman and a snake led to a bad decision, which led to the realization of nakedness, which led to hiding, which led to a separation between people, God and the creation. 

Shame.

The most common misinterpretation of this story is that evil entered the world the moment Eve tasted the forbidden fruit.  It says in the story that the fruit from the tree was pleasing to the eye and good for food.  Which leads me to wonder: why would God create in us a desire for something we shouldn’t have?  Are my own desires evil?  Or are the choices I make the problem?  Furthermore, what’s so bad about acquiring the knowledge of good and evil?  Maybe, God just wanted them to acquire the knowledge a different way?

Perhaps, what we desire and the experimentations that ensue from trying to quench our thirst, and the mental gymnastics we go through to justify our actions, although they bring with them great consequences, isn’t the thing this story is warning against.  Perhaps, the most important take away from this story is ‘they saw that they were naked and hid.’

I don’t believe the point of this story is to tell us to obey God or bad things will happen.  The consequences of our sins are part of the natural order of things.  When we act selfishly we hurt people.  When we lie, we are mistrusted.  When we drink too much we do foolish and sometimes violent things.  When we make sex a casual encounter, hearts get broken.  For the majority of us, our conscious, and God-given desire for justice, encourages us to make right what we have done wrong and discourages us from doing it again.  So isn’t the message, ‘do the right thing,’ obvious? 

In the narrative that is your life, you will make a mistake.  Your good, God given desires for love, intimacy, connection, and acceptance will be twisted and perverted and you will make a bad choice or find yourself in a bad situation.  The television will say you need to buy something you can’t afford.  A family member will let you down and you’ll act out.  That magazine cover will tell you aren’t beautiful.  Or (in my case) your friends will start hanging out with other people and you’ll become deeply insecure.  These are the disordered and chaotic broken pieces of this creation that whisper lies and twisted truths about the way the world is and what you have to do or become to be apart of it. 

The question at the end of all of this is: when you find yourself naked and alone will you look for God or will you hide?  Will you believe the voice that whispers ‘if anyone found out about this, no one would understand you, forgive you, or accept you’?  Will you let shame win? 

This Lent, embrace your nakedness, push back on your shame.  When you feel exposed, when the dust settles and you see the wrong you’ve done, the most important thing is your next decision.  Confess you sins.  See what happens.   Step into a community, a support group, and/or a friend who will receive you, listen to you and love you simply because you are God’s creation.  What you decide to do in the midst of your shame is what turns a curse into a blessing; distance into intimacy; brokenness into wholeness; death into life.

When we refuse to give power to shame, there is space to give power to grace.  Grace restores us to sanity.  Being sane means knowing the truth.  And the truth is: no matter what I’ve done, I am fully capable of being loved.  May you receive grace and have the courage to stand firm in your shame.  Because grace my friends is all God’s been trying to give since he’s been looking for a naked couple hiding in a garden.

Shalom.

(Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7)