Sunday, June 15th, 2025: "Journey for Justice: No Shame in Hope"
The First United Presbyterian Church
“Journey for Justice: No Shame in Hope”
Rev. Amy Morgan
June 15, 2025
Romans 5:1-5
Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
She felt ashamed for being oppressed. Mariam Ibraheem carried a sense of deep shame after being imprisoned in Sudan for breaking Shariah law by marrying a Christian man and professing the Christian faith. She felt ashamed that she was viewed as a criminal. She felt ashamed of the fact that her second child had to be born in prison. This experience compounded the shame she carried from growing up in a refugee camp, being raised without a father, and practicing a faith that was despised by her community and persecuted by the authorities.
Even after international uproar led to Mariam’s release from prison and immigration to the United States, the shame persisted. She was haunted by the trauma of her imprisonment, felt guilt for what her children had experienced, and bore the label of a criminal sentenced to death, long after her liberation.
What Mariam was not ashamed of, however, was her faith. She refused to renounce the Christian faith her mother had taught her and her husband shared with her, even if it meant beatings and execution. Her faith in Jesus Christ helped her endure her suffering, and it helped her to heal. Eventually, she discovered new purpose and hope in advocating for women escaping domestic violence, human trafficking, and religious persecution.
The Christians in Rome were not experiencing religious persecution like Mariam. At the time Paul was writing to them, they weren’t being imprisoned or executed for their faith in Jesus. But they were certainly a religious minority, subject to social exclusion, family rejection, and shame. First century Roman society was defined by honor and shame, so anything that negatively impacted one’s honor would have been devastating.
Into this shame, Paul writes to the Roman Christians that they are “justified,” they are innocent, they have nothing of which to be ashamed. They are so innocent, at peace, and drenched with grace that they can actually boast – both in God’s glory and in their sufferings. This word “boast” in Greek implies holding your head up high, not in a conceited way, but in a gesture that demonstrates one is not bowed down and broken by oppression.
The affliction Paul speaks of is related to a Greek word for pressure, giving the sense of being confined, constricted, boxed in and without options or a way out. It is the kind of pressure Mariam felt as she was imprisoned, and how the Roman Christians may have felt as they struggled to follow the way of Jesus within the constrictions of Rome’s honor-shame culture.
But somehow, Paul contends, this pressure or confinement leads to endurance. Now, this is not a long-suffering, wait-it-out, shoulder-down kind of endurance. This word in Greek implies cheerful, hopeful, patient endurance. And the character produced by this kind of endurance is related to the word for trial, it means someone who is tried and true, who has been put to the test and passed with flying colors. And finally, the hope that is produced by this character is not optimism or wishful thinking, it is confident expectation.
Now, this hope is really key. We can hope it doesn’t rain on our picnic, but if it does, there’s no shame in that. We wished it could be otherwise, but no one would call us foolish for that. But if we express confident expectation that the Rockies are going to the World Series this year, we probably should be ashamed of ourselves.
The hope of the Roman Christians was not a wish that things would turn out well for them. It was a confident expectation that God’s love and grace would win out over any force that would try to oppose God’s goodness.
But Paul assures the Roman Christians that their hope, their confident expectation that they are standing on the grace of God and that God’s love has been poured into their hearts, will not lead to shame. Though the world around them might think them foolish or disgraceful, their hope, their confidence in the love and grace of God in Jesus Christ, will not bring them shame.
There are many refugees who, like Mariam, have felt shamed by their oppression.
Faheem, Samir, and Mohamed, three brothers from Darfur, were targeted and shamed for their Masalit ethnicity and had to live for two decades in a refugee camp in Chad. Even after they finally found refuge in the United States, they experienced shame for not knowing English and struggling to find employment. They were ashamed that they had to leave family members behind in the refugee camp, where they are facing dire conditions due to underfunded aid programs.
When the Khan family fled Pakistan and settled as refugees in Texas, they faced the shame of needing the help of the community for all their basic needs. Without relying on others, they could not acquire housing or furniture, and they needed financial assistance while they sorted out the barriers to employment.
Wajdi and his family managed to escape to the U.S. from the war and corruption in Yemen. But Wajdi carried the shame of leaving his parents behind. After many years of working to bring them to America, his parents were finally approved for refugee status and had flights booked to reunite with their family. But their flights were abruptly canceled by an executive order indefinitely suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.
Despite the shame these refugees have experienced, both in their homelands and in the new places where they have resettled, they continue to hold their heads up high.
Though they may feel pressure - the pressure of assimilating, the pressure of prejudice, scapegoating, and anti-immigrant sentiment, the pressure to help family members left behind, the pressure to succeed against all odds – that pressure produces endurance.
These refugees have endured more than most of us can even imagine – violence and persecution, war and poverty. They have waited patiently through the years-long, extremely thorough, and deeply uncertain process of seeking refuge in the United States. They have waited for assistance as they struggle to put their lives back together and adjust to a new language and culture. They have waited to be reunited with loved ones who are still in the process of waiting.
And that waiting has produced character. They have been tried and tested and proven to be assets to their new communities. Mr. Khan from Pakistan felt a profound sense of responsibility to help build welcoming communities for other newcomers, saying “We must help others who are facing problems. The United States is a country of immigrants. The entire potential of the world is here.” Refugees in the U.S. are more likely to be entrepreneurs, tend to achieve upward mobility, and contribute billions in tax revenue to the U.S. economy. They fill key workforce gaps, and their innovations impact many facets of our daily lives. Many refugees volunteer their time and talents to assist others in their communities.
That kind of character, character born out of trials and tribulations, has produced the most profound hope. Mariam’s hope, her confident expectation that lives could be changed, that love and grace could win out over persecution, violence and despair, led her to lead and advocate and work for a better world. The hope Faheem, Samir, and Mohamed experienced empowered them to rebuild their lives with respect and dignity in Harrisburg, PA. The Khan family’s hope led their daughters to pursue higher education, an opportunity that would not have been a possibility for them in Pakistan. Despite his worry about his parents and his children’s futures, Wajdi is filled with hope, confident expectation, that his family will be reunited someday and live together safely without fear.
When refugees come to America, they have so much to learn. But we often neglect to realize how much we can learn from them. No matter their faith tradition, refugees in our community can demonstrate Paul’s description of how God’s love and grace are at work even through affliction, pressure, and tribulation. They can teach us how to patiently, even cheerfully, endure through hardship. They can show us what true character looks like. And they can inspire us with their hope.
As we center the voices of refugees over the next few weeks, we have the opportunity to explore where our own stories intersect with theirs. We may not have ever had the experience of having to flee our homeland and seek refuge in a strange and unfamiliar place. But we have all likely had some experience of having to leave part of our lives behind, of losing a way of life or a place that was precious to us, of being thrust into a situation that required us to adapt and learn quickly. Many of us carry different traumas or hurts that caused us to feel shame. Our culture is not so different from ancient Rome in its emphasis on honor and shame.
And so Paul’s words to the Roman church are for us, too. We, too, can hold our heads up high, even when we are experiencing challenges and pressures. Those pressures that sometimes feel like they will flatten us will produce endurance, and character, and hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
To God be all glory forever and ever. Amen.
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