Have You No Shame?

 

Have You No Shame?

 

Psalm 71:1-6

You have been my strength 

71:1 In you, O LORD, I take refuge; let me never be put to shame.

71:2 In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me; incline your ear to me and save me.

71:3 Be to me a rock of refuge, a strong fortress to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress.

71:4 Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel.

71:5 For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O LORD, from my youth.

71:6 From my birth I have leaned upon you, my protector since my mother's womb. My praise is continually of you.

If you are looking to take your deepest emotions on a walk through the Bible, steer clear of places like Numbers, Revelation, or even Genesis, unless creation stories trip your trigger. No, if your feelings need some soothing—or seething, in some cases—put your “Psalms” shoes on, and come on in! The Psalms ARE songs, and like the songs we sing and/or listen to, they are meant to bow the strings (or slap strum the Eddie Balls on your Stratocaster) of our innermost selves. Happy? There’s a song for that. Sad? There are LOTS of songs for that, particularly in the Country Music genre. Needing peace? Get out the symphonic stuff. Love a parade? Grab a recording of a Susa march. There pretty much is a song for any need, and one whose composer was prompted by her or his feelings, at the moment. The Book of Psalms is just the same, in this regard.

 

Years ago, I had a good friend whose dad was a strong man of faith. He was an ordained Presbyterian minister who got filled with the “fullness” of the Holy Spirit during the Christian charismatic revival period, and after a long stint with his family as missionaries in Japan, he brought them back to the good ol’ USA. That’s when his son and I became friends. “Brother Earl,” as well knew him was one of the most driven, Spirit-filled, inspirational Christian leaders I have ever known, AND could be one of the most stubborn and difficult ones, as well. (Sound like any of us? Of course it does!) Anyway, Brother Earl had a long-suffering wife who cared for their several children, did all of the cooking for numerous, weekly groups that visited “Christ’s Castle,” their home base and retreat center, and was just as expected as everyone else was to keep up on her daily Bible reading. She also had to love and temper Brother Earl, and I’m guessing that was NOT an easy assignment. Brother Earl once told us that every time he asked his wife WHERE in the Bible she was reading currently, she would say, “In the Psalms…” It always made me laugh, for I can imagine that life with Brother Earl—while blessed in many ways—was also quite a challenge for her, and where else but “In the Psalms” would she find refuge? This story has a rough ending, in that one day, Brother Earl began having a heart attack, and his wife got him into a car and they headed for the hospital, knowing that with their remote “Castle” location, she could get him there faster. Unfortunately, he died on the way, but not before looking at his dear wife and saying, “I’ll see you in the morning,” which was Brother Earl’s euphemism for a future reunion in Heaven. I share this story both because my life was forever altered by the witness of Brother Earl, and by his patient wife, but also because I’m sure she found her solace and comfort “In the Psalms.” 

 

The phrase, “Have you no shame?” came to mind when I first looked at today’s lectionary passage from Psalm 71, for it begins, “In you, O Lord, I take refuge; let me never be put to shame. None of us like to be “shamed,” do we? Shaming is a nasty business. Not only does it “call out” someone for some negative behavior, but it doubles down by putting them down or belittling them for it. “Shame” differs from “guilt” in a number of ways. As one of my colleagues who does a lot of counseling defines it: Guilt says, “You’ve done a bad thing;” Shame says, “You are a bad PERSON.” All of us do “bad things,” which is what we call “sin” in religious jargon. But these activities don’t have to mean we are a bad person. We are forgiven of our sins by God and compassionate others. However, getting labeled as a “bad person” is much harder an accusation to escape. None of us like to be “shamed” in this way. Guilt can be a helpful thing, as it holds us accountable for our sin; shame just beats us up and doesn’t “fix” anything, including the temptations that may have fueled our behavior.

 

One of the most interesting stories in the Gospels is the one where the Pharisees bring a woman whom they “caught in adultery” to Jesus, reminding him that the law requires she be stoned to death. Every preacher has “nuanced” this story by asking the obvious questions such as: How did they KNOW where to find this woman so they could “catch her in the act?” Was this a setup? Where is the man, for he, too, was guilty of adultery? Some commentators have speculated that her “partner” in crime WAS one of the Pharisees, and that when Jesus stoops down to begin writing in the dirt, he was writing the names of the girlfriends of the accusing Pharisees! Maybe so, as they all began to walk away quietly, as Jesus wrote. When they had all departed, Jesus turned to the woman and said, “Woman, who are your accusers?” to which she replied, “No one, sir.” Jesus answered, “Neither do I accuse you. Go and sin no more.” Not only did he refrain from shaming her, but he offers her a better way for her future, going forward. 

