I Am Mary Full of Shame

I've been accused of being too out there--too transparent, too unfiltered.  I suppose (I know) it's true, and I know it makes some people very uncomfortable.  I'll be honest, sometimes it makes me uncomfortable, and yet when I try to silence my voice, when I try to fit in, my stomach hurts, my mind races and I can't sleep.  So here I go again....

I preached this week; I wasn't supposed to, but late last week I was asked to fill in for a colleague.  (darn her) I opened the bible to read the gospel--"why did I agree to preach?",I thought.  (Mark 3:20-35) The gospel story was about Mary (and Jesus' siblings) trying to get to Jesus, her son, because she was afraid for him, afraid of what was happening to him, afraid of losing him--it hit too close to home.

Each week preachers come to the text and we try to be objective; we try to hear what God is saying to us through the text and what God wants us to proclaim.  We've been trained by seminaries to leave our own "stuff" out of it.  I so wish it were that easy.  Actually I've been reading David Lose's book Preaching at the Crossroads, and he says, "To put it another way, we preachers do not come to Scripture without a set of questions influenced by our own context and experience.  And we should not, as our questions are what bring us to the text in the first place." (Lose, David (2013) Preaching at the Crossroads. Minneapolis, MN, Fortress Press. p. 41) Perhaps we need to honor that--to own that--to be transparent about that.

As I read the gospel, my heart raced, my palms were sweaty.  I could feel Mary's panic, and I could feel her shame.  In the first century, family was everything--family was the social organizing unity, the family was how you were identified, how you were known--to leave family was to bring shame on the family--to be "out there," to be different was to bring shame on the family.  Life isn't really much different today.  (read at all)

I understood all too well trying to protect a child who others may not understand.  I understood all too well how it felt to not understand my own child.  I understood what it felt like to be kept from my child either physically or emotionally and the panic that takes over as you realize you are completely out of control--I understood what it felt like to be the mother of a child and to be powerless. And, I understood the shame that washes over a mother's body because a child's behavior doesn't fit the norm and the guilt that comes because of the feelings of shame.

I needed to preach the Good News; I needed to leave my "stuff" behind, and yet I couldn't.  I believe we all come to the gospel, to church, to community with our own shame, our own hidden hurts, our own secrets.  I believe there are so many people who show up each week in our church buildings putting on a good face, dressing up our outer selves while we dress down our inner selves, and I wonder why?

But I know why--it's because we're afraid; it's because we live in our own honor/shame culture; it's because we know people even and possibly mostly church leaders are judgmental.  It's because culture has taught us to admit weakness, vulnerability, brokenness is the worst thing we can do.  To admit our world is not perfect, that we are not in complete control is to admit that we are not enough. But we are enough--we are more than enough even with and possibly even more because of all the stuff we bring.

I love Karoline Lewis a professor at Luther Seminary.  I think she's amazing and most of the time I agree with everything she says; but, (you heard a but coming didn't you?) this week I vehemently disagree.  She writes, "I think this is one of the most difficult challenges of parish life for a pastor, for a preacher. You have a lot of family discord to negotiate -- your own, of course, which you can’t let anyone see or know about and which itself creates a loneliness unmatched by other professions." (Quoted here)  That is a lonely place to be, but I don't believe we have to be there--we have to navigate discretion, but not deny. It's a balancing act--a continual challenge.

This week alone I have been privileged to hear about colleagues challenges in their own personal lives--both lay and ordained--and I have heard them say (as I have) that we can't let people know, that we have to keep it secret because we know there are some (we can even name them) who will judge us, who will use our pain, our struggles against us.  I wonder, what would happen if we didn't?  What would happen if we admitted we were struggling--not necessarily spewing all our details, but what if we admitted there were things going on in our own lives that brought us challenges, that brought us to our knees, that brought us to a community where we wanted nothing more than unconditional love and acceptance?

I think what the gospel taught me this week is that I do carry shame and fear, and I am not alone. Mothers have lived with these feelings for centuries; people have lived with these truths for centuries. With all its brokenness, its humanness, I also believe the church in community (and sometimes within the actual walls) can be the place where we find unconditional love, grace, mercy, and acceptance.  I believe we can learn to leave our shame and fear at the door and enter into a community that opens wide its arms and loves us just as we are.  But I believe we all--clergy and laity--have to take that first step and shed our masks--I wonder if we can?

Disclaimer--This isn't the post I wanted to write-the one I'd constructed in my head.  That was all about Mary, but this is what came out.