In the late 70's, fans of the New Orleans Saints pro football team were so frustrated and embarrassed by their team's repeated poor performances that many of them, jokingly, began to show up to games wearing bags on their heads to mask their identity. They would cut mouth and eye holes out of a paper grocery bag and that became the attire of many. The Saints were bad at football. So bad, in fact, that instead of the 'Saints', they were commonly called, the 'Aints'. Folks in the Big Easy had become ashamed of their own team and that shame compelled them to act.
Why do I bring this up? Because I'd like to talk about shame. Shame is powerful. Sometimes shame motivates and brings about a positive change. Sometimes shame devastates and results in a negative spiral. Shame can be good. Shame can be bad.
All in all, we need shame. Without it, mediocrity, apathy, laxness and in many cases, even evil, are accepted and eventually become the norm. Shame, though not always motivated by a love for the individual to whom it is directed, can result in a hunger to grow and improve.
Here's the scenario I have in mind - During a trip my wife and I took to the northeast, we saw something awful disturbing in an otherwise seemingly quaint and quiet town in a beautiful part of God's creation just on Vermont/New Hampshire border. This place certainly lived up to the state's nickname, the "Green Mountain State", as we drove through in the summertime, and it was truly the "greenest" landscape I've ever seen. We left our hotel fairly early in the morning and headed to a local bagel shop to grab some breakfast and hit the road. The shop was recommended to us by the lady at the front desk of the hotel. It sounded like just what we wanted. Locally-owned, quick, reasonable.
We pulled up and the place was nice. We walked in, looked through the menu and placed our to-go order at the counter. We sat down at a booth to wait for our food when we noticed something unusual. The place wasn't entirely packed, but it was not lacking for customers. But many of the people, I'd say near half, were so stoned that it was made obvious by their posture and behavior. A number of them were impaired to the point that they were unable to stand or even sit up straight. One even sprawled across the restaurant table almost as if it were a sleeping pallet. Others periodically hollered out unrecognizable words and phrases. This, we thought, was far from normal!
As tragic as that was, the most disturbing part of it all was that no one seemed to be bothered. Customers of all stripes sat and ate and went about their conversations unphased by the surroundings. Employees did nothing to intervene. There was no effort to call law enforcement or to remove these people from their establishment. This, it became evident, was normal here. This was everyday life. I immediately thought, "So this is what it is like to live in a place where Bernie Sanders can get elected?"
These people needed help. These people needed intervention. These people needed correction. These people needed direction. Instead, what they got was indifference, really it was more than that, it was enabling. The lives of the people in that room were being tragically wasted and the community around them did not love them enough to tell them that or to offer them genuine help. Instead, it seems that they endorsed their behaviors.
Paul, in I Corinthians 5, instructed the church to love a man who was defaming the name of Jesus and was harming both himself and the church by his public sin. They were to do this by confronting the man and calling attention to his sin. The right and loving thing to do, according to Paul, was not to carry on as if nothing was happening. Nor was it to keep silent so as not to offend him or draw attention to the situation, causing him shame. According to the Apostle, the man needed to be offended. The man needed to experience shame. The man needed to come to grips with his sinful behavior and the inevitable devastating consequences it would bring about if a life-altering change did not occur soon. This man's soul was in danger. This conflict, Paul knew, was God's means of grace to the man. This was his only hope. And, wouldn't you know it, we find later in II Corinthians that it worked! Following a process of "tough love", the man ultimately repented from his sinful lifestyle and was restored to fellowship with his church.
God's Word does not advocate for a shame like that of the Pharisees, which flows from a prideful or selfish condition. Instead, it prescribes a shame intended to make people recoil from danger as they would a venomous snake. Let's not become content to simply watch people "glory in their shame" because, if they do we know that, "their end is destruction" (Philippians 3:19). May we, God's people, not grow apathetic like that quiet little Vermont town. On the contrary, though it may be dirty work at times, let us "save others by snatching them out of the fire" (Jude 1:23).
To the Glory of God!
Pastor Jeremy
