Saturday, November 21, 2009

Got You Covered

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CREATION M6 SERMON NOTES (DRAFT) NOVEMBER 22, 2009

TITLE: Got You Covered

TEXT: Genesis 3:6-12, 21; Luke 15:11-24

BIG IDEA: We can overcome our shame as we recognize what God has done to clothe us, as we remind ourselves of how we have been clothed by God, and as we are experience a sense of being clothed by God through other people’s affirmation.

Do you have any recurring dreams?

While I was a student and for many years after--I had a recurring dream that I was enrolled in a math or French class and had forgotten to attend class and study for the course all semester long… and about ¾ of the way through the semester I realize I have a big exam and I’m unprepared for it and it’s too late to drop the course--and I’m panicking that my GPA is going to sink through the floor.

Now, that I’ve been out of school for a while--I don’t have that dream very often.

But, I have had another recurring dream.

It’s not long before I am supposed to speak maybe at church or maybe some event, but I have no idea what I will be speaking. I have some sketchy notes, but have no idea what the symbols are supposed to trigger in my memory…

So, I begin to shoot from the lip… the auditorium empties.

Or I’m supposed to be speaking somewhere and I’m in a car on the way all I have is wrinkly old, dirty old shirt to wear (show as a prop)… and no pressed shirt to wear.

I don’t know exactly what the dream means, but I suspect that it has something to do with the fear of not being properly “dressed” for something significant.

Many of us have a fear of not being properly “dressed” for something… and that fear originates from Adam and Eve, the first human beings, separating from God in the Garden of Eden.

Over the past few weeks we’ve been in Genesis, and we’ve seen how Satan approaches Eve and Adam in the form of a serpent. He tempts them by suggesting that if they eat from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they won’t die; in fact, they will really live for the first time.

As their eyes are opened, they will become like God, knowing good and evil. They will be wise. They will be autonomous, free, fulfilled, more fully human than ever before.

As I said a couple of weeks ago, whenever Satan tempts us, he always offers us a glittering promise that we will benefit in some great way. But when Adam and Eve separate from God and bite the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, are they in fact better off? Are they wiser? Are they freer? Are they more fulfilled? Are they more fully human? No.

As we have seen in these past weeks, when they separate from God by eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they immediately sense that something has been taken from them…something has been stripped from them. So they reach for a fig leaf—something to give them a sense of covering, security, and protection.

Over the past couple of weeks we’ve talked about how one of the radioactive effects of turning away from God, of sin in the world, is that we feel this sense of deficiency. So we reach for some kind of fig leaf to cover our shame. For some of us, the fig leaf that we turn to is educational achievement. For others, it is accomplishment at work.

Mike Tyson is a boxer that many people love to hate (photo). I recently saw the documentary film on Mike Tyson. In that documentary Tyson describes how he was born into a rough Brooklyn neighbourhood.

He says, “My mother was sexually promiscuous and I didn’t know who my father was.”

Mike says, “I was a fat boy and picked on and bullied… other kids would rob me, and steal my quarters and nickels…. One time a bully stole my glasses and stuck them in the trunk of a milk car. I couldn’t believe a human being would do that to another human being and I just ran because I was so afraid.” He said, “I have had a big inferiority complex my whole life, but I learned to box when I was 12 years old.” He says, “I was so scared before my first amateur fight that I went downstairs to the subway, and thought, ‘Man, I should get on the train and never come back.’ I just wanted to leave because I was so scared. I didn’t want to fight anybody.”

Part of the reason that Tyson was so driven to succeed as a boxer was so that no-one would ever bully him again. In his words, “No-one would ever f____ with me physically again.”

Mike Tyson was also driven to succeed so that he and others would know that he was not a loser…that he was somebody.

Though most of our stories are not quite as dramatic as Mike Tyson’s how many of us have pursued education or work or something else in our lives to prove to ourselves, or perhaps to someone significant, we are not a loser… that we are somebody? I have been there. I know what’s it’s like to try define myself by what I do, I know what it’s like to try to sew together a fig leaf garment to cover me through what I do.

