The Jesse Tree: How to Belong in a World of Shame

Advent 2021 – The Jesse Tree 

This is a series of reflections on daily readings designed for families during the season of Advent.  

I couldn’t breathe.  Shame settled on my chest like a blanket.  Every beat of my heart seemed to scream, “failure!”  An outsider looking in on the circumstances wouldn’t have seen the weight.  They may have, rightly, observed that the details of our family’s distress could have been much worse.  They might have even suggested that we were fortunate to have resources and options other families didn’t. 

Brené Brown describes shame as, the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging… unworthy of connection.  Put more simply, shame is pain plus exclusion.  Any faith worth having needs to offer healing, belonging, and restoration. 

Day Three – Shame, Genesis 2:4 – 3:24

Sometimes we’re so used to reading scripture according to our theological schemas we forget that the first problem in the Bible isn’t disobedience, but loneliness.  In the “very good” creation, in the midst of plenty, it is ‘not good’ for the man to be alone.  The story of the naming of the animals and the creation of the woman are designed to show our need for connection.  We humans need one another, not simply for procreation, but for life, health, for… good(ness). 

The Christian tradition has emphasized “the fall of humanity” as the big problem the story of scripture sets out to address.  But, what if the problem of sin is a substory of the larger problem, the problem of connection, of belonging? 

The story about the serpent, the forbidden fruit, and the woman (and man) is often rehearsed ungenerously.  First, the “knowledge of good and evil” is a euphemism for independence, not for sex as is sometimes suggested.  The crime, committed by both man and woman, was to declare independence from creator and seek the wisdom to determine good and evil for themselves. This “desire to be wise and determine good and evil” is not a problem because humans are meant to be dumb, only that human wisdom (and self interest) make us limited, distorting the good and promoting the evil.

The immediate impact of this is shame.  Having broken trust with creator they cannot face one another without being reminded of what they have lost.  They cover themselves and hide. 

Notice that the creator God is not ashamed of his creatures.  God calls to the woman and man, like the parent calling to the toddler wiggling under the covers in a game of hide and seek.  Willful independence and broken trust have their consequences, but God makes clothes, sets boundaries, and promises restoration. 

Most of us know something of pain plus exclusion.  What would it feel like to come out of hiding, to listen to the voice calling, “Where are you?”  What would it be like to feel ‘covered’ by the creator instead of blanketed by shame?