Beloved and Unashamed--April 29, 2021

Beloved and Unashamed--April 29, 2021

"For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sister, saying, 'I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters, in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.' And again, 'I will put my trust in him.' And again, 'Here am I and the children whom God has given me'." [Hebrews 2:11b-13]

Jesus is not ashamed of you.

Let me say it again, just so we don't miss this truth or its importance: Jesus is not ashamed of you.

And, just for clarity's sake, let me put it in the positive:  not only is just unashamed of you, he claims you like a sibling.  You--yes, you!--in all of your "you-ness," you are beloved by Jesus, and he is unashamed to say it.

I wish that were the kind of thing that didn't need to be said, much less repeated, but for an awful lot of folks out there, the first thing you feel when you think of God, or Jesus, or church, is a gut punch of shame, shame that comes from the sense that somebody thinks you are unworthy of being loved by God.  And that shame then keeps folks from daring to walk inside a church building... or from being honest about themselves with others, even people they hold very close... or from risking to hear more about Jesus.  Once someone tells you, whether in words, in scowls, or in a painfully clear silence, that you are unworthy and unwelcome, it's hard ever to muster the courage to put yourself out there again.  All of a sudden, you're that awkward middle-schooler at the junior high school fall dance licking your wounds when your crush laughed in your face after asking them to dance.  You don't want to set yourself up for that kind of rejection again--especially not from God.

Sometimes even we well-meaning Respectable Religious folks don't help the situation (and I say "we" with the awareness that I have probably fallen into this camp more times in the past than I would like to admit, even if I want to strive to do better).  Sometimes in the name of trying to reach out to people who are burdened by shame, or who have been burned by bad experiences in church, we offer crumbs rather than the feast waiting to be served.  We talk like those wounded people really should feel ashamed of themselves, that they really are miserable wretches, and that Jesus saved them but doesn't really want anything to do with them more than that.  We make it sound like Jesus died for folks that still wouldn't want to be seen with in public.  We make it sound like Jesus might have gone to a few dinner parties with the tax collectors, prostitutes, and notorious sinners of his day, but that he was ashamed for anybody to know he had been there.  And even today, sometimes our talk of grace and mercy makes it sound like Jesus may have gone to the cross holding his nose and looking down on us with disgust as he died.  Sometimes we make it sound like Jesus was willing to stretch out his arms to die for us, but that he wouldn't be willing to wrap those arms around us in acceptance.  And we call that "good news."

The writer of Hebrews begs to differ.  He just says it plainly:  Jesus is not ashamed of you.  He calls you his own.  He calls you his sibling.  He delights in you.

All those other verses he quotes in these few verses are meant to back that point up.  We don't need to get into the weeds of where those quotations come from, or what their original context was necessarily (although, to be honest, the writer of Hebrews does make some surprising interpretive moves there, but that's a conversation for another day).  Suffice it to say that as far as this biblical writer was concerned, the witness of the Scriptures is that Jesus is not ashamed to call us his own family.  We are not simply his baggage.  We are not his unsolicited groupies.  We are not something Jesus feels he has to hide or distance himself from.

He chooses you.  He goes on choosing you, every day, every moment, with a holy and glorious pride that you belong in his family.  Jesus is not ashamed of you, and where we Respectable Religious Folk have given you that impression--whether we knew we were doing it or not--we were in the wrong.  Jesus is not ashamed to call you his own kin.  Know it.  Own it.  Be it, dear one.  You are beloved, and Jesus is unashamed.

Lord Jesus, thank you for your unashamed, unabashed, unblushing love.  Let us share it with the same audacity you have given it to us.  And help us all believe it is true.