The Benefit of Shame

The professor, bestselling author, and speaker Brené Brown says that shame is “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging—something we've experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection.” She explains, “I don't believe shame is helpful or productive. In fact, I think shame is much more likely to be the source of destructive, hurtful behavior than the solution or cure.” But God wants his people to feel ashamed. He tells the truth: their idolatry, disobedience, and disgusting behavior led them into exile. As a defeated, exiled people, the pagan nations looked down on them. They reasoned: 'If Israel is defeated, then Israel's God is weak.' So God acts to restore his honor. However, he cannot look at his disgraced people and conclude, "I owe you one." If anything, he's restrained himself from giving his people what they deserve. Their hearts are hardened like stone and their crops are failing. They don't want to worship God. Even if they did, they don't have anything good to offer him. The entire passage runs on God's initiative. He reveals the holiness of his name, takes his people from the nations, sprinkles them with clean water, cleanses them, takes out the old heart of stone, gives them a new heart of flesh, causes them to walk in his ways, rescues them from their defilements, and restores the productivity of their work. God's grace is making everything good. So why does God insist they look back on their evil ways, and feel loathing for themselves? Brené Brown accurately names how shame normally works. But if God cleanses us, makes us new, and fills us with his own Spirit, and we look back on our old way of life and shrug, we've missed the point. A heart that's filled with God's love will honestly grieve the destruction of sin. Centuries later, when Jesus talked with Nicodemus at night, he said that entering God's kingdom requires being born of water and the Spirit (John 3:5). This famous teacher should have understood, but his heart was unresponsive, even as God talked to him. But what Ezekiel promised, Jesus delivered. He gave his blood to cleanse us, and sent his Spirit to dislodge our hearts of stone. In this passage, shame is the final break with our old way of life. God's love is why it doesn't make us feel worthless (which is what Brené Brown is warning us about). It's like looking back at a jail cell we've just walked out of, and saying to God, "I never want to go back there." A heart that shrugs at sin isn't changed. But a heart that grieves how we lived without God is alive and well.