I can’t describe to you the depths of heartbreak I felt looking at the poverty around me in the Roma (gypsy) camp. Houses of tin, appearing to be standing on pure will power alone, flanked the outer rim of the camp. Children scampered around a muddy patch of ground with no shoes, heads crawling with lice, and impetigo. A baby, learning to walk for the first time, toddled shakily on uneven gravel. Families desperate to put food in their family’s bellies frantically fought over the bean soup we had brought with us to distribute.
I can’t adequately describe to you the colors of the sunset that day: stripes of pink and purple that danced across the Albanian sky, as ever-changing and vibrant as my Race experience has been so far.
But I CAN describe to you the shame I felt when one of the church members we were with publicly decided to humiliate and “pray the gay out” of one of our new Roma friends, Ernest*.
Ernest had a smile and a laugh that captured our hearts immediately. A petite man with tattoos and a wonderful manbun, he exuded pride in his Italian culture and though he didn’t speak our language, made an effort to know all of our names. His dusty five o’clock shadow sat charmingly on his strong jaw, and his tan face wore lines of laughter but also of incredible hardship.
Ernest was also wearing women’s clothing.
My teammates and I dismissed this (unimportant) piece of information as we began to build a relationship with our new friend. Through gestures and laughter, he learned that we were American. He complimented my teammate’s earrings, and pointed towards a pink stud of his own. He clapped and sang his own songs of “hallelujah” while we worshipped. Of all the Roma we met that day, Ernest was my favorite and I couldn’t see how our interaction with him could be better or more fun.
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I didn’t expect Shame to choose that moment to waltz back into my life.
Shame and I are old friends. He wraps his arms around me often and whispers that I’ll never be good enough, that I am worthless, and that I don’t measure up as a Christian. Our relationship is weathered and toxic, and the days when I let Jesus wrap His arms around me instead are a huge victory.
But that day, Shame found his way into my heart in a different way: a deep, soul cringing embarrassment directed not at my own soul, but the efforts of a fellow Christian who thinks he is doing Jesus a favor.
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A man from our church, Randy*, interrupted our hangout with Ernest to announce a call to prayer. Our previous experiences with Randy had been spoiled with bad theology and a refusal to preach grace instead of condemnation, and my heart sank as he began his passionate speech:
“This man is not a woman! He is a man!” He shouted emphatically to our team and the entire Roma camp. “We must pray for God to change this man! In the name of Jesus we must heal him of his wrongdoing!”
He gesticulated wildly, pointing at Ernest, whose smile was sinking slowly back into the shadows.
As Randy called us forward to lay hands on Ernest after a few more minutes of public humiliation and condemnation, my blood boiled. I prayed instead that he would come to know the grace of Jesus if he didn’t already know it. I prayed for his family and his health. But I would not pray this condemning prayer on my new Roma friend. Ernest stood sadly in the middle of our prayer circle, eyes open and a look of dejection on his sweet Roma face.
He didn’t understand English, but he understood exactly the message Randy had portrayed: he was not good enough. He was a mistake. The decisions he made disqualified him from the love of God. He must change in order to be loved by anyone. Shame had entangled his arms around Ernest.
In the midst of Ernest’s public shame, I was also ashamed. I was ashamed to be associated with Randy. This man was dragging the grace of my Jesus through the mud at the expense of our wonderful new friend. Shame’s grip on my heart turned into a blaze of righteous anger.
This man was completely negating everything Jesus came to earth to do.
Jesus isn’t about condemnation (Romans 8:1). Jesus hung out with sinners (Mark 2: 13-17). Jesus isn’t about public shaming (John 8:1-11). Jesus isn’t about Shame in general (Hebrews 10:15-18, John 3:18, Psalm 103, and countless others.)
Jesus took Shame and nailed him to the cross. In Jesus, Shame has no place in our hearts. It was for FREEDOM that Christ set us free (Galatians 5:1), not to publicly point out all of the ways that we don’t measure up. He knows we don’t measure up. That’s why He died in our place.
I couldn’t find Ernest again after that awful encounter. I wanted to wrap him in a hug different from the ones Shame had surely wrapped him in for most of his life, but he slunk back to his small tin home, feeling the weight of Randy’s verbal attack.
Friends, may we not be like Randy. May we not be quick to extend condemnation instead of grace. May we not be so concerned with the speck in our friend’s eye that we miss the plank in our own. And may we not be vessels that allow Shame to work though and wrap his arms around anyone we come in contact with.
*Names changed
