Recently, a friend called to ask me to preach at a large event. I received the call in my car, driving to my daughter’s track meet, my GPS shouting at me in the background. The event fell right before my family’s relocation to Virginia. I responded to my friend’s invitation poorly, speaking more out of my stress than my heart and head. I offended him with brash, inarticulate words explaining why I couldn’t possibly do what he was asking. When I recognized our conversation had gone south, I pulled over so I could focus and make amends. We concluded our conversation on a better note, but I still felt ashamed afterwards. Preceding our lectionary passage for this Sunday, we read how Peter denied his association with Jesus three times (John 18:15-27). Jesus had been arrested, and Peter was no doubt afraid he’d be next. When asked if he was one of Jesus’ disciples, Peter lied: “I am not.” We can only imagine how this denial left Peter feeling — whether he delivered his lie with panic or with bluster, any disciple would feel ashamed to abandon Jesus in his time of greatest need. In her book Daring Greatly, Brené Brown writes about the destructive power of shame, “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.” Shame is rooted, Brown writes, in our fear of disconnection: “the fear that something we’ve done or failed to do, an ideal that we’ve not lived up to, or a goal that we’ve not accomplished makes us unworthy of connection.” These powerful feelings of shame can lead us to self-destructive and relationship-destructive behaviors. Shame keeps us from being vulnerable and real. We find ourselves attacking or disengaging to feel better or to protect ourselves from further harm. You can find the rest of the commentary on our website. | 
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