Isaiah 58:1-12
2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
Matthew 6:1-6,16-21
Psalm 103:8-14
Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
I have always wondered what to do
with Jesus’ words in our Ash Wednesday Gospel. They seem to take all the fun
out of receiving ashes and committing to Lenten spiritual practices. Is Jesus
really condemning what we are trying to do as Christians today? Or at least
taking us down a peg in our spiritual striving? It wasn’t until I read Jesus’
words from the Sermon on the Mount in the light of Brene Brown’s work on shame
and vulnerability that I got a new take on what Jesus might be trying to tell
us. Shame, according to Brown, is “the intensely painful feeling … of believing
that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.”[1]
“I am never enough,” our shame whispers to us. “I am unwanted and alone.” Vulnerability,
having the courage to open ourselves up to relationship, is what allows us to
move out of shame and into joy.
If you want to
see shame at work take a look at the first hypocrite, whipping out his trumpet
to play a fanfare to his own generosity every time he drops his pledge in the
offering plate or hands a homeless man a dollar. Why does he need that trumpet?
“Deep down, you are a loser,” the voice of shame whispers darkly in his ear. If
you want to be loved, you need to be successful in your career. You are
“enough” only when you are working, when you have money and fame to show for
your actions. Without success and the concrete trappings that come with it, you
are no better than a slug on the sidewalk. Without a nice house and vacations
in Florida, your wife won’t love you. Without the latest fashions and top-notch
schools, your children won’t honor you. Without a name in the community, your
parents will be disappointed in you.” The successful, busy hypocrite needs the
praise of others in order to feel worthy, in order to drown out the voice of
shame inside his head, and he thinks that he can buy that praise with money or
success, or even with his donations to charity.
The second hypocrite,
on the other hand, might well be a clergy person. If you want to hear shame at
work, listen to him, as he prays loudly and publically, to impress onlookers.
He puffs up his prayers with words like “eschatological” and “Christological,” and
peppers them with Latin and Greek phrases. Or he brags about his special relationship
with Jesus, shouting out to the Holy One as if God were his own best fishing
buddy. Why does he need to make a show of his faith? “Deep down, you are a
loser,” the voice of shame whispers darkly in his ear. “You are “enough” only
when you are the perfect Christian, when you can impress others with your
godliness.” The pious hypocrite needs the admiration of others in order to feel
worthy, in order to drown out the voice of shame inside his head, and he thinks
that he can manufacture that admiration by showing how close he is to God.
Finally, if
you want to see shame at work, watch the third hypocrite, as she dumps a whole
container of ashes on her head and rubs them into her face and hair. “O woe is
me,” she moans, “Look, look, look at what a miserable sinner I am!” Why does
she want our pity? “Deep down, you are a loser,” the voice of shame whispers
darkly in her ear. Without constant attention from others, you are nothing. You
are ‘enough’ only when people are noticing you, when they feel sorry for you,
when they comment on your Facebook post.”
Without exaggerating to everyone how she stayed at the office with the
flu to finish the project single-handedly, she feels invisible. Without tearing
herself down at every opportunity, so that others will build her up, she feels
lost. The suffering, martyred hypocrite needs the pity of others in order to
feel worthy, in order to drown out the voice of shame inside her head, and she
thinks that she can stir up that pity by exaggerating her predicament far and
wide.
On the other
hand, if you want to see vulnerability at work, take a look at Jesus. In Jesus,
God slips on vulnerable human flesh. God steps into the shame-driven world in
which we live. And yet Jesus does not shame us. Jesus welcomes saint and sinner
alike with God’s own mercy and loving-kindness. Jesus risks everything out of
that love, even letting us nail him to a Cross. “You are enough!” this Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel. “You are a
beloved son and daughter of God. In the secret recesses of your heart and soul,
God created you for relationship: for relationship with God and with one
another. Live with integrity as God’s beloved children. There is no treasure
greater than God’s Love. There is no goal more meaningful than being in
relationship with your Creator, free of the venomous hissings of shame.”
I had a strange thought yesterday, as
I was shoveling snow on my driveway, watching it billow out into the cold air
like fine sand. If we gave out shame on Ash Wednesday, I reflected with a
horrified shiver, we would use snow. Snow is so cold and white that it feels
like death. It paralyzes us in the sterile, frozen whiteness of shame, creeping
up our limbs and slowing our hearts. I could see myself dipping my thumb in a box
of snow and tracing a wet, frigid X of shame
on peoples’ foreheads: ‘Remember that you are frozen in death, and to
water you shall melt,’ I would say. The X might be invisible, but the chill in
our hearts would show in our every desperate plea for worthiness.
How grateful I am that our God is not
a shaming God, and that Ash Wednesday and Lent are meant not for shame, but for
its anecdote: the vulnerability of repentance. Richard Lischer points out that
today’s rite is not all about the ashes themselves: we have to remember that
the ashes that we receive on our foreheads today are carefully formed into the
shape of a cross—into the shape of vulnerability itself. “We don’t receive the
ashes on Ash Wednesday only; we bring them to the altar every day [in our mortal
bodies…] Only in Jesus are they gathered into the shape of the cross. Time and
time again, we bring them to him and then return to our mortal lives with
something far better.”[2]
We return to our mortal lives filled with the vulnerability that opens us up to
be in loving relationship with God and our neighbor. Our task today is to
remember that we are frail human beings who make mistakes, and then to wear the
mark of our vulnerability out into the world. It is to stand on street corners
offering a blessing that could be refused. It is to risk being mocked. It is to
go on TV with a box of ashes knowing that you might say something stupid. It is
to wear the mark of Jesus to school and in the grocery store, where others
might roll their eyes at your religious gullibility. Our goal is to become
vulnerable children of God, children who hold onto the treasure of
relationship, no matter what the cost.
Anne, have you ever thought of compiling your sermons into a book?
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