Naked But Not Ashamed
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and look after it. ‘You may eat from any tree in the garden’, he told the man, ‘except from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; the day you eat from that, you are surely doomed to die.’ The serpent, which was the most cunning of all the creatures the Lord God had made, asked the woman, ‘Is it true that God has forbidden you to eat from any tree in the garden?’ She replied, ‘We may eat the fruit of any tree in the garden, except for the tree in the middle of the garden. God has forbidden us to eat the fruit of that tree or even to touch it; if we do, we shall die.’ ‘Of course you will not die,’ said the serpent; ‘for God knows that, as soon as you eat it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God himself, knowing both good and evil.’ The woman looked at the tree: the fruit would be good to eat; it was pleasing to the eye and desirable for the knowledge it could give. So she took some and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; so they stitched fig-leaves together and made themselves loincloths. The man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking about in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and they hid from him among the trees. The Lord God called to the man, ‘Where are you?’ He replied, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.’ God said, ‘Who told you that you were naked?
Matthew 4:1-11
Jesus was then led by the Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted by the devil. For forty days and nights he fasted, and at the end of them he was famished. The tempter approached him and said, ‘If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.’ Jesus answered, ‘Scripture says, “Man is not to live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” ’ The devil then took him to the Holy City and set him on the parapet of the temple. ‘If you are the Son of God,’ he said, ‘throw yourself down; for scripture says, “He will put his angels in charge of you, and they will support you in their arms, for fear you should strike your foot against a stone.” ’ Jesus answered him, ‘Scripture also says, “You are not to put the Lord your God to the test.” ’ The devil took him next to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their glory. ‘All these’, he said, ‘I will give you, if you will only fall down and do me homage.’ But Jesus said, ‘Out of my sight, Satan! Scripture says, “You shall do homage to the Lord your God and worship him alone.” ’ Then the devil left him; and angels came and attended to his needs.
Depending on what your experience of Christian teaching has been like, Lent may not be a season you look forward to. The talk about repentance, returning to God, turning away from what keeps us from God, discipline, and reflection may come with associations to guilt, shame, punishment, fear, and much more.
In some Christian communities, this is the underpinning of the entire faith. Rather than an affirmation of the inherent goodness of humanity and the depth of God’s love, our relationship with God becomes a yoke of impossible standards, complete unworthiness, and shame.
Lent is meant to be a season of healing, preparation, and growth in holiness. This can be challenging and may cause us to confront uncomfortable truths about ourselves, but always in the light of God’s love and desire to help us. Repentance is about acknowledging those uncomfortable truths, committing to addressing them, and admitting that we need God’s help to change our lives.
Our senses of shame and guilt are complicated intersections of feelings and thoughts. They are not always bad feelings, even if they are always unpleasant. They can be a helpful internal recognition that our words or actions have caused harm to another. They can prompt us to thoughts of humility and move us to make apology, work toward reparation, conversion of life, and, eventually, reconciliation with those we have sinned against. This is part of empathy which is a cornerstone of how we live out the commandment to love our neighbours.
However, shame can very easily be used against us in toxic ways. Often by someone who has a desire to control us. This often looks like a suggestion that the shameful thing we did is representative of us as a whole person, combined with the threat of exclusion from a community. The difference between “You did a bad thing,” and “You are a bad person”. If someone can convince us that we, in our person not our actions, are inadequate, shameful, or worthless, it becomes a means of manipulation. We were created to be in relation with one another and being told that we have let each other down is a powerful motivation. We will go to great lengths to avoid being excluded from our communities. Our capacity to inflict false shame on one another and our desire to avoid it is a vulnerability.
The people in the Bible understand the world as a place full of things unseen, many of which can influence humans. Ideas and even actions that humans understand as, at least in part, the work of other entities. This comes up in many ways in the prayers and rites of the church; our baptismal liturgies still include reminders of this.
We are much more convinced today that humans are siloed, individualized creatures who can have nothing to do with one another, never mind unseen influences. But we retain some of this notion. The idea of inspiration is possibly the most familiar. A prompting toward great art, for example, that seems to come from a source outside of the artist.
