Shame is sinister.
It wants you to be afraid anyone will know about your past and look at you differently. It wants you to live in the past, focused on your mistakes and regrets. It wants you to believe that everything is your fault.
Shame wants you to suffer alone, feeling unworthy of good things and incapable of moving forward. These feelings can lead our minds down dark paths while we appear outwardly ok to others, but inside we are suffering. Shame makes you feel like you’re not good enough to do the things that God calls you to do.
Have you experienced someone in authority over you using shame as a strategy to get your compliance (or maybe even to build themselves up)? Or have you used it as a strategy yourself? It directly targets a human vulnerability; the need for belonging and acceptance, by using embarrassment to reach the end goal.
Maybe you’ve witnessed a child being shamed as a form of discipline. I’ve certainly witnessed well-meaning adults correct children in a way that clearly led to their humiliation. It’s easy to do, especially when we’re already annoyed, tired, or for whatever reason just out of patience at the moment. I’ve done it myself as a parent in a low moment here and there. Bruh. I’ve noticed that sometimes people shame themselves, maybe as a defense mechanism or just to get to it first before someone else can shame them.
In their interactions with Jesus and His followers, the Pharisees (the ruling Jewish council in Jesus’ time) used shame as their strategy of choice in an attempt to invalidate His teachings and actions and discourage others from following Him. They repeatedly questioned him in public, trying to trick Him into saying things they knew would be contrary to their teaching and trap Him in what they considered to be blasphemy. They denounced and criminalized Him for not following the teachings of their forefathers and threatened to remove anyone from the synagogue who followed Him. They used fear and intimidation to get their way, and thought they’d won.
Jesus arrived at the temple after His retreat to the Mount of Olives just in time. As the Pharisees brought the woman into the courtyard to stand trial alone, she desperately looked around the crowd for anyone who might come to her aid. She had been caught in the act of adultery and her death sentence was about to be delivered. Here is the story from John’s perspective:
But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. And early in the morning He came again into the temple area, and all the people were coming to Him; and He sat down and began teaching them. Now the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in the act of adultery, and after placing her in the center of the courtyard, they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?” Now they were saying this to test Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground. When they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. Now when they heard this, they began leaving, one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman where she was, in the center of the courtyard. And straightening up, Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on do not sin any longer.” John 8:1-11
We can only speculate on what Jesus might have written on the ground, but whatever it was completely de-escalated the situation and caused the Pharisees to walk away. The woman in the position of shame was no longer alone, and no longer condemned. Unfortunately rather than reflect on their own sin and repent, the Pharisees only doubled down on their mission to eliminate Jesus as a threat to their power.
It’s important to note that as His ministry continued we do see Jesus use public condemnation as a tool, but towards one group alone – the hypocrites. Not towards the adulterer, the tax collector or the outcasts, but toward the Pharisees. As the tensions escalated, Jesus addressed their actions to the crowd in Matthew 23. Jesus knew He was not far from the end of His earthly ministry and He delivered a very pointed message towards the Pharisees, a warning to others throughout the rest of time who might find themselves in a position of power or authority over others. It’s certainly worth reading the whole chapter, but verses 27 and 28 are an example of the whole:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. So you too, outwardly appear righteous to people, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”
Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians gives us insight on how to address issues of sin without shame. His first letter addressed some of the issues they were facing in their young church – issues of cliques, immorality, and lawsuits, among other things going on, and encouraged them with truth and fatherly guidance. After learning of their response to his this letter, he says, “I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death.”
Paul educated and encouraged the young church, but shame was not his technique of choice. As a former Pharisee Paul would have been very familiar with this strategy, but instead he chose loving guidance in his first letter, addressing issues of sin and encouraging them with truth. In his second letter we learn that his admonitions brought them to the point of sorrowful repentance – not defensiveness. Had he chosen to publicly shame them rather than provide instruction, their response would likely have been completely different.
It’s so easy to get stuck feeling like things will never change, that our past and feelings of shame define us. So what do we do?
Exchange it. Trade it out. Take the gift of freedom that Christ Himself offers us thanks to His willingness to suffer in our place. Jesus experienced shame so that we don’t have to live in it, and we can learn from His example. The wise but unknown writer of the book of Hebrews wrote the following in chapter 12:
“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Crucifixion was a penalty reserved for the most heinous of criminals, a gruesome death intended to be a public spectacle that would shame the offender as he or she hung on the cross for several hours or up to several days, the goal being to scare or deter others from following in their steps. Shame isn’t new.
As mentors, how can we diminish the power of shame in a mentee’s life? It’s pretty simple, really. Just listen. Without judgment. There may be part of her story that she has never told a soul, and it could be the thing separating her from a closer relationship with Christ. Because shame is insidious. It drives a wedge between us and our Savior that we might not even realize is there, making us think we aren’t worthy of His love and grace. And while, technically we’re not worthy, He loves us so much more than we can comprehend and has plans for each and every one of us. Paul wrote the following in Ephesians 3:14-21.
“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in th winner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
Remember also that your sister in Christ may have also been caused to feel shamed in the past by other believers, or even a well-meaning friend or family member. What the enemy puts in place in our hearts can be unintentionally (or intentionally) reinforced by others. You have an opportunity to show her the grace that Jesus showed the adulterous woman in the temple courtyard, regardless of the source of her shame. Sadly, victims of abuse can feel a sense of guilt and shame even when what they endured was of no fault of their own.
While it can be hard to hear the things that separate others from Christ, your willingness to listen and give her a loving and empathetic space to share can be a part of her developing a closer relationship with her heavenly Father. By allowing her to share her burden with you and being willing to carry just a bit of it alongside her, she can know that God loves her despite anything that could stand in the way, and that you love her too. By taking the secrecy out of her suffering, the shame no longer has power in her life. We can also trust that the very trial that caused the shame in the first place is something that God can use for the glory of His kingdom, because while He does not want us to suffer we can learn in Romans 5 that our tribulations lead to better things.
The very things that can separate us from God can also be our most powerful tools for the growth of His kingdom.
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