Let’s take our masks off!

I wonder what images or situations it conjures up in your mind when you look at the photo.  It instantly reminded me of some vivid occasions in my life where I have felt on the outside looking in.  Like many of us probably, my first real experience of that was at school.

I am not looking to gain sympathy today but to explain a context.  At home, I was blessed to have a family where I could be me.  It was not perfect, but we loved each other as we were, and still do.  However, when I went to school, I discovered that I was different, too different in the eyes of some.  I am sure that many of us have had similar experiences. 

My family culture was not like everyone else’s.  Other people had milk bottles; we had a bucket.  Other people had trendy, fashionable clothes; I lived in hand-me-downs and wellies.  Other people had “posh”, clean houses with beautiful carpets; we had a farm kitchen where everyone was welcome, muddy boots tramped in and out frequently, and we shared the space with a pet chicken, occasional lambs, and even, on one occasion I can remember, a calf.   Other people had a TV.  We did have one briefly, but Dad ran over it with the bulldozer, which was more entertaining than anything we ever watched on it.  There were many reasons why I “didn’t fit”. 

We are all wired for community, wired to belong.  It is a fundamental need.  Back in the garden of Eden, God said it was not good for Adam to be alone (Gen 2:18).  So, what’s a girl to do when she doesn’t fit and has an innate need to belong?  She adapts.  So, I did.  Not finding others like me, I learned chameleon-like, to change to suit others.  I changed my accent and talked like everyone else, switching to talking “properly” when I came home.  Accepting that I would never be one of the “popular girls”, I changed my behaviour to try and fit in, becoming one of the “back seat gang” on the school bus.  In the classroom, I chose to indulge in behaviour outside my character, to try and win friends and fit in, which obviously impacted my education.

How many of us have done the same, changing our behaviour, attitudes, appearance, speech, habits, or beliefs?  How many of us, if we are honest, still do it as adults?  For many of us, it is subconscious.

Our culture teaches us that, to be loved, accepted, and included, we need to become something we are not.  We learn not to let our emotions show.  We learn to hide behind a mask of perfection and performance, or of indifference, or of pseudo confidence, or of denial; or we escape into fantasy, addictions, or some other coping mechanism. 

Sadly, I also took my “adaptability”, my masks, and my coping strategies, into my marriage which meant that by the time I had been married 20 years and the marriage failed, I had completely forgotten who I was.  Undoing that is an ongoing process as I co-operate with Holy Spirit’s work in my life.  The good news is God says he will complete what he started.  (Philippians 1:6)

We may well have read the articles, heard the sermons, read the books, and know the scriptures about how God made us unique.  The reality is that there is something within us that resists the truth that God made us unique, different, one-of-a-kind.  That pull to belong, to be part of a community, is so strong that it constantly seems to war against the understanding that I am me.  The truth is, something inside me often screams, “I don’t want to be unique!” 

However, I know and believe the truth that “…we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” (Ephesians 2:10). I have read and meditated on the wonderful truths in Psalm 139.  I know that he has designed me carefully, according to those good plans and purposes so often quoted in Jeremiah 29:11.  I have had the screen savers, and the fridge magnets; I have made the declarations that say that I am made to stand out not fit in; that I am created for a specific purpose, in a specific place, at a specific time (Acts 17:26).  I have repented for believing lies about myself, forgiven those who caused me pain and been healed of wounds caused by rejection and bullying, and so on.  “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free,” it says in John 8:32, and I can testify to it being true in my life.

Moving location recently, as happens so often when we move somewhere new, some things have resurfaced.  We can tell ourselves at this point that nothing has changed.  We can even start to believe a lie at this point, that we will battle this stuff forever.  The reality is that God wants to take us deeper in our freedom, to upgrade our experience of him still more.  Thank you, Jesus!

In a new place, we look around and try to find out what the culture is and we start to adapt to fit.  It happens to many of us in new jobs or new schools or other new contexts, to a greater or lesser degree.  Some of that is helpful, there are processes, procedures that make the community we have joined work.  We will need to adapt and change to some things, but where it is not good is when we lose our identity, lose our ability to be different, to be ourselves.

Since I arrived here, I have caught myself trying to make my accent less English; waiting before voicing my opinion in group scenarios to see what other people say first and see if my opinion “fits”; looking round my room before Zoom calls to see if there was anything “weird” that doesn’t fit how I want to present myself, and so on.  After several weeks of this, I pinned myself up against a wall by my shirt collar and told myself to “Just stop it!”  Fear of what people think results in paralysis, results in us being unable to be ourselves.  It is crippling.

As I processed with God, I realised afresh that there are keys in my understanding of how he sees me, how he reacts towards me.  He said,

            I don’t just tolerate you; I celebrate you.
      I don’t just accept you; I welcome you with open arms.

There is a huge difference between being tolerated and feeling celebrated; between being accepted and feeling welcomed.  Receiving God’s love at this deeper level is a key to greater freedom.  My experience of who he is and how he loves me brings greater confidence, greater capacity to be me.  This is only part of the journey to freedom for us though.

We need to learn to find ways of not just tolerating difference, of helping people feel accepted, but to go one step further and find ways of creating a culture that celebrates difference, that enables people to feel genuinely welcomed. I believe we need to help people understand that who they are is of value and that their contribution is genuinely needed for the body to function effectively. I believe we need to do this in ways that don’t just pay lip service to this concept, but that really address all the ways our church culture has warred against what God has planned for his family to model a supernatural love where every tribe, every tongue, every culture, every God-inspired, creative expression of mankind can be fully part of his beautiful church.

For many of us, our experience of church has not been that it is a different kingdom.  It has felt very much like the world we all live in day-to-day.  It has been a place of masks, of pretending, of fitting in.  Sadly, I know of people who have left the church because they felt they did not fit, were too different. That makes me want to weep.

I believe that God has been calling us for some time to that place of being “naked and unashamed” that Adam and Eve experienced in the garden of Eden (Genesis 2:25).  We can only really and truly be “brought to complete unity”, as Jesus prayed in John 17:23, if we really know each other.  To know each other, we need to be able to be real and authentic.  Right now, I am not sure how many of us feel safe enough to be real, vulnerable, and open, but that is where God is taking us.

Oh, how good that will be.  Keeping up appearances is exhausting; pretending is exhausting, and we all long to take our masks off and be free!