Can We Be Real (part 2)

This is part 2 of my thoughts about authenticity within the Christian faith.  You can read part 1 here.

***********

I think the first step towards being real and authentic, is to understand why we are wearing masks in the first place.

I think there are several reasons we wear masks.

1. We want to be accepted.
We find a church, or a group of people and the metamorphosis begins. Some of us are really good at this. I’m able to change myself to mimic the people I’m with. I do this subconsciously, but I know it goes back to that need to be accepted, loved and a part of something.

2. We are taught to do this.
There are many ways we are taught to hide.  Just one example is this (I’m not intending to offend anyone).  In some Christian camps we are taught that our words have power. We know there are many scriptures pertaining to the power of the tongue. But rather than confessing that we are not perfect, and that we need a savior, we are taught to confess (ie. lie) what we want to be. So if we mention we are sick, we are told to confess health. My leg is not broken, it is healed and healthy. If our leg is not healed, it is due to our lack of faith and our failure to confess properly, rather than the fact that we slipped on the ice and broke it. We are not allowed to speak out loud anything contrary to perfection. We cannot mention that we are depressed, sad, grieving, sick, broken, hurting, or we expose our lack of faith.  So we put on the mask of religious perfection so that others will see our faith, and not our faults.

3. We fear judgment.
If we are taught to confess perfection, we will be judged if we say anything else. Also, rather than really hearing one another, we try and ‘fix’ one another.
Have you ever spent much time around a religious person? You know who I mean… that person who is always cheerful, kind, reads their Bible 7 hours a day, quotes scripture, and is perfect in every visible way? Just try it sometime.   Tell them you’ve been feeling depressed, or you are worried about one of your children.   You’ll feel about 2 inches tall, and totally inferior. I’m not saying reading or quoting the Bible is wrong! I’m just saying that we start putting on masks to avoid the lectures. Perhaps if we would support people rather than tear them down, people would feel more free to share!

I’m sure there are other reasons to wear masks. Some of it is personality. We may just be a more private person. Some of it is family, and the way we were raised. “Don’t air the dirty laundry.”

So many people are looking for something ‘real.’ They aren’t finding it. In order to be a part of things, they have to pretend to be something that they are not, and honestly, that isn’t very attractive to a lot of people.

What other reasons do people wear masks in your experience?

Can we truly be “real” AND be saved?

Just be ‘real.’

It is such a simple concept, and yet one of the hardest realities to actually live… being ‘real.’  I find that people who have been in church for years, cannot accept reality, and the younger people who are desperately searching for something ‘real’, can be so open to it.

My goal is to be real, while not losing sight of who God is.

Religion takes away who we are.  Covers it up and creates a persona of perfection that is false.

However, I find there is a tendency when moving out of legalism to not only be real, but to throw the baby out with the bath water.  I understand that when we have been indoctrinated so far to one side of an issue (ie. our behavior must be appropriate to be accepted in ‘church’) and we finally realize this is killing us, the knee-jerk response is to move as far from that position as we can.  So we move to what we perceive is complete freedom.  (Yes, I know this from my own life, as well as observing others).  The pendulum has now gone from one extreme to the other.

Now we no longer have to ‘behave,’ so we use our freedom to discover all the ways we can mis-behave.   We attempt to see how close we can get to the cliff without falling off.    I think in some ways this process can be helpful in loosing the grip of legalism, but it can be self-destructive when taken to extremes.  When we moved from an abusive and legalistic church, we found ourselves in a small congregation that believed you could “live like hell, and still get to heaven.”  We began experimenting with our freedom.  And I must admit, it felt really great.  However, over time we discovered that Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 6:12  to be true.

“Everything is permissible for me”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me”—but I will not be mastered by anything.

What can happen is that we create a new rule that says I can do anything.  Sure, but not everything is helpful, nor good, nor beneficial to us, and sometimes our freedom can harm others.  Some things can harm us physically, emotionally and spiritually, so we eventually find our way back to a middle ground that rejects legalism and religion,  and encompasses love and grace, while using some good old fashioned common sense.   I hope some of this makes sense to anyone besides me, lol!  I’m still stomping around in this issue, trying to figure out exactly where I stand on all of this.  It will take me the rest of my life to finish this journey, and I’m finally becoming OK with that.

But in this process we must reject the temptation to judge someone else’s walk.  It is simply not up to us to decide whether they are “good-enough” or “behaving enough” to be acceptable.  I have friends who land on either side of this issue.  Some who are bound up in religion…. and others who walk the wild side well beyond my comfort zone.   And yet they love Jesus.  Can that be enough for us?

This post started out with the question of whether we can ‘be real AND be saved.”  Absolutely.   I believe we can be real if we drop the perfection seeking, behavior management program that we ‘think’ we are supposed to be following, and follow Jesus instead.  More than this… I think we MUST learn to be real and authentic people, if we want others to be able to see Jesus in us.  I suspect that the religious cloak prevents anyone from really knowing us, and from seeing the things at work inside of us, and it is also an turn-off for many who are looking for something ‘real.’  Perhaps this statement is too strong… but it is where I stand at the moment.

I guess my entire point is this… we need to be real, authentic people who are so in love with Jesus that we spill that out over all the people around us.

Love God, Love People.   To me, that is the crux of the matter.

This was long… my apologies… but if you have thoughts, I’d love to hear them.