The Burden of Shame
One person approached me yesterday to privately say that nobody was going to bring up the main reason that we are not going to invite. He said that there was an elephant in the room. They went on describe the terrible things that had happened in terms of abuse in recent years in the church in Ireland, a burden of shame. So is this a reason not to invite? In the first story of the bible there is shame. Adam says to God I heard you walking in the garden and saw that I was naked so I hid. Before that point Adam and God walked together in the garden, but now shame kept them apart. We human beings both in the church and outside the church have done some terrible things, but God says to us all in Isaiah 1:18, “Come now, and let us reason together, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” God does not want us to carry our feelings of inadequacy, and worthlessness. God invites us into a relationship with Jesus. The alternative is to bury our burden of shame and pretend it is not there. God offers us an alternative, Jesus personally carried our sins in his body on the Cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. Invite someone to take a closer look at Christ and his church.