The problem, of course, with this approach as I said a few weeks ago is that if we turn to education or our work (which are good in and of themselves) as our master, our god, if we turn to one of these things for our primary source of security, identity, and meaning… and if we fail this god, the education god or the work god will punish us harshly by making us feel even more shame.

Even if we, by an objective standard, serve our education or work god well, we will likely feel even then that what we have done is not quite enough and our hearts will remain dissatisfied.

Earlier this year I read a column by Pico Iyer in the New York Times. He was writing about how he now wanted to simplify his life, after having felt like he had had enough of the rat-race in the corporate world. He wrote: “I remember how in the corporate world I always knew there was some higher position I could attain which meant that like Zeno’s arrow I was guaranteed to never arrive, always to remain dissatisfied.”

(Education and work in and of themselves are gifts from God, but if we turn to them as a fig leaf, as something to cover us and give us a sense of security, identify, and meaning, they will fail us).

Others turn to a relationship as a fig leaf, to give them a sense of being covered.

The continuing popularity of reality TV shows, The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, demonstrate how strong the belief is that if we find a beautiful, successful, and caring partner, I’ll be a somebody, then I’ll be happy forever.

Like work and education, a special relationship with someone may be a great gift from God, but if, as I said a few weeks ago, if romance or a relationship becomes our master and we fail it… the person you want to be with doesn’t feel the same way you do, or if we break up with your partner, the romance god will punish us harshly.

Even if you serve this master well, having a great relationship alone will not fully give you the feeling that we are fully covered either.

(As I have shared with Sakiko, I have lived long enough now and have been sufficiently fortunate to have experienced many of the things that I was hoping to experience in life; whether it was a position that I wanted to play on the high school football team, or being admitted to a certain school, working the company I really wanted to work for, marrying the woman that I had been in love with for years, having a loving family, a great church to serve, and a great dog! And yet, I know, as grateful as I am for these things, they are not enough to cover the sense of deficit that I can feel. I know that no earthly achievement can do it. Only God can do that.)

So, as this message unfolds, it is directed to me as much as it is directed to anyone else here.

So how is our shame, our sense of deficit, covered?

In Genesis 3 we have seen how Adam and Eve separate from God, and as a result feel an emotion they have never felt before—shame… shame before God, a shame before themselves, self shame, and shame before each other.

Then in Genesis 3:21 we read:

21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife Eve and clothed them.

We read in Genesis 3:21 that God tailored garments of skin for Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve had sewn fig leaves together and made clothes for themselves. We have a fig tree in our back yard, and I can assure you, though I have never tried to do this, that sewing fig leaves together will not create comfortable nor durable clothes. So God, in his mercy and love for Adam and Eve, though they had chosen to separate from him, creates garments from animal skins for them. God covers them to help warm them from their physical chill and their metaphysical (or spiritual) chill.

We human beings have separated from God and sinned and experienced shame, but God in his love for us covers us with new garments (use a prop).

Commentator Walter Bruggemann, says, “God does for the couple what they could not do for themselves. They cannot deal with their shame, but God can, will, and does.”

For God to have created these garments of animal skins would have required what? The sacrifice of an animal.

This sacrifice of an animal to cover Adam and Eve’s shame foreshadows what God himself would do years later when God became a human being in the person of Jesus Christ. When Jesus Christ was 33 years old, he allowed himself to be stripped naked, beaten, punched, spat upon, humiliated and shamed. God in the person of Christ allowed himself to be sacrificed for us on a Roman cross. And as people walked by they simply assumed that Jesus Christ was being punished by God for his sins. But as Isaiah tells us in chapter 53: “He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace upon him and through his wounds we are healed.”

God in Christ lived the perfect life that we were supposed to live. On the cross he bore in his body the punishment for the sin that we deserved. When we offer ourselves to God, God takes the perfect record of Christ, and transfers it to us… and sees us as perfect, as though we have never sinned. He removes our dirty clothes and places on us new, pressed gleaming shirt (use prop). God says… I’ve got you covered. That’s grace.

