Sermon delivered Sunday, March 5, 2017 (First Sunday in Lent, Year A) at St. Cuthbert's Episcopal Church, Oakland, CA.
Sermon Text(s): Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7, Romans 5:12-19
Since the season of Lent invites us to reflect on sin and its consequences, it is appropriate that we begin with the story of Adam and Eve, the story of the first sin, the “original sin,” in the Garden of Eden.
According to the story, humanity’s first sin was disobedience. God said not to do something, Adam and Eve did it, and wham: God expels them from the Garden.
Setting aside any philosophical questions about whether God’s rules were just and worthy of obedience or not, this story attempts to make sense of one of humanity’s fundamental flaws: our inability to accept limits, to acknowledge that “God is God and we are not.” We never seem to be satisfied with what God gives us; we always want more. As a species, we have a tendency to go after precisely the things we know we cannot have. Many a parent will tell you that the quickest way to get a child to do something is to tell them not to do it.
So what are the consequences of this sin? Immediately after their disobedience, after refusing to accept the limits placed on them, Adam and Eve feel shame -- they become aware of their nakedness and cover themselves, something they had previously not felt it necessary to do -- and fear -- they hide when God comes looking for them in the garden. Their relationship with each other and with God is changed because of their disobedience; rather than relationships characterized by trust and comfort and safety, they have become relationships tainted by fear and shame.
If fear and shame only entered Adam and Eve’s consciousness after the Fall, then it’s safe to say that fear and shame were not part of God’s intentions for humanity. Fear and shame are a consequence of sin, and in fact are sinful themselves, in a way, having nothing to do with what our relationship with God is intended to be like. Yet unfortunately, many people associate fear and shame with God. They think of God as a judgmental figure to be feared, someone in front of whom they should feel shame. Perhaps this is because so many churches and other religious communities -- the organizations that represent God to so many people -- use and rely on fear and shame to motivate and control people. Instead of seeing this as a characteristic of humanity’s sinfulness, people come to see it as a representation of how God relates to us.
And so when we enter a season like Lent, a season about repentance, a season that encourages us to look closely at our sin, it can stir up fear and shame for many people. They may feel they are being judged and shamed for their shortcomings in all areas of their lives. But while Lent encourages us to look seriously at our actions and make amends for any harm we have caused to others, it doesn’t invite us to wallow in shame or cower in fear.
Psychologists have written about the distinction between guilt and shame -- guilt is a feeling of remorse over some action we have done that we regret, while shame is a general feeling of unworthiness, a painful feeling about how we appear to others, whether or not we have actually done anything wrong. Guilt is about specific actions, whereas shame is about our sense of identity, our understanding of self [1]. That’s why shame is so destructive and unhealthy. It’s appropriate to feel guilt over something we’ve done that upset or harmed someone, and the season of Lent encourages us to acknowledge the sins of which we are guilty. But it’s not appropriate to feel like we are a horrible, unworthy person because we’ve done something that upset or harmed someone else -- that’s shame, one of the consequences of the Fall, something that God never intended for humanity.
According to psychologists, people who are overrun with shame often have an inability to feel true guilt, because they are so consumed with feeling bad about themselves they don’t have the ability to notice when they have hurt others or to feel remorse about it [2]. Feeling guilt, however, is considered a sign of emotional health. Emotionally healthy people are able to recognize that their actions may have caused pain to someone else, empathize with that person, and feel remorse and make amends [3]. Guilt may be painful, but it is healthy. Shame, on the other hand, is both painful and unhealthy.
And what about fear? Aren’t we supposed to “fear God?” The Bible constantly tells us things like “the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10, Psalm 111:10). Doesn’t fear motivate us to behave ethically, fear of punishment if we don’t?
Well, yes, that kind of fear can be a motivator, but the ancient wisdom of the elders in both Jewish and Christian traditions tell us that that kind of fear is an insufficient foundation for true faith, because it relies on an incomplete understanding of God [4]. Yes, God can punish us, God has the ability to punish us, but God is also merciful. The story of the Fall in the Qur’an says that while God expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden for disobeying his law, he also provided them guidance for living in the world to which he banished them. In other words -- with the punishment also came mercy. That is a complete picture of God: as the psalmist says, “You were a God who forgave them, yet punished them for their evil deeds” (Psalm 99:8). With sin comes consequences, but we can also rest assured that God is merciful, that God is always working for our good, even when it may seem we are being slammed with a punishment. Because, as Paul points out in our reading from Romans today, God managed to turn even the Fall into a good thing. Yes, he punished Adam and Eve by expelling them from the Garden, but he righted their wrongs -- and all of our wrongs -- by sending Jesus to us as the “new Adam,” a new creation, a picture of humanity restored to God’s original intentions for us and a gateway to accessing that restored humanity ourselves.
When the Bible talks about “fearing God,” it is not talking primarily about being scared, dreading punishment, pleading with God, “please don’t hurt me.” The Hebrew word used in the phrase “the fear of the Lord” is yirat, a word that means awe, reverence, wonder, amazement [5]. If you’ve ever had a theophany, a moment where God’s presence was revealed to you, made known to you in a powerful way, then you will know that that kind of experience can be slightly “scary” in our normal sense of the meaning of that word, but the emotion generated is one that comes from feeling overwhelmed at being connected in a positive way to something larger than ourselves, not one that comes from worrying that that thing larger than us will squash us.
So this Lent, I invite you to focus more on guilt -- acknowledging and admitting when you hurt others -- than on shame -- thinking you are an unworthy person, and to focus more on awe -- marveling at the presence of God and your connection with God -- than fear -- worrying that God will punish you. Don’t allow Lent to be a season of shame and fear. In fact, maybe this year, you could try giving them up for Lent.
[1] Joseph Burgo, “The Difference Between Guilt and Shame,” Psychology Today Blog, 30 May 2013, https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/shame/201305/the-difference-between-guilt-and-shame Accessed 4 March 2017.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Scripture/Parashah/Summaries/Eikev/Yirah/yirah.html
[5] Tara Sophia Mohr, “Is it Fear or Awe?” http://www.jonathanfields.com/is-it-fear-or-awe/ Accessed 4 March 2017.
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