Shame[1] is bad… right?! Our whole society today cries how terrible it is. Only people who shame others should be made to feel shame. So shame must be bad, right?!!
From a pure feelings orientation, shaming certainly looks victimizing, impresses as irredemptive… unloving, even. So, how can shame be good… ever?
Of course, I don’t actually believe this… not totally… no always. It’s bad to be “shameful” in our behavior, crossing the boundaries of right and wrong. It’s also bad to be “shameless” in our souls, utterly unconcerned with reactions to our shameful behavior. So, shame must have some rightful place in society.
Now I do believe that shame can devastate a person, much as extreme embarrassment can. It is possible to manipulate people by creating a perpetually shaming environment without a path to forgiveness, redemption, and rightness. It is also easy to overwhelm people by shaming that which should not be regarded as shameful—like waiting until you marry to have sex, or refusing to consume alcohol.
Even so, being exposed in one’s moral weakness and wrongdoing, real or imagined, is a potentially dangerous psychological experience. A devastating sense of worthlessness and hopelessness can set in, inducing suicide, fast or slow. “How can anything ever be right again after THIS!” “How can I ever face others again after THIS!!!” “How could God ever forgive me for THIS!!!!”
There are, however, two, not one, grand reactions to shame. Some are debilitated by shame—a soul implosion. Others are humbled by shame, painfully provoked to confession, repentance, and change.
Let us consider. Judas betrays Jesus. Peter betrays Jesus. A divided road lay before them both. Judas becomes the namesake of all betrayers. Peter becomes the great apostle. Shamed, Judas goes off alone and kills himself. Peter goes off to weep bitterly… then returns a changed man. He lives a life of spiritual power, plants churches across the empire, dies a bold martyr.
Was the difference in the kind of betrayal?
Judas enriched himself by turning Jesus over to the authorities who wanted Him dead. Perhaps he never imagined that Jesus would allow himself to be killed, thinking that he is merely forcing Jesus to declare Himself and take up His Kingdom. Maybe he just second guessed himself once the fever of greed took a short nap in his heart.
Peter, however, having fought bravely to defend Jesus from arrest, and being rebuffed in his efforts by Jesus Himself, lagged behind chastened and confused. And it was in that state that he denied even knowing the man for whom he’d sworn that he alone would die mere hours before.
Through their respective deeds, each had a mirror turned onto their own souls. They found deep corruption there.
Was the difference in the hope extended by Jesus Himself before either did their dirty deed?
Of Judas, Jesus announces to all the disciples in Matthew 26:24, “The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.”
Jesus tells the eleven, “You will all fall away because of me this night. For it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.” Then to Peter, He warns and encourages, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers. …I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day, until you deny three times that you know me.”
In my experience, neither the severity of the deed, nor the “emotional space” created by others makes the difference.
Paul, for instance, went about killing Christians. He was humiliated in his encounter with the resurrected Jesus, knocked down, accused, blinded, and left to suffer in the dark for days. Then he is healed by Jesus through the very people he was tormenting in his false righteousness. His own community was merciless to dissenters and the churches were too afraid to embrace him.
Now, shame comes on like a storm when we are exposed to others and even to ourselves for the weak, foolish, and often wicked people that we are or have been, real or imagined. The difference in how we weather this storm is, I believe, the level to which: 1. We have an awareness of the grace, mercy, and forgiveness found in Jesus Christ, 2. We perceive a clear path to righteousness from our shameful state, and 3. We cling to our own pride in the face of failure. Pride is labeled a deadly sin for a reason.
Those who are able to walk humbly before the Lord are also able to acknowledge their “true self without Christ” and are able to embrace the grace of God for the true mercy that it is in light of our true self.
Those who implode, or erode, because of shame, are, I believe, no longer able to sustain the grand self-image that self-love craves. Nor can they bear its loss. Nor can they walk humbly in the perceived indignity of being God’s charity case.
If you live here, repent of your pride as well as your shameful deeds, and let the grace of Christ lift you up and put you back on the path of life, which is a path of service to others.
But, Wait! There’s more. Stay tuned.
~Andrew D. Sargent, PhD
[1] Shame is a big topic and I certainly won’t encompass it here, I do, however, want to discuss an aspect of our lives with shame.