In the book of Zechariah 3 we read of how Joshua, the high priest, is being accused by Satan. He is standing before an angel, dressed in dirty clothes (literally in clothes marred with feces). The angel spoke to his attendants, "Get him out of those filthy clothes," and then said to Joshua, "Look, I've stripped you of your sin and dressed you up in clean clothes."

God says, “This symbolizes what I will do in a single day through my servant, the branch (a reference toJesus Christ). On a single day I will remove the sin of my people. I will clothe them with new clothes and they will be free from sin and shame.” God says, “I’ve got you covered.”

In the gospel of Luke 15, Jesus tells the story of a father who has a rebellious son. His son in effect says, “I’d be better off if you were dead—and then I’d have access to my inheritance money now.” The father gives him the cash equivalent to the portion of the estate that he would have coming to him if he had died.

The son takes his father’s money, goes to “Las Vegas.” He spends it on extravagant meals and on casinos, massage parlors, and prostitutes. But when he has blown his father’s money, it’s a recession and he is unable to find work, so he is a failure. The only job he’s able to get is feeding pigs (which in for a person of his culture would be the lowest of the low). He is homeless. He is hungry. And he is covered with a blanket of shame.

He thinks to himself, “I need to go home. I am not worthy anymore to be called my father’s son. I will go to my father and say, ‘I am not worthy to be called your son. Hire me as one of your servants’.” The son begins to make his way home. He is homeless, hungry and smelling like a pig. Then the father, who would walk to the edge of his property every day to look for him, sees a long way off…just a speck on the horizon and he ran after him. In the Greek, the technical word is the term for racing in a stadium—he sprinted, like he couldn’t get to his son fast enough. He, of course, would have had to lift the ends of his robes and show parts of his legs as he sprint, which would have been considered extremely shameful for any grown man in the Middle Eastern culture of the day.

The father reaches his son embraces him, and before his son can begin his speech about not being worthy to be called his father’s son, his father shouts to one of the servants, “Quick. As fast as you can, get him a new set of clothes, the best set of clothes. He puts them on him and says, “Son, I’ve got you covered. Let’s party!!”

This is what God does for us, if we come home to him. He embraces us and says, “Quick! Get him or get her a new set of clothes, the best set of clothes. He who has been lost has been found and she is alive again!”

Do you see yourself wearing these gleaming white garments that God has purchased for you at the price of his son? When you recognize just how much you are loved by God, and what you’ve been clothed in, you can toss away your old shirt and become a person free from shame.

“God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. We cannot deal with our shame, but God says I’ve got you covered.” Grace.

As Lee reminded us last Sunday, if we have come to God and been received by him and have been clothed with new garments, then we no longer need to live under the mastery of Satan or sin or shame in our lives, but we can live under the loving mastery of God.

(POWERPOINT: SHOW IMAGE OF STONE HEDGE).

When you are tempted to feel ashamed, or to get back into activity that will induce shame or to define yourself by what you do or by what you’ve achieved, by a relationship you have or want to have, you can remind yourself: “I am clothed in a garment that God has purchased for me at the price of his Son.” God has me covered.

As Lee said last Sunday, “You can keep reminding yourself, ‘I belong to God. I belong to God. I belong to God. I belong to Christ. I am baptized. I am baptized. I am baptized’.”

In my baptism, my old self, my old clothes fell off and I have been raised up… given a new clothes… new life!

(If you have never been baptized, and if you want to be clothed by Christ, you want to know that you belong to him, is there anything that would prevent you from taking this step and being baptized?)

So we can live free of shame when we remind our self what God has done for us. God does for us what we cannot do ourselves. God says, “I’ve got you covered.”

We can hear the voice of God saying, “I’ve got you covered directly through the Scriptures or through the Spirit speaking to our heart, and we can hear the voice of God through ourselves as we as remind ourselves of our baptism, and we can hear that voice through each other.

Some of our shame comes by what people have said to us.

