A Samaritan Shame

In one of the most well known of all biblical stories, my guess is that the Good Samaritan has been covered in this church a couple dozen times, from a dozen different angles. Today, I will endeavor to peel back but one word.

            Frankie was an 8-year-old boy sitting in his second grade classroom working on math. Nothing about the day is uncommon. The pledge of allegiance was routine. Attendance-taking was on schedule. He was learning how to add a pair of two digit numbers. Everything seemed fine, until one quick moment, when Frankie’s life turned on a dime.

As he was wrapping up problem number six, he felt a pressing pinch in his tummy. Without much warning, the front of his pants became wet, with a puddle on the floor between his feet. His heart sunk… because he knew two things; one, when the boys find out, he’ll never hear the end of it, and two, when the girls find out, they’ll never speak to him again.

            The boy put his head down and prayed this prayer: “Dear God, this is an emergency! I need help now! Five minutes from now I’m toast.” Little Frankie prayed for a miracle. He sheepishly looked up from his prayer, and saw his teacher, Ms. Crabapple, walking toward him with a look in her eyes that said he’d been discovered.

            As the teacher was moving in to snatch him up, a classmate named Susie was carrying a goldfish bowl filled with water. She stumbled and dumped the goldfish bowl in his lap. He pretended to be angry with Susie but prayed silently in his heart, “Thank you, Jesus! I'm born again!”

            Now, rather than being the object of ridicule, Frankie Fontana was the object of sympathy. The teacher rushed him downstairs to get him pair of gym shorts to use while his pants dried out. When he came back to class, many of the kids were on their hands and knees cleaning up around his desk. These second grade condolences were wonderful!

            But as life would have it, the ridicule that should have been his was transferred to little Susie. She tried to help, but they told her to get away: “Don’t you think you've done enough”, they jabbed, “Susie, you’re such a klutz!" As the day progresses, Frankie’s sympathy got better and better, and Susie’s ridicule got worse and worse.

            At the end of the day, they were both waiting at the bus stop. Frankie walked over to Susie and whispered, “Susie, you did that on purpose, didn't you?”

            Susie whispered back, “I wet my pants once too.”

            Life is filled with little Frankie moments, wouldn’t you agree? Moments- because of what we’ve said or done- when we want to find the closest rock, pull it over our heads… and hide. Not just from Ms. Crabtree, but from… well… God.

            As traumatic as Frankie’s second grade embarrassment may be, most of us have graduated from grade school humiliation, and moved on to bigger and better schools of shame. It must just come with the territory of moving from child-sized problems to adult-sized problems. And it makes me long for something better. To a time and a place where things don’t hurt as bad as they do now. A place where words don’t cut so deep. A place where loved ones don’t leave. A place where my own folly isn’t exposed to the light of day… in fact, a place where it is no longer. I know that this place exists, and I know how, and Who, and I know why, but what don’t know… what I long for… is when. “How long, O Lord, how long?!”

            Because what I do know is that until that day comes, we will all struggle with shame that is not quite as innocent as Little Frankie Fontana. We will all wrestle with the reality of those times in our life when we hear the footsteps of the Lord walking through the garden in the cool of the day, and it will be in our very nature to run and hide. To duck out behind a tree. To hide ourselves with coverings that can never bury the shame. The glory of our faith doesn’t want to hide… we don’t want to behave in such a childish manner, we want to be in the presence of the Lord Almighty. We want to bask in the glow of brilliance of eternity, but weight of our sin causes us to shrink away from His holiness.

            So… “we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked.”

            God created the human body… therefore it is a magnificent work of art. Designed to be an amazing, everlasting magnum opus. Yet, there is something innately connected between the human body and sin and shame. And, of course, this can be traced to the exact moment (the exact moment!) when Adam and Eve walked away from the Lord’s will in the Garden of Eden. It was the first thing they noticed when they ate the fruit. Not that they were destined to return to dust (which they would), not that the ground would be infected, childbearing would hurt really bad, and the creation itself would groan with bitter agony (which would all happen), no, the first they noticed was that their nakedness brought shame. God’s master design was broken… and God was walking toward him with a look in His eyes that said they’d been discovered.

            They longed to be clothed.

            And they were. God- in His rich mercy- took a work of His own hand in Genesis 3:21, and He laid it down… to die. He took one of His very own creations, took away its breath, removed its skin, and covered Adam and Eve’s shame with a blanket of forgiveness. But forgiveness came with a price.

            And today, we all stand ashamed… longing to be clothed. Understanding that our covering- our forgiveness- came with a price.

            On a hill far away… on a tree so dear, so despised by the world. A death that became so horrible and ghastly… shameful. Dizziness, cramps, thirst, starvation, agonizing pain, sleeplessness, fever, torment, public humiliation, ridicule… nakedness.

            The price, indeed, was steep.

            2 Corinthians, chapter 5, speaks of the shame of being naked and longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, but then it says a few verses later, “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him, we might become the righteousness of God.”

            God took His very own, laid Him down, stripped Him away, took away His breath, gave up His life… so that we may be covered. So that our shame would finally be taken away.

            In Jesus, God has paid the steepest, deepest price.

            Today, we groan, we long to stop running away from the footsteps of the Lord, but rather to run and hide in His arms… in that time and place where our shame and pain is no longer.

            In one of the most well known of all biblical stories, my guess is that the Good Samaritan has been covered in this pulpit a couple dozen times, from a dozen different angles. Today, we peel back one word: “Stripped”. The humiliation of being robbed, beaten, broken, and… stripped. And today, we praise our God for not only coming to our rescue, but for covering our shame.