Tales & Practices for Liberating Lenten Formation

In a 2016 article known as “On Ash Wednesday, The Energy of Scripture,” one among my editor predecessors, Charlotte Hand Greeson, lifts up the opening line of the Ash Wednesday accumulate as a significant testomony to God’s love: “You despise nothing you have got made.” I recognize her theological perception about this prayer as a result of she underscores the significance of grounding our understanding of sin and repentance in God’s unconditional love. But I discover the very look of this phrase in The Guide of Frequent Prayer heartbreaking.

That Christians earlier than us—and possibly amongst us at present—would want to listen to that God does not despise them signifies to me the wrestle that individuals have skilled earlier than a portrait of a vengeful, hate-filled, or domineering God. That individuals would want to listen to this as they enter Lent means that this portrait has held explicit efficiency in Christians’ imaginations in the course of the Lenten season.

I can perceive why. In a season solid as penitential, wherein individuals are known as to worship with recitations of “Thou shalt nots” and confessions of sin after which despatched again into the world to quick, the road between sin and sinner can develop skinny in Christians’ minds. Grace can appear fleeting, penitence by no means finished or happy, and God reluctant to forgive or have mercy. When narratives like these form Christians’ Lenten journeys, we are able to turn out to be mired not solely in guilt, but additionally in concern and disgrace.

I don’t consider that the Lenten journey needs to be a shaming one. I consider that the invitation right into a holy Lent is an invite right into a shame-freeing Lent. Whereas Lent is just not devoid of disgrace, this season gives a number of liberating methods of coping with disgrace. On this article, I need to spotlight these shame-freeing websites for Christian formation in Lent with the hope that the prayers of current and future generations might rise with out concern to our unconditionally loving God.

Understanding Disgrace

In Atlas of the Coronary heart, Brené Brown defines disgrace as “the intensely painful feeling or expertise of believing that we’re flawed and due to this fact unworthy of affection, belonging, and connection.” It’s an emotion that’s a part of being human, Brown signifies, however one that may compel us to show in opposition to ourselves or our neighbors in an effort to alleviate rejection, isolation, and estrangement. Brown describes disgrace as a “social emotion” that wants “empathy” and “compassion” to loosen its grip and debunk its untruths after we would fairly conceal, bury, and never breathe a phrase of it to a different soul.

When an empathetic response is just not assured, although, displaying our disgrace to another person can really feel like a critical threat. As a result of disgrace will get connected to who we’re fairly than to what we’ve finished or what has been finished to us, as Brown notes, it places loads on the road in merely naming it to a different individual. Moreover, as a result of empathy requires going through and acknowledging our personal disgrace in an effort to meet somebody in theirs, it may additionally really feel too expensive to present.

Disgrace Tales in Lenten Traditions

We don’t should look far in Lenten traditions to search out websites the place disgrace tales can flare up. Human sinfulness is writ massive within the Ash Wednesday liturgy in addition to within the name to apply Lenten disciplines in The Guide of Frequent Prayer. It seeps into the imposition of ashes as they symbolize “penitence” (p. 265). It swells within the prolonged “Litany of Penitence” for quite a few actions, behaviors, ideas, and emotions that we’re instructed to call as sins and declare as “our personal fault” (p. 267). The imaginative and prescient of God that seems close to the tip of this litany is one characterised by “anger” at us for these sins (p. 268) and whom we must always search to “please” with “pure and holy” lives (p. 269). The disciplines prescribed for “a holy Lent” mix “repentance” with “self-examination” and the sophisticated thought of “self-denial” (p. 265). These prayers and practices can provide rise to tales like the next:

• When God seems at me, all God sees is my sin
• When God seems at me, all God sees is wretchedness
• When God seems at me, all God feels is anger and displeasure
• To ensure that God to see me, I have to establish with my sinfulness and reject who I’m
• To ensure that God to see me, I have to really feel ashamed

Once we consider such tales, disgrace morphs right into a theological requirement for forgiveness or salvation. Not solely does this produce a portrait of God as restricted or missing in empathy and compassion for individuals entrenched in a sin-compromised world, however it additionally creates limitations to giving and receiving empathy and compassion from each other.

Brené Brown says in Atlas of the Coronary heart, “Disgrace is just not a compass for ethical conduct. It’s more likely to drive harmful, hurtful, immoral, and self-aggrandizing conduct than it’s to heal it. Why? As a result of the place disgrace exists, empathy is nearly at all times absent.”

If disgrace isn’t a compass for ethical conduct, neither can or not it’s a theological compass for relationship with God and each other. If God is above all a God of mercy, compassion, and steadfast love, in line with scripture, then shaming is neither redemptive nor reflective of who God has revealed Godself to be.

A Disgrace-freeing Lent

How would possibly we let go of tales of a shaming God and of shame-inducing practices within the Lenten season? How would possibly we expertise a shame-freeing Lent as an alternative? I see three key websites in our Lenten custom the place we discover tales and practices that may meet us in disgrace and dispel its energy: Jesus’s demise and resurrection, baptism, and reconciliation.

1. Jesus’s Story: A Counternarrative to Disgrace

The first point of interest of Lent, in line with the Ash Wednesday liturgy, is the Triduum, “the times of our Lord’s ardour and resurrection” (The Guide of Frequent Prayer, p. 264). Lent is designed to attract our consideration to the story of Jesus’s demise and resurrection, and on this story, we discover an incredible counternarrative to disgrace.

Within the demise of Jesus, we discover a God who experiences the profound disgrace of Roman imperial crucifixion. As Raquel St. Clair notes in Name and Penalties, “[the cross] . . . symbolizes maybe probably the most excessive instance of dishonor to be present in historical Mediterranean society.” The crucifixion of Jesus exhibits us, due to this fact, God figuring out with human beings in our disgrace fairly than protecting Godself at a distance.