At the youth retreat led by our youth pastor Catlin last weekend, he had our youth write out on labels what they had been named in their lives. Here are some of the words: failure, just a waste of space, not pretty enough, home wrecker, F_____ up. Perhaps we feel certain labels more acutely as young people, but a person can feel a label for life.

Catin had the youth put the labels on the cross as a way to recognize that God had removed these labels on the cross through Christ…

Words can make us feel like we’re dressed in something horrible.

But words can also clothe us, words can also bring life.

Part of the reason that being connected in a real community and in authentic relationships is so important is because it provides a context for God to clothe us through each other. Sometimes God gives us a sense of covered by his love through a friend.

Are you in the kind of relationships where you be clothed in God’s love and cover others in God’s love?

Are you in some relationship where you can share your story and receive and offer support and affirmation?

In a New York Times Magazine article, Hal Niedzviecki writes about his Facebook account. Soon after start he joined Facebook, Niedzviecki had accumulated about 700 "friends." He writes, "(I was) absurdly proud of how many ‘friends’--and even strangers--I'd managed to sign up." But the irony was he had more online friends than ever before, he had fewer friends to actually hang out with than ever before. So he decided to have a Facebook party to turn his online friends into actual in person friends.

Hal invited all 700 of his "friends" to a local bar for a party. Fifteen said they would be there, and sixty said they might be there. He guessed somewhere around 20 would show up.

He writes "On the evening… I took a shower… splashed on some cologne… I put on new pants and a favorite shirt. I headed over to the neighborhood watering hole and waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. Eventually, one person showed up." A woman he didn’t even know. She was a friend of a friend. They ended up making small talk and then she left. He sat the bar alone and waited and waited and waited till midnight. Hal concludes his article with these words: "Seven hundred friends, and I was drinking alone that night."

Do you a friend or two who can reflect God’s love to you in a way that makes you feel clothed?

I have a friend named Elizabeth who is a member of a small group that I am part of. She was a star javelin thrower in university and she can hit me between the eyes with the hard truth about that I need to hear.

But, she has the way of seeing good things in me that I don’t see, or I have forgotten existed. She names them, and in my friendship with her I feel stronger. I feel clothed by the grace of God.

I have experienced that with my wife, my mom, a few close friends.

When we are loved and affirmed by a friend, a family member, something in us lifts and straightens. We feel clothed by God.

We can do that for others, as well.

Sometimes people will hesitate to affirm others because they are afraid the person will get a “big head.” But most people are not over-confident.

Even people who seem to have an air of swagger are often insecure.

We do well to take the risk and offer affirmation, and as we do it will shape the lives of people as they feel clothed by the love of God.

Henri Nouwen was a Catholic priest who taught at Harvard and Yale and served during the last years of his life as a pastor with a mentally handicapped community in Toronto.

He writes in his book, Life of the Beloved, that one afternoon a resident of the community, Janet, approached him and asked for a blessing. Nouwen, placed his thumb on Janet's forehead and traced the sign of the cross. Janet jumped back and said, "No… that doesn’t work, I want a real blessing."

Nouwen, surprised, asked “Janet can I give you a real blessing at the community's evening prayer service.” Janet agreed.

That evening, after the prayer service, with about 30 people seated in a circle, Nouwen said “I want to give Janet a special blessing.” Janet immediately rose, came to Nouwen and wrapped her arms around him and put her head in his chest. Nouwen said, "Janet, I want you to know you are God’s Beloved Daughter. You are precious in God’s eyes. Your beautiful smile, your kindness to people in this house show us what a beautiful human being you are." Janet paused for a moment, looked up at Nouwen and smiled. She felt clothed in God’s love and returned to her place in the circle.

BTW, to his surprise, several other members of the community immediately asked for a blessing and Henri held each of them as he spoke a personal blessing to them.

Then he was amazed when one of the staff asked if he could have a blessing, too. They felt clothed in God’s love, too.

Do you hear God saying, “Where are you?” As God called Adam and Eve he calls us. And as we come to him, we will find that we are not condemned, but clothed in gleaming new garments. We’ll find God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves… that he’s got us covered. We live out this reality by reminding ourselves and each other that he’s got us covered.

