It’s safe to say that many of you have had an experience in your lives, or many experiences, that were sacred, holy, some astonishing sense of the reality or the presence of God or the Holy Spirit or Jesus, however it manifests to you. Or maybe you’re yearning for this, longing for this, which is just as important – our yearning for the Divine is actually part of the movement of the Divine. These kinds of experiences, I’m persuaded, are much more common than we seem to give credit for, people interpret them differently, and sometimes don’t know what to do with them, so we lock them away. 

Now, I don’t want to speak for you or your experience. But I’m pretty confident based on what people share with me and based on research into this, that these experiences of the sacred are characterized often by awe, gratitude, a sense of belonging, there can be fear but ultimately peace, purpose, humility, instruction or guidance, and so on. If we embrace these experiences they can change our lives. 

What these experiences don’t bring is shame. However, so much of what preachers have had to say about God is laden with shame. So every so often I need to be sure I address this directly. Today what I’ll focus on is the connection between shame and suffering. 

The first psalm we heard, a version of psalm 22, is known as a psalm of lamentation. The second psalm, a version of psalm 72, is a royal psalm that is also a psalm of justice. (See below). Many psalms connected lamentation with the call for justice. 

What often gets in the way of that connection, I think, is shame.

One of the gifts of the lamentation psalms in the bible, is that they give voice to distress and pain in raw, honest cries of anguish before God that are without shame, free of shame. This is really refreshing, I find, because so often when we’re in pain or suffering, shame comes along with it. There’s this unspoken belief that if you’re suffering, no matter the reason, it’s your fault, you deserve it, one way or another you brought it on yourself. Even when it’s totally irrational to think that, so often at some level there’s shame that comes with pain. 

Now, for some people, it’s the opposite: if they’re suffering, no matter the reason, it has to be someone else’s fault. Even if that doesn’t make any sense. Maybe this is a defense against shame, to lash out at others, I don’t know. 

Either way, whether we’re blaming someone else or blaming ourselves, when there’s pain so often there’s blame and shame. And I’m talking about when this is irrational – of course in some situations it’s obvious objectively who is to blame, but so often it’s the victim that gets blamed and who blames themselves. So often shame comes with it. 

I think this may be because we want to feel like we have some sense of control over our suffering, so we can make sense of it and justify it. Then there could be something we could do or could’ve done to have prevented it. 

A lot of this gets put on God. If something bad is happening to someone it must be because they did something to displease God and make “him” allow or cause that bad thing to happen to them. Even if you can’t figure out what or why exactly, you should at least feel ashamed that God would allow this to happen to you. God’s in charge after all. 

One of the messed-up results of this way of thinking is that it justifies injustice. I get to beat you up because God has blessed me with strength and cursed you with weakness. It’s your own fault if you suffer at my hands. 

This is very common, this vicious, circular way of thinking. And it plays out in lots of ways. 

Wealth and power and prestige are signs of God’s blessing. Poverty and powerlessness are signs of God’s curse. Therefore, it’s okay that the many starve while the few feast. The mighty are ordained in their exercise of might. The lowly need to pray more earnestly and pay more to the priests or televangelists to get into God’s favor. 

What’s so astonishing to me is that this kind of view of about how God works in the world manages to persist despite unrelenting evidence that it is absolutely false. 

It ain’t true. Anybody can figure that out. Lots of people have. 

Bad things happen to good people all the time. Just like good things happen to bad people. Someone’s piety is not a good predictor of their prosperity or privilege. It doesn’t take much time living in this world to figure that out. 

I began by saying that our genuine religious experiences don’t induce shame but release us into something much more expansive.

In addition to that, any thoughtful reading of the Bible just doesn’t reach this conclusion. The book of Job, for example, totally demolishes the idea that suffering is justified or deserved. The book of Ecclesiastes is very clear that catastrophes and windfalls can be so senseless.

Time and again in the Bible, the voices of those who suffer cry out without shame. 

Time and again in the Bible, it is clear that God in no way ordains a viciously unequal society, but rather calls on us to uplift those who are powerless and to humble those who are powerful. God is faithful to those who seek justice and who trust in the justice of God. 

