1 Samuel (Kingdoms) 21; Psalm 33/34; Gal. 2: 16-20; Mark 8:34-9:1
King David was not a stranger to shame. His times were wild and wooly—and most particularly, the times before he actually became king of Israel. Everyone remembers how Saul turned against David, and sought his life, even though David had been loyal to him. Though once favored by the king, David had to run for his life, with his band of men, a kind of biblical Robin Hood with Prince John after him! Indeed, David found himself in several compromising—dare we say embarrassing?— situations. In 1 Samuel 21, we hear that he had to beg for bread from the priest serving in the tabernacle. Then, he found himself looking for shelter in a neighboring kingdom, one of Israel’s enemies. His reputation had gone before him, and as a result, the king of Gath, Achish, was reluctant to take in a warrior who was known for his prowess. So, besides going cap in hand to King Achish, he also had to think of a way to make himself appear less dangerous—and he pretended to be mad! With this pretended infirmity, he was able to put aside the king’s fears, and stayed with him for quite a while, all the time quietly strengthening his hand against Saul. Here lurked the young man who slew Goliath, the dread warrior who had slain his “tens of thousands,” the one whom God had anointed to be king over Israel: in a foreign land, feigning not only weakness but mental illness! What a come-down!
The heading for Psalm 33 (34 in the Hebrew text) reminds us of this scandalous turn of events, for the Psalm commemorates the time when the young David had to resort to these tactics. And so we are left a heartening psalm to read when we find ourselves in similar shameful situations:
I will bless the Lord at all times: His praise shall be continually in my mouth.
My soul shall boast in the Lord: let the meek hear, and rejoice.
Magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together.
I sought the Lord diligently, and he hearkened to me, and delivered me from all my wanderings.
Draw near to Him, and be enlightened: and your faces shall not by any means be ashamed.
This poor man cried, and the Lord hearkened to him, and delivered him out of all his afflictions.
The angel of the Lord will encamp round about them that fear Him, and will deliver them.
Taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man who hopes in Him….
The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer:
but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to destroy their memorial from the earth. The righteous cried, and the Lord hearkened to them, and delivered them out of all their afflictions.
The Lord is near to them that are of a contrite heart; and will save the lowly in spirit.
Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but out of them all 8Lord will deliver them.
He keeps all their bones: not one of them shall be broken.
The death of sinners is evil: and they that hate righteousness will go wrong.
The Lord will redeem the souls of His servants: and none of those that hope in Him shall go wrong.
(Psalm LXX 33 /34)
From a position of lowliness, the psalmist David gives a glorious witness to the faithfulness of God:
*“My soul shall boast in the Lord”—for there is nothing about me that is glorious.
*“I sought the Lord”—for I needed him.
*“I drew near”—and he delivered me from shame.
*For the Lord saves those who are “lowly in spirit’ and listens to those whom the world despises!
*“None of those who hope in Him shall go wrong.”
I wonder if you also noticed something else at the end of this Psalm? “He keeps all their bones: not one of them shall be broken.” As Christians, we know that David’s words foreshadow the humiliation of our Lord Jesus, the true Messiah, on the cross. Despite the staring, the mocking, the nakedness, the nailing, the piercing, his bones were not broken. Though our LORD was on the cross with the thief, and went to Hades with the dead, He was always with the Father, and never neglected by Him. His shame was the path to glory—a path forged for all of us by the one true Human being. Shame is a terrible thing: but sometimes it does not tell the whole story.
Those who had been with the LORD knew this great mystery, that God uses what is outwardly shameful in order to shame the strong and lift up the weak. We remember this shrewd and loving strategy of God this week, as we recall St. Helena’s recovery of the cross of Christ, and all that that instrument of torture has come to mean in our hearts and our minds. The Christian community had lost the physical cross, and had great joy in finding and exalting it. But sometimes, it seems, we “lose” the cross in our understanding of the gospel. We talk all around it, and accentuate other more palatable parts of our faith. I am reminded of one of my daughters when she was about four, who precociously asked me why her friend was so broken up about the death of a hamster: “Doesn’t Melanie know that Fluffy will arise on the third day?” I realized that we had stressed Pascha so strongly that the darkness of Holy Friday had been obscured for my little one. Jesus had a similar problem in trying to prepare his followers for his own coming ordeal, and for their call to follow him through darkness:
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit to gain the whole world and forfeit one’s life? For what can a person give in return for his life? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.” (Mar 8:34-9:1 RSV)
Here Jesus has something significant to say both about shame, and about faithfulness. We may consider it unthinkable, but it is possible to be ashamed of God. We flirt with this unthinkable shame, Jesus tells us, when we deny the centrality of the cross, and our call to imitate His path. To Peter and the others, Jesus speaks clearly about what it means to follow Him—it means to surrender to loss and to death, for the sake of the glory that only God can give. David put up with the shame of being an outlaw in a foreign Land, feigning madness, and biding his time. We can imagine in our mind’s eye some of those who were loyal to him, saying things like: “Don’t worry! Saul will get what’s coming to him! And King Achish will never knew what hit him, when your time comes! You are the Lord’s chosen one!” But for Jesus there were other words: in prayer at Gethsemane he learned to embrace what was coming, and on the cross, to forgive those who were covering him with shame, and not to long for their come-uppance. As the letter to the Hebrews puts it, Jesus “endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:2-3 RSV). And, as a very early Christian hymn reminds us, we follow the One who, “though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” And even beyond this humble Incarnation, “being found in human form, He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:6-8).