Prayer: Do you sense God clothing you?

Do you sense his blessing over you?

Got You Covered

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Got You Covered

Ken Shigematsu


Your browser may not support display of this image.

“I remember how in the corporate world I always knew there was some higher position I could attain which meant that like Zeno’s arrow I was guaranteed to never arrive, always to remain dissatisfied.”

Pico Iyer



21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife Eve and clothed them.

Genesis 3:21

“God does for the couple what they could not do for themselves. They cannot deal with their shame, but God can, will and does.”

Walter Bruggemann

Please insert POWERPOINT image from Lee Kosa’s sermon last Sunday Nov 15 IMAGE OF STONE HEDGE in the field.
Got You Covered

Ken Shigematsu


Your browser may not support display of this image.

“I remember how in the corporate world I always knew there was some higher position I could attain which meant that like Zeno’s arrow I was guaranteed to never arrive, always to remain dissatisfied.”

Pico Iyer



21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife Eve and clothed them.

Genesis 3:21

“God does for the couple what they could not do for themselves. They cannot deal with their shame, but God can, will and does.”

Walter Bruggemann

Please insert POWERPOINT image from Lee Kosa’s sermon last Sunday Nov 15 IMAGE OF STONE HEDGE in the field.

Saturday, November 07, 2009

Naked and No Longer

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CREATION M4 SERMON NOTES November 8. 2009

TITLE: Naked and No Longer Ashamed

Ken Shigematsu and Lee Kosa

TEXT: Genesis 3: 1-12

BIG IDEA: When we turn from God, we experience a sense of nakedness and a need to be covered by God.

PROP: real fig leaves, blanket (Lee).

When I was working in Japan, I remember our family had an informal family reunion just north of Tokyo at my grandfather’s luxurious country club. Our family had a large oval table by the window overlooking the golf course that my grandfather had designed with Robert Trent Jones. My strict grandfather was at the head of the table in suit and bolo tie. The men at the table were dressed in suits and ties and the women in dresses. I remember my cousin Blaik from Hawaii came to the dinner late… dressed in faded ripped jeans and a T shirt… My grandfather glared at him. Blaik walked over to the table and said (in English) what’s up guys and then walked over to me and my young sister and asked, “dudes… like uh… and I’m a little under dressed?” My sister and I said, “No… don’t worry about it.” We’re lying through our teeth.

Have you ever felt underdressed and ashamed?

Have you ever wondered where our sense of shame for originated?

Mark Twain said, “Man is the only animal that blushes and the only animal that needs to.”

Have you wondered why humans blush?

Today, we’re going to look at why human beings blush and experience shame and how God helps overcome.

If you have your Bibles please turn to Genesis 3:

GENESIS 3: 1-12:

1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"

2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "

4 "You will not certainly die," the serpent said to the woman. 5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?"

10 He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."

11 And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"

12 The man said, "The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it."

In Genesis 3, we read that the serpent (the devil) tells Eve that if she eats the fruit of the one tree that God has forbidden, the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that her eyes will be opened and she will become wise and enlightened like God (Genesis 3:4). He promises she will be autonomous, free and fulfilled. More fully human.

When the devil tempts us to do something, he always promises that we will benefit in some way and suggests we’ll miss out if don’t go down a particular path.

(Do some of you remember the infomercial for the Ginsu knife set? They said the Ginsu cuts through frozen food like soft butter, chops wood, and cuts through a tin can--and will last forever and it’s only $9.99! The not so subtle sub-text is how could you survive without this?)

When devil tempts us, he always promises we’ll benefit in some way.

But, when Eve and Adam succumb to Eve’s temptation to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, are their lives, in fact, better off?

What actually happens to them? They immediately feel like something has been “taken” from them--they feel a sense of alienation and shame before God.

They also experience a sense of shame before themselves and before each other.

In Genesis 2:25 we read that before they sinned, Adam and his wife Eve were both naked, but they felt no shame.

