Shame and Jesus

Jesus tells a parable about people who treated others shamefully. This is how it goes:

At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants so they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed. He sent another servant, but that one also they beat and treated shamefully and sent away empty-handed. He sent still a third, and they wounded him and threw him out. - Luke 20:10-12

The biggest problem with being treated shamefully (which could be be translated here as ‘abusively’) is that we internalize the shame. It feels like we leave the relationship ‘empty-handed’ as Jesus says. And not just empty-handed, but empty hearted. Where we should have experienced kindness (especially in our families) we experienced pain.

And that’s just where the brokenness begins. “Shame is the ultimate connection killer, for it tells us that our flaws make us unworthy of love” (Rachel Held Evans and Jeff Chu, Wholehearted Faith). That shame tells us that we’re not worth enough to be loved, that we don’t deserve to be treated with kindness. And often we then repeat the cycle and endure more and more bad relationships because we don’t respect ourselves.

You’d think that we’d just sort of ‘wake up’ and try to find something healthier. But as Anne Lamott puts it, with an ironic twist, “I was not willing to give up a life of shame and failure without a fight.” Because health and healing is so unknown it can feel so scary - so we’d rather stick with a dysfunction we know than face the precariousness of a healing that is unknown.

Into this world comes Jesus. In the parable, he’s the final attempt to redeem the shamers (it doesn't work in this case). As you read it, though, put yourself with those who have been shamed. This may be easier for some of us than others. What does it mean to you that your beloved Savior Jesus knows exactly how you’ve been treated?

Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my son, whom I love; perhaps they will respect him.’ But when the tenants saw him, they talked the matter over. ‘This is the heir,’ they said. ‘Let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. - Luke 20:13-15