Sin and Shame

As I was meditating yesterday I came across this quote from Pr. Nadia Bolz-Weber:

So one end of the church tells us that sin is an antiquated notion that only makes us feel bad about ourselves so we should avoid mentioning it at all. While the other end of the church tells us that sin is the same as immorality and totally avoidable if you are just a good squeaky clean Christian. But when sin is boiled down to low self esteem and immorality then it becomes something we can control or limit in some way rather than something we are bondage to. The reality is that I cannot free myself from the bondage of self. I cannot keep from being turned in on self. I cannot by my own understanding or effort disentangle myself from my self interest and when I think that I can …I am trying to do what is only God’s to do.

In many ways "sin" has become a loaded word, a word that can be bereft of meaning for young people or those not affiliated with a religious tradition.  For many reasons we need to reclaim it, own it, while also realizing that freedom, liberation and reconciliation comes from God.  We don't own sin, it owns us.

For so many people sin corresponds to shame.  And shame can be healthy only when it propels us to repentance and liberation.  More often than not, however, the idea of sin has been used to beat us down and we prefer to "conceal and carry": we conceal our shame, avoid repentance, and grow more deeply entrenched in our narcissistic culture of self-help, feel good consumerism.  We are in bondage to feeding the self, hiding the self, hiding from God and others.  Do we really think we can sustain the illusion that we are perfect, that we are fine? That we do not fail by deeds of omission and commission on a daily basis?  That we can disentangle our web of self-deception without God's help?

I appreciate very much that the season of Lent has not been coopted by our culture.  No one is having a Lent Madness sale and there are no sack-cloth-and-ashes to be found at the local drug store.  There is simply the call that is as ancient as the wilderness itself: repent, turn around, turn away from the world and turn back toward God.  It sounds easy: a road sign that says walk this way.  But there are no specific GPS coordinates for comfort or convenience.  It is a journey each person must undertake and it is unique and intimately shaped by the Holy One just for you.

While God calls us to wholeness, health, joy and wellness, God also calls us to repentance, discipline, self-denial and growth.  This call is different for each one of us. This delicate balance, this journey cannot be achieved by our own will and it is never easy or comfortable.  The season of Lent asks of us: can we commit to being disrupted by God?  Can we let go of the illusion that we can "fix" our inward bent on the self while also doing our part in being made vulnerable and humbled, in surrendering to a journey and process we cannot quantify or measure?

The season of revelry is gone for another year.  The ashes that marked our forehead yesterday have been washed off.  Can we allow our shame, our sin, to be laid bare and transformed on the altar of the wilderness?  Are we willing to know exile, to confess our failures and losses, surrender to the possibility of an entirely different horizon shaped by God?