But, in Genesis 3 we read that Adam and Eve sinned and they feel naked and ashamed.

One of the consequences for us of not trusting God and separating ourselves from his path is that we experience this sense of disconnection and shame between us and God, between us and ourselves, and between us and other people. We’re going to look at how we human beings experience shame and in these three ways and how we overcome this.

First we’ll see how when Adam and Eve eat the fruit, they experience this immediate sense of disconnection from God.

In verse 8 we read:

8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

The expression “the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day” is a symbolic way of saying that God was present and drawing close to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

What do Adam and Eve do? They run and hide from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Adam and Eve hide in the trees from God because they feel this sense of shame and alienation before God.

Rudolph Otto, the German theologian and author of the classic book, The Idea of the Holy, did extensive research on religious experience around the world. He discovered that wherever you go in the world you will find people who are both fascinated by God and fearful of God, people who want to both run to and run from God. He termed this feeling of simultaneous attraction and dread to God numinous awe. If you study the history of world religions, you will see in many cultures in many different times, and in many different parts of the world, people make some kind of sacrifice to God or the holy one.

Why is this? Is it because people feel drawn to God on the one hand, but on the other hand they also feel they are not worthy to enter the presence of God. So they feel they have to do something to earn God’s favour.

The stock market takes a catastrophic fall and a stock broker walks into a downtown cathedral and prays, “I’ll stop drinking, I’ll become a better husband and father if only you will help me out of this hole.” A woman is diagnosed with breast cancer and says, “God, bring me through this and I will offer up my life to you.”

One of the radioactive effects of sin is that we human beings don’t feel confident in God’s presence. We feel a sense of shame before God, so we feel that we have to bargain with God. We have to offer him something to be accepted.

So, sin disconnects from God; second, sin also disconnects us from ourselves. When Adam and Eve sin against God, they feel a sense of shame before God, but they also feel this sense of nakedness and shame before themselves.

We read in Genesis 3 of how the devil promises Eve and Adam that if they separate from God and eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil their eyes will be open, they will be wise like God, free and fulfilled—more fully human. But when they separate from God how do they feel?

They feel like something has been taken from them: they feel their nakedness and their shame. They no longer feel at ease with themselves… they feel inadequate. They feel like they need to cover themselves with fig leaves (use PROP), they need to reach for something to give themselves a sense of security and protection.

In Albert Camus’s novel, The Fall, there is a successful lawyer named Clamence, a respected but proud man. Clamence views himself as an upright, decent, and generous human being. He represents widows and orphans as a defence lawyer. He tries to be generous. He never accepts bribes. He sleeps with many different women, but he never hurts anyone… he reasons. All of this changes one night when a young woman attempts suicide by plunging off a bridge into a river, and Clamence does nothing to rescue her. In that moment he realizes who he really is... He notices his selfishness, his cowardice, his hypocrisy... that he is a fallen and broken human being just like everyone else.

Sometimes we feel a deep sense of shame, like Clamence, about ourselves because of something we have not done, or because something we have done.

Sometimes we feel shame before ourselves because we cannot meet the lofty expectations of our parents or someone significant in our lives.

Sometime we feel shame before ourselves because of a sin of someone else has perpetrated against us.

Canadian hockey star Theo Fleury has written an autobiography called Playing With Fire. In that book he describes how he was sexually abused by his junior coach Graham James. The trauma caused him to feel overwhelming in shame. He writes “an absolute nightmare every day of my life.” Fleury says, “The direct result of my being abused was that I became a f—ing raging, alcoholic lunatic… I no longer had faith in myself or my own judgment. And when you come down to it, that’s all a person has. Once it’s gone, how do you get it back?”

And to state the obvious, Fleury’s sense of shame over his abuse was not his fault.

And if you have been abused by someone who had some kind of power over you, you feel shame. It is not your fault.

Sometimes we can feel a sense shame before ourselves not because of things we have done or not done, but because of things that been have done to us.

Sometimes for no apparent reason, as such, we simply feel a sense of deficiency…a sense of lack…a being naked, a tree without bark.

