Shame That Is Not Ours to Bear by iyree jarett

Jesus was not ashamed of the people whose stories were complicated, and he does not ask us to be ashamed of the parts of our own stories that others have used against us. The genealogy of Jesus contains complicated decisions, scandal, survival, and stories that could easily be used to shame, yet none of that disqualifies people from being part of the story of Jesus. That is the liberating beauty of this series on sex through the eyes of Jesus’ shameless grandmothers!

Shame can convince us that there is something wrong with who we are. It can make us feel responsible for other people’s choices, systems we did not create, expectations we could never meet, and circumstances that required us to survive rather than choose freely.

The story of Tamar, reminds us that what looks like a scandal may be someone trying to reclaim agency. While her story is sometimes reduced to the fact that she disguised herself as a prostitute and became pregnant by Judah, what is often ignored is that her options were constrained by the systems and familial powers that failed her. When Judah learns that Tamar is pregnant, his first response is to condemn her. He attempts to make Tamar carry the shame of a situation in which he himself is deeply implicated.

This occurs in our world in so many ways. Instead of asking who created the conditions that produced a particular outcome, communities often ask who violated the rules. Instead of confronting hypocrisy, communities often punish the person who exposed it.

This makes it so important to continue to ask the questions that were raised during the message: Where have people been handing us shame that is not ours to bear? Where have we accepted it because we were taught that carrying someone else’s shame was the price of belonging? Tamar’s story invites us to consider what it might look like to put that shame down, tell the truth about the circumstances that produced it, and reclaim the parts of our stories that other people have tried to define for us.