All this, of course, runs counter to our understanding of how glory works. Hard work we can understand as necessary for success, but abject humility and shame hardly seem like natural precursors to victory. As human beings, we may understand the reason for some forms of sacrifice; but a willing sacrifice for the unrighteous is more difficult for us to fathom. As St. Paul reminds us, most people will scarcely find the strength to die for the sake of a righteous person, “though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Rom 5:7-8 RSV). With simple human understanding, we may grasp the saying, “He trampled down death by struggle.” But as Christians we proclaim, “He trampled down death by death.” And so God takes the shameful things, so far as this world is concerned, to shame the proud, and to lift up the humble.
In the first century, even the idea of meekness and humility would be shameful to many. I think our day, with its upbeat attitude to self-improvement, can identify with this rejection of humility. But today there are other scandals made obvious in the cross; these also may tempt us to be ashamed of God. The world rejects the idea that sinfulness is so serious that it leads to death, for example. (Indeed, people are sometimes more radical and reject the idea of sin itself!) Then there is the central logic of our Christian story, the idea of a great exchange in which the holy One takes on the death and sin of others, so as to give us His glory. How can this be possible, or even fair, many will object to us: if God is supreme, why not just FIX it, we can hear people saying. And finally, there is the astounding idea that this is a unique act, done by One alone, who stands in solidarity with us, but also who stands as the God whom we adore. How dare Christians make such extravagant claims for Jesus the Christ? Today, then, we may be ashamed to speak of a God who is utter righteousness, and so has strong things to say and do about sin. We may also be ashamed to proclaim a God who requires that something be done about sin and death, in our time and space. And we may also be ashamed, or at least embarrassed, to speak about the uniqueness of our Lord, to say, as the ancient liturgy puts it: “One is Holy, One is Lord Jesus Christ.”
Even beyond this three-fold shame, there is the difficulty of our following this pattern, so counter-intuitive to our natural inclinations. Both the hymn from Philippians 2, and the book of Hebrews, speak of Jesus’ humiliation as a pattern for us to follow: “Let this mind be in you!” “Let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith (Heb 12:1-2). Here is the odd thing: Jesus alone is the One who could and did accomplish victory for us on the Cross; yet we are called to imitate Him! To use theological language, He is both our substitute and our representative. He did this on our behalf, but so that we could participate in God’s actions with Him!
When Jesus spoke to his disciples about taking up their cross, he referred to the glorious Son of Man in Daniel 7, who comes to the ancient of Days, and receives glory and rule from him. This is a lofty, unique figure—but in the vision that Daniel has, the Son of Man stands in for all the “saints of the most high” whose rule, represented in that glorious figure, will never end. Daniel does not dwell upon the suffering of this Son of Man—but we know how it is that the Son of Man came into His glory, through the cross! And we know that if we are to rule with Him in glory, it is only by way taking up our cross, too.
So, then, to boast in the Cross means also to take it up for ourselves. As our epistle reading puts it,
We know that someone is not justified by works of the law but through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ… For I through the law died to the law, that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal 2:16-20 RSV)
Notice how the apostle slips from the “WE” to the “I”: for this teaching of the loving sacrifice of Jesus is true for all of us as Christ’s body together, and for each of us. “The Son of God…loved me and gave himself for me.” We all, and each of us, share glory because of the shame of Christ. But we also are to share in the shame: “Unless someone takes up the cross…”; “I have been crucified with Christ.” The shape that the shame takes may be different for each one of us. Some of our brothers and sisters have born the cross to the point of death. Some have been passed over for employment, or lost jobs. The more fortunate of us have only to deal with scoffing, or mild marginalization in an increasingly anti-Christian society. We have, as the letter to the Hebrews puts it, not yet suffered to the point of shedding blood—as did second century martyr Sophia and her three girls, whom we commemorate this Sunday. For the mercy that God has given, let us give thanks. And let us pray that we NOT be ashamed of the slight momentary embarrassments or shaming that comes our way because of the faith. Let us pray that our faithful LORD Jesus will, by his Spirit, and by the encouragement of all those who have come before us, strengthen us so that we may stand in our day, no matter what form “shame” may take for us.
Edith M. Humphrey 