LENT 2020: Day 13

• LENT 2020: Day 13 Wednesday, March 11, 2020:
  Psalm 128; Ezekiel 36:22-32; John 7:53-8:11

Thus saith the LORD:
    Be ashamed and remorseful for your ways,
          O house of Israel!

We live in a culture where shame is a bad thing. And there are good reasons for that. 

There is a long history — especially in churches, especially in Baptist churches, and most especially in Baptist churches in the South — of using shame as a weapon to harm people.

Brene Brown is maybe the leading expert on shame, which she says makes us feel unworthy and leads to all kinds of broken behavior.

Shame, in short, can be toxic.

And so we rightly shy away from it.

That said, there are times when we really should feel shame — like when the LORD calls Israel to “be ashamed” in today’s reading — although maybe we should follow Brown’s lead by distinguishing between shame and guilt.

In her TED Talk, Listening to Shame, Brown makes the following set of distinctions:
    Shame is a focus on self.
    Guilt is a focus on behavior.
    Shame is, “I am bad.”
    Guilt is, “I did something bad.” …
    Guilt: “I’m sorry, I made a mistake.”
    Shame: “I’m sorry, I am a mistake.”

We must be vigilant against shaming others, but we also must take responsibility for our mistakes — and be willing to change when we are wrong. That is something severely lacking in our world today. And Lent is the perfect time to search ourselves and begin the process of changing ourselves for the better.