(Because of this sense of shame before ourselves like Adam and Eve, we reach for fig leaf to cover our nakedness and shame.

Madonna, who seems to be always re-inventing herself, says, “I am driven to succeed out of the fear of feeling mediocre and uninteresting.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of California, said, “I feel driven to achieve because growing up I never felt good enough, or smart enough, or strong enough.” But it is not just Madonna and the governator…

We all have “fig leaves.” I have them. You have them. For some of us our fig leaf is our education. For others it is our accomplishment at work, our popularity, our family, our religious practice, being a good person. But we need something to cover us.)

We human beings feel a sense of shame before God, before ourselves, and, third, before each other. After Adam and Eve sinned by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they were not only needing to cover themselves with fig leaves because they felt inadequate in and of themselves, but because they felt inadequate before each other. Before they sinned, they were naked and unashamed, and now they are naked and ashamed before each other.

As we read on, we see in this story that trust has broken down between Adam and Eve as Adam blames Eve for eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Sin causes us to feel this shame and separation before each other.

As commentators Melvin Hugen and Cornelius Plantinga Jr. put it, after Adam and Eve sinned, “It wasn’t that they merely flinched when their partner’s gaze dipped southward; it was that they had trouble looking into each other’s eyes.” Part of us, instead of wanting to look one another in the face, we want to run and hide.

John Powell wrote a book called Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am? “If I tell you who I am, you may not like who I am, and it’s all that I have.”

So rather than risk rejection or being laughed at or someone yawning at you, it may feel safer to reach for a fig leaf and hide, and as we talked about a couple of weeks ago, spin an image of ourselves in the hopes of being accepted. But the problem is that when we spin an image of ourselves that makes us look better than we are, and when someone accepts that image of us, we are not sure that they are accepting us or the image that we have spun.

At this time I invite Lee Kosa to share part of his story with us.

Growing up my family we didn’t record a lot of home videos. In fact I only know of 3.

One is of some random soccer game I was in.

Another is of a Grade 4 school play, where I played Romeo in Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ In the video I have on black tights and look incredibly awkward on stage. This video has somehow disappeared and despite my mom’s frequent accusations that I destroyed it, I have no idea where it went.

The third home video I remember is of my brother’s first haircut.

My brother was about 2 at the time and I was about 7. In the video our whole family is in a room at a barber’s shop. In the room they have a fake horse from a carousel for the little kids to sit on, that is supposed to distract kids from the huge stranger with the large scissors who keep attacking their head. So my brother Jay in on the horse, my mom is holding him, and the barber is trying to cut Jay’s hair and Jay loses it and starts to cry, and my mom can’t console him.

My dad who is shooting the video, say’s something like, “Where is Lee? Lee get up there and sit with your brother.” My dad starts looking around for me in the room, the camera pans around back and forth, and then suddenly pans down, and a small yellow mound enters the frame, and then begins to slide out of the picture. And the yellow mound is me, hiding under my brother’s yellow blanket, looking something like this [sit up against drum kit wall with small yellow blanket over my body.]

I hated being the centre of attention when I was young. I hated having my photo taken, and I hated being in videos.

I just turned 30 two weeks ago, and growing up I used to hate my birthday, because my mom would have a party and I would be the centre of attention. Kids would come over and I would just want to hide. For some reason I felt ashamed to have so much attention turned to me.

In Grade 6 I had a very intense and passionate soccer coach. Whenever someone did something wrong during a scrimmage, he’d have us all freeze and explain what we did wrong and what we should have done differently. Whenever I had to freeze, I’d feel a lump in my throat as a watched the coach walk over to me and I felt the eyes of my teammates watching me. When the coach started talking to me, I’d cry, and I’d just want to hide. For some reason I felt ashamed to have so much attention turned to me.

My sense of shame was a combination my own sin, sin committed against me, and the sin of humanity. The effect of sin in my life gave me the sense that I was unworthy or deficient.

When people got close to me, I’d hide behind a blanket of shyness. When someone looked me in the eye, I’d turn away always afraid that if they looked to close, they might see my brokenness.

