This Advent I will preach on the psalm or canticles assigned for each Sunday, thinking about how the songs we sing, especially those from the Bible, reflect our faith and life together in Christ.
This Sunday we look at Psalm 25, in which, nearly at the beginning in verse 2, the psalmist asks God, “do not let me be put to shame.” It’s a helpful reminder that in the culture of Bible people, mostly Hebrew, shame often played a huge role in how people viewed themselves and others. To be shamed or bring shame on one’s family or community was a personal disaster.
We haven’t yet seen “Crazy Rich Asians.” Netflix is delivering it today. But I imagine that one of the themes in that film will be young Asians dealing with shame in cultures that, in that respect, are perhaps more like that of the Bible than white America.
Yet white Americans like I are not free of the experience of shame. We perhaps keep it better hidden and suppressed than other cultures where it is openly expressed and imposed. As I will share in the sermon Sunday, shame blocks me from even a simple expression like singing solo when others might hear me.
For those who have been abused, undeserved shame can derail relationships and even frustrate progress in school or work. Shame is often an oppressive and destructive emotion in any culture. Though it may have some positive effect by inhibiting us from acting out of our baser impulses, shame is more frequently unhealthy and debilitating.
In any case, one facet of our salvation is a release from shame by the grace of God. In the NRSV, from which I often read and preach, verse 3 of Psalm 25 is a petition, “Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame.” But the NIV, NLT and other translations make it an assertion, matching God’s own assertion in Isaiah 49:23, “No one who hopes in you will ever be put to shame.” Evidently the Hebrew allows it to be either way.
I’m going to prefer the assertive form, “No one who hopes in you will ever be put to shame,” yet allow that there is a shade of petition in it because what the writer is doing in the rest of the psalm is talking himself into that assertion of a hope beyond shame. That is, he is dealing with his shame by placing his trust in God. May his reflections help us to do the same.