Across the Pastor’s Desk by Katie Fick

“In you, O lord, I seek refuge; do not let me ever be put to shame; your righteousness deliver me.” Psalm 31:1

Harold S. Kushner once wrote that “Psychologists and anthropologists see guilt as feeling bad for what you have done or not done, while shame is feeling bad for who you are, measured against some standard of perfection or acceptability.” Guilt is about feeling bad about stuff you did that is not right. Shame is feeling bad because you as a person are not right. Shame goes to the core of our identity, of what we believe about ourselves.

Human beings know how to shame other people pretty well. That is, we know how to take something someone else has done and make it who they are — from cheating on a spouse to making racist remarks to mispronouncing someone’s name when introducing them at the Oscars. There are often proper consequences for these actions, but they also can become all we see in a person. We shame them, and we recognize that shame when it happens to us.

Recently I was talking to a colleague who was so proud of their congregation, because the church had given more money to the local community food shelf than any other entity in town. How wonderful. I asked, “Do any of the people who are served by the food shelf go to your church?” The answer was no. At least, the pastor didn’t think so. Why would hungry folks not think this generous church is for them? Have we as a culture made people feel that by needing help, there is something wrong with them, that being hungry defines them? Have we in the church unintentionally shamed those God calls us to care for most, by seeing them only as people in need, and not children of God with so much to give?

The psalmist prays to not ever be put to shame, but calls on God who will do what is right and deliver us. God lifts us from shame by giving us a new identity: that we are not defined by the world but by the one who created the world. We are not the sum of our sins; we are human beings loved enough that Jesus was willing to die for us, and be raised so we know that sin and death do not have the final claim on our lives. When we are baptized we are claimed as children of God. When we are confronted with all that is within ourselves that feels wrong, God turns to us in love and forgiveness, with new life and new hope waiting for us, and we can turn from what we have done. God looks at human beings stuck in our sin and shame and says: No. You are mine. Something new is possible for you. Whatever you have done, that doesn’t mean it’s who you are.

We are never so wrong that we are beyond a relationship with God. We are God’s children. And we are called to help others recognize their own God-given identities and know the God who is both refuge and deliverer.

 

Albert Lea resident Katie Fick is the pastor of Hayward and Trondhjem Lutheran churches.