Why Shame Won’t Work

Sermon on Why Shaming People will not change them.

Check out Simona Frenkel & Anthony’s version of: It’s a Gift to Be Simple

Our text from Amos was one of Dr. Martin Luther King’s favorite Bible passages during the civil rights movement.  The cry for justice is just as loud today as it was 5o years ago. In fact, it was a strong desire during Amos’s and Jesus’ time too.  But calling people out for their sins doesn’t seem to work very well.  Or maybe I should say shaming people doesn’t work very well.

It didn’t work when Amos tried it and it doesn’t work today. All that shaming will do is silence the person you want to shame.  But it won’t change them.  It won’t make them merciful or loving.  And that’s where our story of the Good Samaritan comes in.  It’s a story about how important mercy is and how it rather than shame transcends even justice.

When you hear the story of the Good Samaritan it’s a story about one human being who should have hated another offering mercy and human compassion to another.  People get hung up about things like race, gender, nationality, etc.  We judge each other on our differences all the time.  But the thing that unites all of us is how we care for and love one another.

So when the young man asks Jesus about the greatest commandments what does Jesus do, he asks the young man to tell him what the greatest are and he rightfully cites the two Old Testament texts Deuteronomy 6:5 Love the Lord your God and Leviticus 19:18 Love your neighbor as yourself.

But wanting to justify himself, because being right is more important to this man than anything else he asks Jesus who his neighbor is?

If you have to even ask this question you are not on the same playing field as Jesus.  Every story about him, every healing action are demonstrations of love and love that transcends all lines.  In the end all that matters is the incarnation of love to everyone we meet.

Yesterday I received the most distressing call from a man whom I really don’t know at all.  He called me in tears crying that his daughter had just died.  I was so taken aback that I had to apologize and ask the man who he was and apologize for that at such a time as this.  But he said his name was Oscar and that he had attended our church maybe once or twice in the past.

I asked him if he needed me to come over to see him and his wife who had been sedated.  Amanda, their 14 year old daughter, had just died from leukemia. And it had just been over a week since she was diagnosed.  So the family had no time to even comprehend the magnitude of their tragedy.

He asked me to pray with him over the phone and we did.  But it wasn’t enough to just talk over the phone.  He needed help.  He had borrowed his friends SUV and needed gas money.  So he came over to my house, where we sat and held each other, prayed and cried and I gave him money for gas so he could go to pick up his in-laws who were flying in from San Diego.

In an instant all that mattered was us.  All that mattered was giving Oscar some love and hope, if that was even possible.  Each time we are confronted by a stranger in need we are deciding how to act.

It’s easy to cross over to the other side of the street if you see someone in need but don’t know them.  We do it all the time.  When we see pictures of children in detention centers along the border and we ask what can I do we are like the priest and the scribe who chose not to get involved with the beaten man.

He was a stranger from a different tribe.

But what happened to me yesterday was once again a powerful reminder that the neighbor is anyone who is in need.  It doesn’t matter that he has tattoos all over his body.  It doesn’t matter that he is of Hispanic descent.  It doesn’t matter that I didn’t know him.  All that matters, all that has ever mattered is the love we extend to each other every single day we are on this earth.

All that matters is us.  You matter, I matter, Oscar and Linda matter and I can tell you from all of the calls, texts, phone calls, letters and delicious food that you sent my way made me aware of this just as Oscar reminded me how much I need to be an active member of that community that loves the way the Samaritan loved that stranger he took care of so long ago.

And so it goes today.  When we stop judging, when we stay open to the movement of God’s spirit God will use us to do amazing things, like extending faith, hope and love to someone we don’t even know.

I believe that when we act this way, then we come to know God and we are set free in a way that transcends justice.  What is just about a 14 year old girl dying one week after being diagnosed with leukemia?

Think about that.  Life is about faith, hope and love.  It’s about mercy.  It’s about treating this amazing gift of life that we’ve been given with awe and reverence. I can tell you this much, when you get a phone call like the one I got yesterday it quickly puts things into perspective.

The greatest revelation of the Gospels isn’t so much in what it teaches us to believe.  It’ about doing.  These stories are meant to teach our bodies to get involved.  These stories tell us that we come to know God through each other, especially those we don’t yet know.  For in some mysterious way this is how we save our very lives.  Amen