Matthew 18:10-14
‘Take care that you do not despise one of these little ones; for, I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven.* What do you think? If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of your* Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.
Have you ever made rock candy? I have not. But the process isn’t that hard. [Start video] To make rock candy you wrap a piece of string around something and let some of it hang down. Then you take a glass, combine water and sugar until it makes a thick solution, and then you drop that string down into the water. For a while nothing happens, a day, two days go by and you don’t notice a big change. But then all of a sudden, when the saturation point is reached, the sugar molecules begin to crystallize around the string. More and more crystals form, making the string harder and harder. Eventually, the string is completely calloused over with these crystals. That is how you make rock candy and it’s how shame works.
Over the past many weeks we have journeyed together through different forms of grief or different ways we experience grief. Some were obvious and common. Others were nuanced and unexplored.
Tonight we have one more kind of grief and it is perhaps the one many of us least want to address: grief for the places that have not known love. As Francis Weller explains, “These are profoundly tender places precisely because they have lived outside of kindness, compassion, warmth, or welcome. These are the places within us that have been wrapped in shame and banished to the farthest shores of our lives. We often hate these parts of ourselves, hold them in contempt, and refuse to allow them the light of day.”
We all have these parts of ourselves. It might be one’s body or a part of it that you loathe or won’t look at in the mirror, bringing about the self-image you’ve struggled with all your life. It might be the neglect you endured growing up or face now, leaving you feeling rejected and not just that you did something wrong, but feeling that something is wrong with you.
It might be abuse, physical, mental, or sexual, that you survived but have locked away hidden in the dark out of fear of judgment or reliving the trauma.
It might be one’s sexuality, the realization of who you were made to love, and at the same time rejecting that with all you can, afraid of rejection from family, friends, even your own faith.
And here is how shame is like making rock candy. We can endure some neglect or hurt. We can withstand some berating, self-criticism, and disappointment. But then there comes a point when we can’t. And with enough repetition, by staying in that solution too long, crystals grow around that thing and we become hardened. The internal stories associated with those events reach their saturation point and the fictions, the lies, the hurt crystallize into things that feel like truths we cannot break.
What is the thing in your life, in your very soul for which you are ashamed. We all have this and we all do our best to cast it out to the deepest, darkest parts of our souls where we hope it goes to die. But it doesn’t. Instead, we end up carrying around this shame, and it separates us from others and ourselves, bending us over, pulling us down so that we no longer gaze into the eyes of others, because the last thing we want when we feel such shame and self-doubt, is to be seen.
So like the sheep in the parable, we try to run off, to hide, to go astray. That is what shame does: it makes us think it’s better to be alone because at least then no one will know my shame.
Yet, that’s not how Jesus, our shepherd, works. The catch in the parable is that if one sheep goes astray, no shepherd in their right mind would leave the other 99! But this shepherd does. Here the words of the Psalmist as if Jesus, our shepherd, is saying them to you: “I have searched you and known you… I have discerned your thoughts… I am acquainted with all your ways… I know you completely. I surround you and protect you.
There is no place where I can’t find you or won’t go to save you. In your joyous moments and when shame has you in the pit of hell, I am there. You say you dwell in the darkness, but that’s where I do my best work. For only in darkness can my light shine through.”
Shame hardens our hearts; it makes us feel as though parts of us are outside of God’s reach, as if we are unloveable. But that is a lie. You are sought out, you are known, you are loved. In Jesus, God takes all our shame and the sin that caused it, and puts it to shame on the cross. We need not carry it anymore.
But what can we do? Is there anything, other than hearing this good news, that helps us address the shame that's hardened within us? And this is where grief comes in. “what we feel ashamed of, what we perceive as defective or flawed about ourselves, we also experience as loss. And the proper response to any loss is grief.”
So what can we do to move from shame to grief?
Here are three things: One, we begin to see ourselves not as worthless but as wounded. Because, if we are honest, that’s what we are. We have been wounded by ourselves, by others, and by a society that feeds off of shaming. And yet you have worth! You are made worthy through the grace and love of Jesus. It has been bestowed to you, given to you, and nothing can ever take that away from you.
Second, once we recognize our hurt, we can begin to see ourselves with compassion rather than contempt. With less condemnation and more understanding. The samaritan looked upon the stranger and had compassion. Out of compassion, Jesus fed the 5,000, gave sight to the blind, healed the sick, and forgave those who put him on the cross. The path to forgiveness for others and healing for yourself begins with a posture of compassion, never scorn or disdain.
Lastly, move from silence to sharing. This is nothing new. Over the last few weeks, we’ve heard the importance of sharing our grief. And The same is true for our shame. When we share it, all that pulls us down or keeps us away is lifted and we can begin to grieve the loss we’ve experienced. So share it with a trusted friend, with a trusted therapist or counselor, or with a trusted pastor. Most of all, share it with God and hide it no longer.
Let the love of Jesus break through the hardened lies that shame has formed inside our souls, giving light to our darkest parts.
Tonight we will practice exactly that. On your chair you have a candle. As Jeannie plays this next hymn, share your shame with God in prayer. Tell God of the parts of you that have not known love, the parts you’ve tried to hide. Invite God into those very places, to heal our wounds, move us to compassion, and soften our hardened hearts. Then, when ready, light your candle and place it on the way. And together we will see that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.
Amen.
