A Sermon for the Third Sunday after Pentecost

Sermon for the Third Sunday after Pentecost

St. Aidan's Episcopal Church, Alexndria

June 10, 2018         

                             Audio Version Here

Who told you you were naked.

I have always liked the story about Adam and Eve and God that we just heard. I particularly love God’s line here, “who told you you were naked?”  That line seems to just sum up the human situation so well. It is a loving response to an affliction we have all known, one that can stick and be hard to shake off.   It is a kind response, it is concerned for the frightened couple who have discovered the power and potency of shame.  “Naked!”  “Who told you you were naked?”

Shame can be toxic.  I’ve known people who spent their whole lives recovering from shame that was instilled in them as children.  For those people, recovering a sense of their worth and goodness can be a major part of their life’s spiritual work. Fortunately, we are learning not to shame children as easily as some of our parents did. We tend to treat our kids better in this enlightened age.  Kids yes, dogs….not so much.  

If you have or have ever had a dog, you probably know something about the power of shame.  They must be born with it, I don’t know where it comes from, but dogs seem to recognize that voice, the “what have you done” voice.  When I think of the dogs that have been a part of my life, I can hear myself, I can hear that voice; “Charlie!”  “Ike!”  “We don’t eat such things when we are on a walk!” “Ralph!”  “Bad dog!”  I don’t think it’s even the words….just the tone.  You could probably read a dog the phone book in the right voice and watch that tail go down between those legs before Rover slinks off to some hidden corner. I wouldn’t think of shaming a child.  Not too explicitly.  But the dog…….I am guilty of using shame on the dog.  I admit it……I’m ashamed……well ok……tail between the legs.  

As I read this story of god coming back into the garden and finding Adam and Eve hiding, it seems obvious that the fall—which I take to be a highly metaphorical piece of poetry—was not a fall from relationship with God, but a fall into shame.  The very first result of doing what they knew better than to do was that the humans became aware of themselves and their assumed unfitness for fellowship.  Isn’t that what shame is.  It is the voice inside us that tells us we are not worthy.  It is that voice that whispers to us that it would be better for us if others didn’t know the truth about us, if others didn’t see us as we really are.  Shame separates us from those around us, and in this story it separates those humans, who are so like god, so aware of god and their place in creation as friends and companions for god, it separates them from the one who created them to share a life of mutuality and plenty and love.  

We were hiding, says Adam, because of this thing we discovered.  We encountered something about ourselves that troubled us and so we assumed we should hide that part of ourselves from you.  

When I think of my least favorite politicians, and when I am feeling really angry at what they have done, I fantasize about telling them what I think of what they are doing, and I will admit that sometimes those fantasies involve shaming….  pretty much the same voice I would use on the dog….Mr. Congressman……….   In those moments I imagine shame as a weapon used to inflict pain.  Shame is too often used to control and shape the lives of those whose ideas or behavior makes us uncomfortable.  

But in my best moments, even those crazy leaders get better from me.  In my best moments I wish they could expand their vision—which is what Jesus tried to get people to do—to in some way take in what is important to the people about whom I am concerned.  

My first instinct, to shame them for being so clueless is exactly the wrong way to bring about any sort of creative engagement.  Since shame, if it is felt, wants to hide and reduce its exposure to and interaction with those around it, shaming each other over our differences can not bring about the desired cooperation.  Everything becomes more difficult when shame enters the picture.  It’s hard to forgive people who are hiding what they have done.  It is hard to be forgiven if we fear the pain of revealing our truth more than we fear living in hiding.  

I am a theologically and socially liberal Episcopalian, which means that I have spent most of my life saying there isn’t any devil.  I can give you all kinds of sound, supported theological reasons for that position, but if I were going to tell a story about a foe of all that is good and all that we hope for in love and community, I couldn’t tell a more chilling story than this one about the snake who leaves this poor, silly, hapless couple mired in shame.  I can’t imagine a more devastating blow to the dream of god than the sowing of shame in this beautiful garden the creator, the dreamer of love imagined.  Imagined for us…..

Paul whose letters are the earliest Christian writings we have, said that Jesus life and ministry responded to that earliest story of shame and alienation.  Theologians and preachers tend to think of Jesus balancing and redeeming Adam’s fall in grand cosmic ways, Adam sinned…..Jesus paid the price…..that sort of thing.  But in today’s gospel we get a more practical version of Jesus responding to the universal problem of shame.  

First, we learn that Jesus grew up in a house where shame was known.  You may have grown up in such a home.  Most of us did.  A home where in one form or another the message was clearly posted.  Let this be your guide through life: “what will the neighbors think?”  We know that Jesus had some of this in his early life because of the story we heard this morning.  Jesus is hanging out in the neighborhood, talking in ways that make the neighbors think he’s crazy, healing people, drawing a crowd, not worrying about what people think, making his mama nervous, right out in front of everyone.  His family goes out to restrain him. It’s like he stepped into the story to show us how to get past the shame that had bound us for so long…..so long……

He tells those who are concerned about the anxiety of his mother and brothers, that his real family consists of those who get him, just as he is.  

Again and again in the gospel story, Jesus is Jesus with little regard for what others will think or what being himself might cost him in the regard of others.  Shame, over time, when used as a system of control, robs us of our authenticity.  Jesus doesn’t just tell us there’s a better way, he shows us. He gathers corn on the sabbath, he heals on the sabbath,  he talks to women, he helps foreigners, he says what’s on his mind, he speaks in riddles that leave people wondering what he is talking about, he eats and sleeps and travels with tax gatherers and sinners, he rides into town like a king, only on a donkey, and in the end—and this is where the circle to that garden story is completed—he ends up nailed to a cross………naked.    All of this he did to show us that we don’t have to hide, that nothing we could do can break the relationship begun in that story so long ago….  Jesus with his whole life utters what we must assume was God’s next line in that first story.  

“Who told you you were naked?”

“And who cares?”