 

If you are suffering from shame, dear friend, either being heaped on you by others or the self-imposed variety, keep reading this “anti-shaming” Psalm! While many believers have questioned why the God of the Old Testament seems to differ from the loving, forgiving, “Son-sending” God of the New Testament, actually, nothing could be further from the truth. Clearly, the psalmist writing today’s passage trusts mightily in the Lord, sees God as “protector,” as one who will not only “protect” us from the shaming attempts of others, but will never shame us from heaven, either. The God spoken of here is one who desires to lift up God’s people, and give them hope from the moment they entered the world. What I like about the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) is that it gives us more of the stories of human struggles, with enemies, with each other, and even with God and God’s law. It seems so “authentic” to me, given my experience as a human in the human community, and my own struggles with all of the above. 

 

The model I have defaulted to in understanding humanity’s relationship with the divine has typically been that of parent-child. Apart from the dysfunction that can occur in the experience of human parenting, a normal relationship between parent and child is one of love, nurturing, and “pleasing.” A parent develops a unique love and desire to protect one’s child pretty much as soon as the child is born. In my work with teenagers throughout my ministry, I told them that the moment I held my firstborn in my arms for the first time, I suddenly understood all of the rules my parents made for me, and that they probably won’t have this understanding until they do the same thing, if they are so privileged. The nexus between parental responsibility and the on-rush of a unique parental love for the newborn child is an amazing thing. There is nothing like it, in my experience, and it never goes away. Our two children are 42 and 40 years of age now, and are successful, responsible adults, and our daughter has children of her own. Yet, we have never gotten over our parental love for them, and our never-ending desire to want the best for them, and for them to be safe. (Grandchildren DO mediate some of this, as the parental love gets transferred—and some might say even “turbocharged”—toward them, when they come along!) Children grow up wanting to BE loved by the parent(s) and desiring to please the parent(s), often hiding their “sins” or mistakes, for fear the parent(s) may no longer love them, if their misdeeds are found out. Sound familiar. THIS is why I think the love between God and us is very much like the love between a parent and a child. John 3:16’s “For God so loved the world” line stretches from the first verse of Genesis to this very moment as you read this sermon, and God’s love for YOU, like a parent’s love, will never wane. And when we experience the acceptance of God’s love and forgiveness (which Jesus labeled being “born again” in John chapter 3—makes sense, doesn’t it?), we enter into that “child” relationship wherein we desire to “please” our Parent God. Unfortunately, we also tend to try to hid our mistakes and “sins,” just like a kid does, which brings “shame” back into the picture, doesn’t it?

 

This is why the psalmist prays that God will never let us be put to shame, as shame is one of the most hurtful feelings we can experience, and as we said earlier, it is not productive. When we sin and feel guilty about it, the guilt provokes us to not want to keep committing the same sin again and again, and guilt well responded to, results in a positive behavior modification on our part. Shame just beats us down, and the last thing any loving parent wants to see is their child being bullied or defeated. As we want the best for our children, so God wants the best for us, including that we be safe, as this psalmist writes. 

 

One of the old hymns of the church says, “Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms…” I’ll bet the hymn writer, Elisha Hoffman, got his verse from this Psalm! And the truth is, all of us must “lean,” from time to time. As children, we daily leaned on our parents’ provision, protection, and love. As teens and young adults, we strived for independence, but when times got rough, we were happy we had those “everlasting arms” of the home front to fall into. Having just laid the last of our four parents to eternal rest, I know how it feels to experience both the forever love of a parent AND the caring, custodial love the other direction, from me to my mom, as I managed her care in her last few years on earth. Being loved and “loving back” was such a wonderful and rich experience, and it well-modeled the kind of love between the divine and me, and that which the psalmist experienced, as well. 

 

So, Dear Ones, I hope this Psalm finds you experiencing this kind of love relationship with the divine. AND, I hope that leaning on God’s everlasting arms allows you to confidently state, “I HAVE NO SHAME.” Being “born again” into a relationship with Jesus Christ certainly has its perks, and being able to live a “shame free” life is one of them. And remember, don’t let “guilt” get you down, but instead motivate you to “get up” and fix stuff. After all, our call to “fix the world” begins with getting our own act together. And if you need a respite along the way, remember, you HAVE a “rock” and a “fortress,” and the eternal hope of a loving, Parent God! Amen.