Guilt, Shame, and Restoration

Second Sunday of Easter, Year C
27 April 2025

Acts 5:27-32
Psalm 150
Revelation 1:4-8
John 20:19-31

We have learned that because shame is a disposition that speaks to who we are, we should never feel shame, for we should not be ashamed of who we are.
This is true especially in the way that it relates to one’s cultural or ethnic background, one’s weight, one’s sexual orientation or gender identity, disability, or economic status. If one were to be made to be ashamed in regards to these, it would be as an exercise of power by an assumed majority over an assumed minority.
And because people are made to feel ashamed for who they are, it is important to know that all people are God’s beloved and that no one can make you smaller, and that no one can rob you of your God-given dignity and worth. You are God’s beloved.

Because I am not a minority in regards to these mechanisms, the only way I fit into those paradigms would be as a member of the majority that imposes judgments on others.
And yet, I too have experienced shame in this way.
My parents had a strong sense of class-consciousness and saw themselves as more elevated than others, even though this was not borne out by their education, pedigree, or their financial assets. Having been shaped by such class consciousness and being schooled in a tripartite school system that in grade five and seven respectively deemed me “too playful” for the academic branch of the school system, I was very self-conscious of the judgment and stereotypes that may be imposed on me when at last I switched schools. I was not interested in volunteering this information to my new classmates because I just wanted to be me.

This way the distinction between guilt and shame upon which the above is based makes sense. If shame denigrates what we are (as opposed to what we do), then the proper conclusion is that no one should be shamed, for shaming is an abuse of power.

And yet there is another kind of shame. The second kind of shame can be corrective because it is related to the values we hold. People without values other than money and power we call sociopaths. We also call them shameless. And here, being shameless is not a mark of distinction.

Last January the Globe and Mail published a piece with the title, “You can do anything.” In it the author argues that the release of the ‘Access Hollywood’ tape during the first campaign of the current US president was expected to sink his campaign. Instead, the author points out, the release of the tape transformed politics and our world.
Initially people had distanced themselves from the candidate, but to everyone’s surprise, it blew over in a few hours. The author observes, “The internal opposition collapsed, and at that very moment we entered into the anti-matter universe in which we live still, one in which words and behaviour that millions of decent people would never allow or encourage in their children is accepted and indulged in their leader. (…) At that moment, we entered into the new world in which the side of decency, cultural conservatism, Christian values and a respect for existing institutions is wholly in thrall to a shameless narcissist who holds all of those values in open and mocking contempt.”¹

And since that time, we have come to rationalize statements too outlandish to comprehend by suggesting someone does not mean what they say, or that someone says something for the mere shock value, or as political strategy. But since words are the currency for our life together, what do we do when words have lost their meaning?

This is not about politics. It is about the difference between two kinds of shame. One kind of shame concerns the shaming of others for no reason other than their difference. This includes the possibility of us owning those expectations and participating in our own denigration. That is unhealthy and we always need to negotiate the expectations others place on us. Besides this, the expectations we have of ourselves are not always fair or realistic. There was a funny making the rounds in the early days of e-mail. It described “the ideal pastor” in nothing but contradictions. Young but experienced, draws a small salary but drives a nice car, always out making visits while always available at the office. You may remember it.² So yes, we need to negotiate the expectations we and others have of us but we do not want to be people who have no expectations of themselves.

The second kind of shame relates to living up to the values we hold and to holding ourselves accountable. It is about being able to look in the mirror. It is about ensuring that we do not elevate ourselves over others.
Around Christmas my brother-in-law came to our house. I was not in a good mood. I was aggressive and rude. Even as my engagement with him was unkind and unfair, I felt ashamed because that is not who I want to be and it is not how I want to treat others.
I was not looking forward to seeing him again, which I did only a few days later. The first thing I did was apologize. Of course, my apology did not make anything undone, but it was necessary in order to seek to repair what I had damaged, without any guarantee of repair, for he was not obliged to accept my apology or to forgive me.
It was my shame that moved me to apologize. At the same time, my shame could have kept me from wanting to see him again, for by seeing him again I had to face my shame.

John tells us that the disciples were afraid of the authorities and the door was locked, lest the same fate should befall them as the one Jesus had endured. They are together, but there is no resurrection joy “For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.” (20:9)
It is true that when Jesus came, stood among them, and offered them peace, they did not yet understand. But they did not only need peace because they feared the violence of the empire and of the religious authorities. They also needed Christ’s peace because they were ashamed. One of them had betrayed Jesus, one had denied him despite his better intentions, and all but one had abandoned him. There was probably no mirror in the room where they were, but had there been, they would have been too ashamed to look into it.

When we fail others and fail our own expectations, as I did with my brother-in-law, our instinct is to go the other way. The illusion is, if we never revisit an incident, our shame will go away. Making amends is hard, because it requires us to face the shame of our moral failure and to allow that shame to move us toward making amends. Would the disciples have sought Jesus? We do not know.
In this second resurrection appearance of Jesus in John’s Gospel, it is not the disciples who come to Jesus, but it is Jesus who comes to them. The membership of the Church is not predicated upon our accomplishments but on God’s mercy. It is no wonder Jesus greets them by offering them peace, for they had none, not about their safety, not about their future, and not about their failure.

As Jesus comes among the disciples who are huddled together behind a locked door, trying not to face their own failure, nor the resulting shame, we hear echoes of John 10. Jesus is the door, whoever enters by him will be saved, will come in, and go out and find pasture. While it is Jesus who was crucified, it is the disciples who need saving. The risen Christ is the door to enter into life. Entering into life is what our passage ends with, in that peculiar verse in which John tells us that there are many more things he could tell us about Jesus, which he won’t, but that what he has told us, he told us so that we may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing we may have life in his name.
The Good Shepherd who knows our names and whose voice we know comes among the forlorn disciples, picks them up in their shame and breathes on them the Holy Spirit, enabling them to do greater things than these (John 14), restoring them to the community of the Church, and enabling them to be his followers and his witnesses. And he does the same for us.

We are people who do not want to be shameless, for Jesus to pick us up, restore us, call us, and send us.

Amen.