A Biblical Understanding of Shame Part 2: Undoing it! (John 4 & Luke 15)

Goal

• To get an overview of what the Bible tells us about shame and how to deal with it.

Shame Part 2: Undoing it!

1. Overview
2. A Positive Value of Shame
3. Lifting Shame

Shame Spectrum:
“When that happened,
it made me feel…”

• shy
  • awkward
    • self-conscious
      • embarrassed
        • dishonored
          • humiliated
            • disgraced

Value of Shame

• When shame is working properly, it is designed to keep us on track
• A warning sign that we have crossed a boundary
• Can be very painful, so it motivates us not to repeat
• But if the social group has wrong boundaries, then not good

Genesis 3

7. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
8. And they heard the sound of the LORD God… and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
9. But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”
10. And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.”
11. He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”

Hebrews 4

12. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
13. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Working definition of shame:

• Guilt is internal “I have done something wrong”
• Shame is relational “Others see my behaviour and judge me”
• Our ability to feel shame is not bad, it is put there by God for a purpose
• Being “shameless” is not a good thing!

Shame Part 2: Undoing it!

1. Overview
2. A Positive Value of Shame
3. Lifting Shame

Ezekiel 36 – Retrospective

26. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.…
31. “ ‘You will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good,
    and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and detestable practices.
32. …Be ashamed and humiliated because of your ways, house of Israel!

Ezekiel 37 Future: Shame Lifted

23. They will not defile themselves anymore with their idols, their abhorrent things, and all their transgressions.
    I will save them from all their apostasies by which they sinned, and I will cleanse them.
    Then they will be my people, and I will be their God.
24. …They will follow my ordinances, and keep my statutes and obey them.…
27. My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people.
28. When my sanctuary is among them forever, the nations will know that I, the Lord, sanctify Israel.’ ”

Guilt vs Shame

• Guilt: I have done something wrong.
  • Source: God-given conscience
• Harsh Inner Critic: You are a loser. Something is wrong with you!
  • Could also be called “false guilt”
  • Source: ultimately Satan is the false-accuser (Col 2:15–23)
• Shame: My community has lost respect for me. I have gone down in their estimation
  • Source: God-given sensitivity to those around us
  • But sometimes Inner Critic will use it to beat us up

Response to Guilt & Shame

• Guilt: I have done something wrong.
  • Action: ask forgiveness, make reparation/payment
  • Wrong Action: blame, denial, excuses
• Harsh Inner Critic: You are a loser. Something is wrong with you!
  • Wrong Action: constant self-criticism, depression, futile attempts to improve, numb with drugs/distractions
  • Action: Receive God’s love, compassion & acceptance

Response to Guilt & Shame

• Shame: My community have lost respect for me. I have gone down in their estimation
• Wrong Action: Hide
  try and regain honour & standing (e.g. on social media)
  numb with drugs/distractions
• Action: Reflect on your values?
  Stop doing bad things, if that’s the problem
  Make status before God above everything else.
  Is this a healthy community for you?
  (you may not have a choice)

Acts 5

40. and when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.
41. And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.
42. And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ.

1 Peter 4

13. But rejoice in the degree that you have shared in the sufferings of Christ, so that when his glory is revealed you may also rejoice and be glad.
14. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory, who is the Spirit of God, rests on you.
16. But if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but glorify God that you bear such a name.

Carrying shame from the past

• Maybe something we did a long time ago
• Maybe a victim of abuse
• It feels like a contamination that we are carrying
• Dirt that is sticking to us
• We are scared of people finding out

John 4

7. A Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me some water to drink.”
8. (For his disciples had gone off into the town to buy supplies. )
9. So the Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you — a Jew — ask me, a Samaritan woman, for water to drink?” (For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.)

John 4 cont’d

10. Jesus answered her, “If you had known the gift of God and who it is who said to you, ‘Give me some water to drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
11. “Sir,” the woman said to him, “you have no bucket and the well is deep; where then do you get this living water?
12. Surely you’re not greater than our ancestor Jacob, are you? For he gave us this well and drank from it himself, along with his sons and his livestock.”
13. Jesus replied, “Everyone who drinks some of this water will be thirsty again.
14. But whoever drinks some of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again, but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life.”
15. The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

John 4 cont’d

16. He said to her, “Go call your husband and come back here.”
17. The woman replied, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “Right you are when you said, ‘I have no husband,’
18. for you have had five husbands, and the man you are living with now is not your husband. This you said truthfully!”
19. The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet.
25. The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (the one called Christ); “whenever he comes, he will tell us everything.”
26. Jesus said to her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.”
27. Now at that very moment his disciples came back. They were shocked because he was speaking with a woman. However, no one said, “What do you want?” or “Why are you speaking with her?”
28. Then the woman left her water jar, went off into the town and said to the people,
29. “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Surely he can’t be the Messiah, can he?”
30. So they left the town and began coming to him.

John 4 cont’d

39. Now many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the report of the woman who testified, “He told me everything I ever did.”
40. So when the Samaritans came to him, they began asking him to stay with them. He stayed there two days,
41. and because of his word many more believed.
42. They said to the woman, “No longer do we believe just because of your words, for now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this one really is the Savior of the world.”

Undoing Shame

1. In the life of Jesus
2. In our status before God
3. Right now in God’s church community

John 21

7. That disciple whom Jesus loved therefore said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work, and threw himself into the sea.
16. …“Simon, son of John, do you love me? ”
    “Yes, Lord,” he said to him, “you know that I love you.”
    “Shepherd my sheep,” he told him.

Preaching in an Honour/Shame Culture

• Introduce them to the person of God
• Explain how they have brought dishonor to God through their sin
• Among all our relationships where we value honour/shame, this is by far the most important
• Right now you stand before God in great shame
• This has extremely bad consequences because he will judge the world
• Yet he offers to take away your sin and shame and bring you the honour of taking you into his family for ever

1 Corinthians 13

4. Love is patient, love is kind.
   It does not envy, it does not boast,
   it is not proud.
5. It does not dishonor others,
   it is not self-seeking

Healing from Shame in the Christian Community

• We know we are valued because
• People take time to listen to us
• They care about us
• They treat us as if we have value

Luke 15:11–32 Parable of the Lost Son

11. And he said, “There was a man who had two sons.
12. And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them.

Luke 15:11–32 cont’d

13. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living.
14. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need.
15. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs.
16. And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.

Luke 15:11–32 cont’d

17. “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger!
18. I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.
19. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’

Luke 15:11–32 cont’d

20. And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.
21. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
22. But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet.
23. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate.
24. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.