When the camera pointed at me, I’d hide as if the photo might reveal the ugliness I felt on the inside.

Even when I got married I couldn’t let my wife look too closely into my soul, because she might see the secret, dark, evil sin that scarred my heart.

When I became a Christian I kept God at arm’s length, or confined him to the Bible, out of fear that he might see how sinful, and full of shame I really was. God became very distant and scary.

I’d hide behind my blanket of shyness, because if anyone, my friends, God my wife got a glimpse of the real me, if they ever heard the kind of thoughts that ran through my head, if they ever felt the deep self-loathing inside of me, if they saw the real, broken me--I was terrified they would reject me as deficient, and unlovable.

So it was hard to get to know me, I was the shy one. If I opened myself up, took off the blanket, and people saw the real me and rejected me, that would have been devastating because the real me is all I’ve got. So It was better to remain hidden… shy, and, unknown, than known, hated, and rejected.

So here I am a shy, scared, shameful, hiding, sinner. Here Adam and Eve are too, shy, scared, shameful, hiding, sinners. And here we are all are. Hiding from one another, each with our different fig leaves, our different blankets. Some us with a blanket of humor, others shyness, others false confidence, others a good boy or good girl personna. You name it, we all have our different blankets and we all hide behind them at times. Isolated from each other, alienated from God.

But while we are cowering in shame, guilt and fear under our blankets, if we listen carefully we can hear God speaking. Can you hear him? Look what he is saying, vs. 9. “Where are you?”

And how do we hear that as sinners like Adam and Eve, hiding under our blankets? Is it WHERE ARE YOU!!!? [read very angrily with hostility]

In your mind do you hear a God is furious, yelling God, who can’t wait to get his hands on you so he can punish you? Does God want to launch into an angry interrogation so he can humiliate you?

That is what I thought for a long time.

But a few years ago I took the biggest risk of my life and began to take the blanket of shyness off, revealing my brokenness to other trusted friends. I exposed my sin to other people. I exposed the sins that have been committed against me… to other people. And as people saw what was behind the shyness, they accepted me. As I told God about my sin and described to him my specific shame, as I told him how deficient I was, he reached out and touched me. Jesus came alongside me. Friends came along side me, me wife came along side me. And as Christ and others have accepted me, the real me—God has brought profound healing and intimacy with others and with God into my life.

Yes, I still sin. Yes at times I still feel shameful. Yes, I still go back pick up this blanket [pick it up] and hide behind it. But now when I’m hiding from others, my wife, my friends, from God, when I’m scared, insecure, and anxious I hear God’s voice calling. “Where are you, Lee? I miss you. Yes, I see what you’ve done. Yes, I see how you feel. Yes, I hate sin too, but I love you more than I hate sin. That’s why I came. That’s why I allowed myself to be despised and rejected by others, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces, I was despised, and seen as worthless. That’s why I took up your pain and bore your suffering. People thought I was punished by God, But I was pierced for your transgressions, I was crushed for your iniquities; the punishment that has brought you peace was on me, and by my wounds you are healed.”

Christ himself was stripped naked and humiliated on a cross, taking into himself our sin and our shame. Because he has taken upon himself my shame and your shame, we can come out from hiding. We don’t need to hide any more. There is no need for this [throw blanket] in God’s presence or in the presence of others.

And yet, we often forget, we get scared, shame washes over us, and we go back to our blankets, [pick it up] and hide.

And today many of us are here, myself included, with our blankets tucked away just in case. Some of us even have them on right now. And this morning, we sit and listen, to the voice of God as he whispers, “Where are you?” How do we hear him? How will we respond?

Let’s pray:

Like the loving father Jesus spoke of in Luke 15, God sees as his son as his daughter and says:

“I miss you. Yes I see what you’ve done… Yes I hate sin too, but I love you more than I hate sin… this is why I became a human being and died for you.

Will you throw away your blanket come out to me?

Will you throw away your blanket and become real before some trusted friends?”