Jesus Heals Our Shame
Friday, March 20, 2026
After living with a violent father, psychotherapist James Finley found himself retraumatized by an abusive priest as a young man. Finley shares how Jesus met him in his deep shame and suffering:
I was now a young man living at the edge of a precipice of knowing that if God loved me and cherished me as real and lovable in his eyes, I could not pretend that I was not the real person God loved and called me to be….
It was in the midst of this road to nowhere that I began to sense that God was inviting me to give up trying to overcome my fear and to instead bring my feelings of fear and shame to Jesus. I was already committed in my heart to follow the directive of Saint Benedict in his Rule that the monk should “prefer nothing to Christ.” But at this point I needed to go beyond a theological understanding of the universality of Christ by praying my way into the deathless presence of Jesus.
The felt need to pray in this way led me to imagine, as in a kind of waking dream, that I was alone on a moonlit night in the garden where the Gospels tell us Jesus would go to spend whole nights alone in prayer. In my mind’s eye I could see and feel myself searching here and there, looking for Jesus so that I might share with him how powerless I was to be true to who I sensed he was calling me to be….
Then suddenly, looking this way and that, I saw Jesus sitting alone in the moonlight at the edge of a clearing. I walked across the clearing and knelt at his feet. I could feel his hand on my shoulder as I leaned in close to whisper in his ear, revealing the burdens of my shame-based weakness and fear.
Having poured out all that my wounded and hurting heart was moved and able to say, Jesus drew me in close and whispered in my ear three words that set me free, words that still echo inside me to this day. I heard him whisper: “I love you!”
Dazed and amazed in being so unexplainably loved, the spirit within me let me know what both Jesus and I were waiting to hear me say. So I leaned in close and whispered my secret “I love you” to Jesus. And there in that instant there was the realization between us that the matter was settled once and for all. The matter being that the good news of God’s love for us is never measured by our ability to be true to who we know in our heart God is calling us to be. For the sole measure of God’s love for us is the measureless expanse of God’s merciful love, permeating us and taking us to itself in the midst of our faltering and wayward ways.
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1.
“God is self-giving, radically forgiving, co-suffering love.”
– Brad Jersak, Theologian and Author
Brad is one of the most relatable theologians today. I get the sense from him that he is a well-rounded person who has navigated the deconstruction process well, emerged on the other side, and become one of the more grounded and self-aware educators on the Christian faith.
This definition of God from him is something I muse over occasionally when I am driving in my Jeep.
2.
“People ruin their lives by their own foolishness and then are angry at the Lord.”
Now that is just funny.
I guess we all do it. We often want to find someone else to blame for our problems rather than taking responsibility ourselves.
Like any loving parent, God does not protect us from the consequences of our actions. Remember in Galatians? Where Paul says that we will “reap what we sow”? God is not some cosmic being who protects us from hitting rock bottom. If anything, it might be the best thing for us in the long run to hit that rock bottom.
(And, at that point, how interesting that some people thank God that they are finally able to take ownership of their actions and turn their life around!)
3.
“It is through our fulfilling of the commandments that the Lord makes us dispassionate; and it is through His divine teachings that He gives us the light of spiritual knowledge.”
– Maximus the Confessor, in Four Hundred Texts on Love (1.77)
The early Church had an understanding of “dispassion” as a virtue.
It is a word that we do not use much today, but it carries within it some profound wisdom. Dispassion is a certain detachment from our desires that bring us suffering. (Dis- meaning against, and Passio- meaning suffering). The early Church quickly came to understand that it is our disordered loves/passions that cause us suffering.
For this reason, we must practice this virtue or habit of dispassion, to learn to have the right kind of detachment from outcomes and to allow our ego the humiliation of not always getting its way.
The Ten Commandments, then, are simply the starting point for us to learn how to cultivate dispassion and to come to realize that it is in our best interests not always to get our way.
4.
“Those who would know much, and love little, will ever remain at but the beginning of a godly life.”
– Mechthilde of Magdeburg, Medieval Christian Mystic
I am slowly re-reading Søren Kierkegaard’s Works of Love. It is his treatment and analysis of Christian love, examining “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” from every possible angle.
When I first read Works of Love, it was a punch in the face. As a head-oriented person who loves to read and think deeply about things, it was a shock to realize that even reading a book about love does not necessarily translate to loving other people. It was a safe way to engage my brain without having to interact with others. It was in that moment that I realized my tendency to avoid feelings by going into academic thought.
I want to think that, over time, I have become a little less head-oriented as a person and have been able to grow a little bit past “beginner Christianity” and actually love people.
5.
“Everything is waiting to be hallowed by you.”
– Martin Buber, Jewish Philosopher
We heard this quote last week in Church.
Martin Buber’s work has been an influence on me for some time, ever since I discovered his book, I and Thou.
The dichotomy of Sacred and Profane is something that makes sense during one stage of faith, but not so much in another stage. We treat Sacred things as special and as things to be protected or revered, but then treat Profane things as things to be avoided, discarded, and the like. But at a later stage of faith, it’s more so that there are things that are Sacred and other things that need to be made Holy Again.
The possibility of making something Holy Again is exciting to me. It is not a passive sitting back, and it is not the flippant discarding of something “profane.” To make things Holy Again is a mission, it is a calling, it is to join God in the Christ Project of the Reconciliation of All Things.
May we each make things around us Holy Again.