When we see Jesus tempted in the desert by the Adversary—Satan—it seems like a high-pressure conversation between two people, but it may be a more familiar experience than we suspect. The temptation to sin is something that we all face every day, though we know it better as a thought that pops up as a kind of invitation to questionable behaviour. “You’re right, you know. Your workplace doesn’t value you. They don’t pay you enough. They don’t recognize your contributions. And they wouldn’t even notice if you took those office supplies home. In fact, when you think about it, they kind of owe it to you. And nobody else is here. Nobody would see. Who would it hurt? You deserve them.”
The temptation to sin almost always presents itself as a friend. A solution to a problem. And its favourite opportunities are ones where shame is lurking in the shadows. In that example about stealing office supplies, it may well be that someone feels justified in doing it because they are aggrieved that their workplace treats them poorly. But, in that situation, there is almost always a seed of shame waiting to sprout. “What if the reason they don’t acknowledge me is because my work isn’t as good as I think it is? What if I’m not as valuable as my coworkers?” The sin, theft in this case, becomes justified in the mind of the sinner as a deserved compensation for unacknowledged work, but also a means of avoiding that painful, possibly devastating confrontation with shame.
The adversary tempts Jesus in the desert because shame loves secrecy. Shame cannot abide being spoken about or seen. It always wants to hide. This is why so many temptations include “No one will ever know…” Satan offers Jesus solutions to real problems: Food when he is hungry, control over the kingdoms of the world where he could impose order and justice, a demonstration of God’s faithfulness to a people who are forever demanding more convincing signs. Lurking behind each of these present problems is that seed of shame. Maybe the stones won’t turn to bread because you don’t deserve to eat. Maybe the nations won’t take you seriously because your power and authority aren’t everything you say they are. Maybe God won’t spare you from that fall and it’ll all be over, ended on the rocks below.
Of course, Jesus spurns the temptation. Jesus’ faith is unshakable, as is his sense of self. Jesus knows his own worth. He knows his own value. And Satan’s effort to play on Jesus’ insecurities finds no purchase. Jesus does not allow shame to get even the thin end of a wedge in and emerges from the desert sinless and strengthened for the tasks that lie before him.
With thanks to Fr Sean Mullen for his reflections on this subject, I want to speak, just for a moment, about the ongoing consequences of shame in the lives of humanity:
When Adam and Eve are tempted in the garden, they do not come out so well as Jesus in the desert. The serpent persuades them that they deserve to know what God knows, to be as God is. That what they have been given is not enough. And they take what God has told them is not for them. When they eat the fruit and understand good and evil, they understand that they are naked. More than that, they are ashamed of their nakedness.
The expulsion of humanity from the Garden of Eden has always struck me as one of the truly heartbreaking scenes in the Bible. I have always heard profound sorrow in God’s question: “Who told you that you were naked?” Or, if I may expand a little, “Who told you to be ashamed of what I have made? Who told you to be ashamed of my own image and likeness? Who told you to be ashamed of what I have made and deemed to be good?” By taking the serpent’s bait and introducing shame, by deciding that our shame is correct and God is wrong—that we are not good, but shameful—we have distanced ourselves from God’s goodness.
The consequences of this kind of exploitative shame continue to rear their heads in our lives. We need feminist movements and advocacy for women’s rights only because someone told women that they were worth less than men. We need antiracism movements because someone told the world that one’s value and potential and goodness could be determined by the colour of their skin. We need Pride movements because someone told the girl who loved athletics that she was a tomboy, the boy who loved music that he was a queer, and couples all over the world that their care and support and love for one another was shameful.
All of Jesus’ words and actions are about God’s love, God’s kingdom, and what it is like there. There is repentance, a return to God and the goodness out of which we were made. There is justice for those who have been shamed and exploited. There is also justice for those who have done the shaming and exploiting. There is no more temptation because God’s kingdom is a place where sin and shame have no home.
When we describe Lent as a season of repentance, it is not a season of punishment or shaming. It is the opportunity to turn away from shame and all else that separates us from the goodness of God. To step into the light of God that reveals all and dispels the shadows to which shame clings. To deny the pervasive lie that we are not good and, instead, to affirm that God made us good. That our sins, even if they are many and great, cannot undo the goodness with which God made us. That God’s love is, indeed, sufficient to welcome us back even if we cannot imagine how.
In Lent’s repentance we are given the opportunity to shed the sin and shame with which we have clothed ourselves and return to God, willing to be named as good, holy, and beloved, even in our nakedness.
