I ran into a situation today where I watched these two emotions over take someone I care for deeply. I literally wanted to scream out loud. I despise these feelings and what they do to people. I couldn't move fast enough in an attempt to lift this off of them.
Why is it that most people seem to want to exploit these paralyzing emotions in other people? And we need to remember we are all susceptible to this. How is it that people of the religion that proclaims to be following Jesus use these things in an attempt to conform other's behavior? I have been so overwhelmed with.......something?........today and I can't quite figure out how to describe it. For one, I think I am angry. To see this beautiful, wonderfully caring person go from being confused about something to sinking into this pit of humiliation and despair just broke my heart. I knew what it was that was causing it. See, this person has been affected by a religious teaching that is more attached to the TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL than it was the TREE OF LIFE.
Why does this religion proclaiming to represent Jesus do this?
I watched this dear person sinking into a pit and all I could do was everything I new to do to lift this shame off of them. Shame is a paralyzing emotion that scripture even says Jesus despised. Jesus on the cross, took it all within himself so we wouldn't have to. I wish we could see through the lie and understand that the feelings of shame never sets anyone free. It drives them into a pit.
Why do most people trust more in the use of fear...shame...guilt...to "straighten out" someones path instead of the love and mercy and grace and forgiveness of God demonstrated in Jesus...his life...the cross and the new life of the resurrection? I don't know? I just don't understand?
When we were yet sinners and lost, he came close to let us know that he loved us and had opened a way for us to come home. I ask whoever is reading this, Let us all look closely at how we deal with people so as to see if we are using shame and guilt in an attempt to conform other's behavior. Please understand that it drives them deeper into feelings of unworthiness and despair and very well might discourage them from going home where all that awaits them is love and acceptance and grace and mercy...the powerful yet gentle transforming embrace of a Father who cares and loves more than any of us can begin to imagine.
I saw in the eyes of someone today a change happen and it broke my heart... for a moment they lost sight of this awesome Father and the truth that he has taken the shame, along with the sin, within himself and destroyed it, and they began to spiral down because their eyes were turned to their sin and the weight that stupid tree and the moral code that comes from the religion that exploits it. A life focused on the flesh is death.....but a life focused on the Spirit is life.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians%202;&version=65;
That's the story that has the power to set people free.....not exploiting their sense of shame and sense of unworthiness. Lets' work along side Jesus and lift it off people so they can begin to breathe again and feel safe to come home, not run and hide as the first two in that garden did a long time ago because they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Let's stop shoving people's sin in their faces. The tree of life is all they need. He knows how to set them free.
2 comments:
I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts about why it is that Christians shame others. What is the motivation to do that? Is it quell our own deep shame that we lash out and shame others? Is it our faulty conceptions of God, that we think this is what he does so we feel that it's okay for us to do it? Is it simple oneupmanship, a cheap and nasty way of making ourselves feel better at someone else's expense (the bell curve version of reality)?
Sue, it is probably for many reasons, some of which you mentioned. I think it is driven mostly by how we view God. I really believe this is how religion works. And I mean religion as something Jesus came to free us all from. I have actually had people say to me...."Just give me a rule to follow and I will do that. At least I can "see" that and know what to do." The only problem with that is rarely do people follow and abide by those rules. It's Old Covenant through and through. They never followed the rules well....because the rules can't set us free from the sin that produces shame and guilt. If we are not free we will continue to live in bondage to sin and lawlessness.
So I think we have been duped. Giving people an ethic or a moral code...dos and don'ts...is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and that is what got us in trouble in the first place. It's the very thing that made Adam and Eve feel the shame that made them hide from God in the garden. Trying to fix the mess of it all by following rules is just what most people have been taught being a christians means.
Sue, another thing that I think continues to drive this is what I posted Yesterday. Our perception of things, and in this case, what we think will help people stop doing what they are doing is too often based in this punitive understanding of God. Most people at least live like it is the fear of him and making people feel unworthy is what will change them. It just doesn't work....it never has. It makes people phony. They hide and pretend all the while feeling ashamed and unworthy.
What is strange to me is how so many end up feeling superior. As you mentioned, is that to cover their own shame that they have never found freedom from? I don't know? I do think the superior attitude is a shamed based existance. It just seems so twisted though when you really think about it. How is it that people who are feeling the death caused by the feelings of shame could ever want to place that on someone else? I guess it all comes down to the fact that until Christ sets someone free they are blind. They convince themselves they are okay because they are working the moral code better than the others and then the religion that apparently thinks the knowledge of good and evil is the pathway to freedom kicks in and the sick cycle continues.
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