When I worked with Fellowship Church, you always had that awkward moment where when someone asks what you do and I say, "I'm a Children's Pastor." They kinda look at you weird and go "Oh!" or "Cool!" and that's the end of the conversation because now you have broken an important rule of building relationships: Don't bring up religion. I never thought it could get worse.
I was wrong.
I was in a long line at Starbucks waiting to order and a neighboring customer said hi and struck up a conversation. Naturally we get to careers and saying I was the director of a faith based non-profit that fights human trafficking was like the sum epitome of relational rule breaking. I now have now brought up religion, politics and sex. Don't you love talking to me already? I think the only thing that could be a worse conversation starter was Starbuck's #RaceTogether campaign. Those poor baristas...
But if you want to start a conversation with me you are going to hear how much I love God. You will hear how much I believe he has called me to this work. And you are going to hear about how much God is changing me just as much as he is changing the women we build relationships with.
Just last weekend we had a training with a fantastic women named Bonnie Martin. She has counseled thousands of clients and specifically works with human trafficking victims and those suffering from complex trauma. She introduced us to neuroscience that showed us images of the brain post-trauma and how it structurally redesigns the brain. It was incredible to learn how this restructuring leads to certain behavioral changes and why these women we work with think the way they do. Of course, without fail, God taught me a little bit more about myself as I struggle with my PTSD. I was able to understand how my brain works even more and what I can do to balance my life with the symptoms that occasionally interject themselves into my life.
But the most important piece to the puzzle was when she discussed
shame. It will be very hard for me to sum up what I heard over two days from such an eloquent woman, but I will do my best because I feel it is so important.
Shame bring three things: secrecy, isolation and insecurity. Think about when you steal a cookie at age 5. You do it in secrecy. You isolate yourself to eat it. Then you are insecure the whole day on whether your mom or dad is going to find out. Right? Well, what Ms. Martin's point to her speech was that we don't just have a sin problem, but we also have a shame problem. In Genesis, it says that Adam and Eve, freshly created, were naked in the garden and not ashamed. But once they disobeyed God, they felt immense shame and hid from God. Sin is what keeps us from God. Shame is what keeps us from living past it. She then gave us three examples of people with shame from the Bible.
Moses was a traumatized baby. He survived white-water rafting down the Nile river and was adopted into an Egyptian family where he had identity issues and developed and anger management problem. He then killed a man in his anger, hid the body (secrecy) then ran away from home (isolation). He was so ashamed of what he did he could barely overcome his insecurity when God started talking to him from the burning bush. Thankfully, he learned to overcome his shame and lead the people out of Egypt.
Saul's story wasn't so happy. He had inherited shame socially as the youngest brother of the lowest family of the lowest tribe. When Samuel anointed him and held a banquet for him he didn't tell his family (secrecy) and hid on the day it was supposed to be announced that he was the first king of Israel (isolation). He was always insecure about his leadership role as shown by him not waiting for Samuel to come sacrifice before going into battle and by how he perceived David as a threat to his throne. He never overcame his shame.
Rahab had imposed shame. Historically, I learned that she was probably a prostitute as much as a girl being trafficked today was (aka forced to do it). Her story might be similar to many of the girls that come into our program where she was probably first trafficked at age 12 or 13. However, it was a way to survive in a culture hostile to women. She probably had so much shame from how society viewed her and she had to deal with that her whole life. However, as a survivor, she had heard of the God of the Israelites that wiped their enemies out. When she came across the Israeli spies, she saw an opportunity to save herself and her family. Yet, when the Israeli spies told her to put the scarlet cord in the window, she had a tough decision. Scarlet was the color associated with sexually immorality (
Scarlet Letter anyone?) and so so save herself, she had to broadcast her occupation to the community. Thankfully she didn't let her shame from her occupation stop her and she became part of the lineage of Jesus.
See how it wasn't just the sins of the individual people that caused them to hesitate when God called them? It was the shame of their sins that they had to overcome. Those in the Bible that were able to understand that God knew every secret about them and yet still loved them allowed them to overcome their shame and move on to do the great God had called them to do.
I'm sure as I'm writing this some of the shame that you still keep secret in your heart might be coming to mind. When I was thinking about it, I had some things that I was ashamed of come to mind instantly. And yet, as we celebrate Easter, it is so good to know that our Savior knew we were going to face shame. With this knowledge he underwent severe beatings and mocking, taking the shame that he didn't deserve with him as he was paraded down the street to his death. With his resurrection, we see that he overcame the sin that keeps us from God, but he also overcame the shame that allows us to experience true liberty from our shame in His glory.
Do you really want to start a conversation? Let's talk about how the sin and the shame that we deal with as a human beings causes many of the problems that we see today, including human trafficking. People in pain inflict pain on others. Let's talk openly about how the answer to the sin and shame problem is getting squashed in our schools and our politics. Let's talk about how it's taboo to bring God up in conversation. Let's talk about the messes in life that the directives of God can help us heal and avoid in the future. Let's talk about how we can still be reflections of Christ without having to be perfect ourselves.
My hope is that if we can start having this real, actually important conversation, we can see real hope and change occur in our society. Isn't that a beautiful thing to imagine?
Happy Easter everyone. Remember that God loves you and you don't have to live in shame any more.