Now, it is also clear in the biblical testimonies that our choices and actions do have consequences. There can be moral comeuppance, where we sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. It is clear that we do cause suffering for ourselves and for each other when we turn our backs on our Creator and harden our hearts and numb our souls. It is clear that when we return to our God and receive the embrace of Grace, we find tremendous joy and fulfillment and abundant life. When we are open to it, we see how God is on the move in this world. 

 But we need to get out of our heads the image of “God” as some kind of grumpy old dude on a throne with a cosmic control panel in front of him with a billion trillion dials he uses to dish out punishments and rewards moment to moment, keeping us feeling fear and shame when we are punished and righteousness when we’re rewarded. 

That kind of god is an idol, a false idol. I suggest we smash it.

That’s not the nature of God, that’s not the nature of life, that’s not the nature of the universe. 

Our genuine religious experiences help us to know this.

God is not some being out there. 

God is not a being. God is the root of being itself, the source of all being. When we encounter this power we feel it in our depths.

God is the wellspring of creative possibility that gives birth to creation itself, and sustains the existence of every moment of creation. That creation is born of a kind of love and exuberance for being itself. Which means that creation is characterized by freedom, within moral limitations.

The beings who come to be and to pass away are free to be themselves and the find their way in the flux, seeking and struggling for their fulfillment, according to their powers and limitations. The things of creation are free to stray, free to strive, free to improvise, unify, divide, complexify, flourish, before they fade away. 

In all of this the Divine is a field of love and mercy, intimately connected with all beings, feeling and knowing all things, the pleasures and the pains, and exuberant strangeness, drawing all things in our brief way toward the possibility of a more harmonious fulfillment. 

When we allow ourselves to be in more open relation with this reality of G-d beyond “God”, to say You from the depth of our being, and to know how that You addresses us from the depth of being itself … well, we experience awe, gratitude, humility, mercy and grace, which leads us to become more willing participants in God’s creative power.  

 As Jesus said, “God makes the sun shine and the rain fall on the sinners as well as the saints.” And for that reason, we can be people of mercy and courage, free of shame. 

Thanks be to God. 

Psalm 22 & Psalm 72

(selections from versions by Nan Merrill)

[from Psalm 22]

O my God, why have You forsaken me?

Why are You so far, abandoning me as I groan in misery?

O my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer; 

And by night, but find no rest. 

Yet You are holy, praised through all generations. 
In You our parents trusted; they trusted, and You did come to their aid. 

To You they cried, and were heard; in You they trusted, and were not disappointed. 

But I seem as nothing, hardly alive; Scorned and despised by many. 

Those who see me make fun at my expense, 

They ridicule and gossip among themselves, 

“Commit yourself to the Most High; Let Love deliver you, 

You in whom the Most High delights.”

Yet, You are the One who took me from the womb;

You kept me safe upon my mother’s breast. 

Upon You I was cast from my birth, and ever since my mother bore me, 

You have been my strength. 

Come close to me, for trouble is near and there is none to help…

I will tell of your Name to all I meet, 

In the midst of assemblies, I will praise You;

You, who are in wonder of the Mystery, give praise!

For our loving Creator does not turn away from afflicted, 

And does not hide from them; 

But their cries are heard, their prayers rise up to heaven. 

To You, O Beloved, I lift up my voice

In the great congregation;

For You promise to remain with those whose love is steadfast. 

The hungry shall eat and be satisfied;

Those who seek You shall sing praises:

Your Heart our dwelling place forever! 

…

[from Psalm 72]

Bring justice to the people, 

O Beloved,

And your mercy to all generations!

May the people be known for mercy, rendering justice to the poor!

Let their spirits soar as the eagle

Let joy abide in every heart!

May You heed the cry of the poor – the young and the old, 

Setting free all those in need, melting the hearts of oppressors. 

May we know You as long as the sun endures, and as long as the moon, 

Throughout all generations. 

May we acknowledge You in the rain falling on the fields, 

Like showers that water the earth. 

In our day may justice flourish, and peace abound, 

Throughout all the nations!

(Image by Adrian Campfield from Pixabay)