In Jesus’s resurrection, we discover a God who unravels the disgrace of the crucifixion by issuing a convincing “No” to the Roman imperial condemnation and dehumanization of Jesus. In Enfleshing Freedom, Shawn Copeland says, “In his [the lynched Jesus’s] raised physique, a compassionate God interrupts the constructions of demise and sin, of violation and oppression. A divine praxis of solidarity units the dynamics of affection in opposition to the dynamics of domination — recreating and regenerating the world, providing us a brand new method of being in relation to God, to others, to self.” God disrupts Jesus’s disgrace story with rehumanizing new life and invitations all individuals into that new, rehumanizing life with Jesus.

2. Baptism right into a Physique: Disgrace Tales Overturned

The second key point of interest of Lent that the Ash Wednesday liturgy identifies is “prepar[ation] for Holy Baptism” (The Guide of Frequent Prayer, p. 265). Baptism incorporates us into the physique of Christ, as Paul signifies in I Corinthians 12:13, and being a part of this physique transforms each member’s relationship to disgrace.

Within the physique of Christ, members whom the world would possibly deem “much less honorable” or “much less respectable” obtain “better honor” and “better respect” (I Cor 12:23, NRSVUE). As Dale Martin explains in The Corinthian Physique, Paul’s characterization of the physique of Christ subverts inequitable social hierarchies that may assign much less worth to sure members in an effort to safe extra worth for others. On this method, God’s ordering of this group turns disgrace tales on their heads, making a physique wherein social mechanisms of shaming are interrupted. Within the physique of Christ, those that could be shamed in society are to be met not solely with inclusion as an alternative of exclusion, however with deep reverence that displays their inherent, God-given value.

Baptism reminds us that we aren’t alone as members of this physique. It exhibits us that disgrace isn’t any barrier for God or for inclusion on this physique. It additionally calls us to be a physique that frequently contains new members and overturns disgrace tales locally and within the social order.

3. Reconciliation: Restoring fairly than Shaming

A 3rd point of interest of Lent talked about within the Ash Wednesday liturgy is “reconcil[iation]” amongst church members (The Guide of Frequent Prayer, p. 265). As a result of reconciliation within the physique of Christ goals at “restor[ing] . . . fellowship,” it’s a course of that runs counter to shaming.

Reconciliation practiced effectively creates area for addressing sin and repairing relationships throughout the group in order that members can meet each other in websites of disgrace with compassion and empathy (for a useful supply on the significance of reparative work, see Jennifer Harvey’s e-book Expensive White Christians: For These Nonetheless Eager for Racial Reconciliation). In looking for reconciliation, members of the physique of Christ bear witness to God’s refusal to let sin or disgrace decide who we’re. Reconciliation doesn’t ignore sin or its results however opens area for “repentance,” because the Ash Wednesday liturgy says, or turning round from hurtful, harmful actions and towards the life and love of God. “Disgrace,” Brené Brown says, “corrodes the very a part of us that believes we are able to change and do higher” (Atlas of the Coronary heart). Reconciliation undermines that corrosive work of disgrace within the physique of Christ.

Conclusion

Jesus’s demise and resurrection, baptism, and reconciliation provide highly effective Lenten tales and practices for individuals who know disgrace. They announce God’s never-ending empathy and compassion for us, which have the ability to liberate us from getting mired in disgrace. God’s loving presence with us additionally empowers us to domesticate empathy and compassion for each other when disgrace rears its head within the church and on the earth.

What distinction would possibly these pictures of a shame-freeing God make in our Lenten journeys this 12 months? How would possibly a God of unconditional empathy and love rework {our relationships} to disgrace? What would possibly we pray? With whom would possibly we stroll in solidarity with the empathy we ourselves have obtained? What shame-freeing tales would possibly we inform and stay?

Formation Exercise: Interrogating Sin & Disgrace with Luke

In case you are concerned with a sensible solution to discover disgrace theologically in group, think about doing a Bible examine that investigates and interrogates how sin and disgrace determine in Luke’s gospel. I like to recommend analyzing Luke specifically for 2 causes: 1) the phrases “sin” and “sinner” present up extra usually in Luke than within the different three gospels; and a pair of) as quite a few biblical students have famous, Luke usually makes use of the time period “sinner” in ways in which name into query the validity and that means of that time period. This examine can work effectively for grownup teams in a single formation session or over a number of periods.

Listed here are a couple of concepts you would possibly attempt:

• Seek for each prevalence of “sin,” “sinner,” and “disgrace” in Luke and talk about what you discover; it could be useful to look in a couple of Bible translation as effectively
• Speak in regards to the completely different meanings that “sin” and “sinner” carry and the way disgrace would possibly enter into every
• Look at what Jesus is saying and doing when the matters of “sin” and “sinner” seem: How does he deal with and reply to individuals?
• The place do you discover disgrace within the tales? The place do you discover compassion and empathy?

References

Brown, Brené. Atlas of the Coronary heart: Mapping Significant Connection and the Language of Human Expertise. New York: Random Home, 2021. See pp. 134 – 142, 147.

Copeland, M. Shawn. Enfleshing Freedom: Physique, Race, and Being. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010 (second version accessible 2023). See pp. 124 – 128.

Harvey, Jennifer. Expensive White Christians: For These Nonetheless Eager for Racial Reconciliation. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014 (second version accessible 2020).

Martin, Dale B. The Corinthian Physique. New Haven: Yale College Press, 1995. See particularly pp. 92 – 96.

St. Clair, Raquel A. Name and Penalties: A Womanist Studying of Mark. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008. See particularly pp. 137 – 144.

Featured picture is by Alicia Quan on Unsplash