The Royal Mask of Piety

It was a typical Sunday night. The air was warm and inviting to the people inside the building. In fact it seemed to call them like sirens to leave the enclosed confines and be baptised in the Spring sunset. But this was church and the people gathered were not only the committed...they were the committed religious. They resisted such temptations because they had an image to keep up and they had become the religious professionals. Their open gathering every Sunday night was held like a badge in the community evidencing that they were committed to God and proved that their devotional practice rose above the Sunday morning church attender. To God, they were the cream of the crop...faithful, studious, and devout practitioners of the letter of God's authoritative Word.

The usual assembly of familiar faces created a sense of comfortable acceptance and control. Everyone knew everyone...at least the religious faces they wore upon arrival. With a mask of worship and piety others admired them and God certainly looked upon them as the chosen ones. During the worship they proudly held their traditional hymnals and sang each song with a note of familiarity and pride...they were getting the words correct and even sang the parts with great harmony. They smiled at each other and felt right at home.

Then he walked in.

His more than casual clothing seemed irreligious. Doesn't he know that this is God's sanctuary and that His requirement was to wear our best? He walked in right off the street and then just sat in a pew by himself without a word. Chains from his pockets and tattoos seemed inappropriate and out of place. A leather coat and leather pants seemed at odds with the shirts, ties, and dresses of the faithful. The religious kept one eye on their hymnals and another on him. Their cross eyed facial expressions began to take the note of silent whispers among themselves about his identity and where he came from. To make matters even more fidgety, he was Hispanic. In an assembly of stayed white reformed middle age adults a twenty-something Hispanic carried a neon light that disturbed the religious air.

The looks continued but no one said a word to him.

The pastor started his sermon but no one was listening. The stares continued with a certain "nose direction" pointing upward. And then the pastor did the unthinkable...he started talking to the Hispanic man in the middle of his sermon. The night air became very thick and still and the religious piety feared for his life and their own. Could their be a gun or knife underneath those garments and chains? Please God protect him and us!

Now he is even making him stand out on the floor with him! He seems so irreligious and out of place...so common and unacceptable for such a place as this. Worry and uncomfortable tension cause the piety to sit wide-eyed and waiting.

He answers a question from the pastor and indicates that he is a missionary training to go to Mexico for full time ministry.

The smiles broaden across the crowd and the heads began to nod in religious approval. A collective "sigh" swung through the crowd as once again the piety felt at home in the sanctuary.

It's amazing how much love they showed him after the service was finally over!

The message from the pastor that night was on James 2:

If a man enters your church wearing an expensive suit, and a street person wearing rags comes in right after him, and you say to the man in the suit, "Sit here sir; this is the best seat in the house!" and either ignore the street person or say, "Better sit here in the back row," haven't you segregated God's children and proved that you are judges who can't be trusted? Listen, dear friends, isn't it clear by now that God operates quite differently? He chose the world's down-and-out as the kingdom's first class citizens with full rights and privileges. The kingdom is promised to anyone who loves God. (The Message)

As the pastor, I planted the man as an object lesson.

In our religiosity, we have forgotten the Royal Law of Love and assumed the Royal Mask of Piety.

I think God must be sick.

The Golden Godlife

Every day I find myself sitting in my window seat in my office. It's my place to be before God as part of my focus of daily solitude. In fact, it's large enough for me to sit in and practice looking at myself and the world through God's eyes. This morning I couldn't help but notice the framed picture located on the wall directly in front of me. The Norman Rockwell print represents an amalgamation of various nationalities all standing together. Underneath are the words, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

As a veteran of Sunday Schools and Vacation Bible Schools, I am familiar with this principle based on Jesus' own words in Matthew 7:12, "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets." Called the Golden Rule, this principle transcends all religions and cultures. You can find versions of this life rule planted within over 21 different religions. In fact, Jesus only expressed in a positive way what had already been written and expressed through people generations before. The difference is in the context...Jesus is saying because God gives you good gifts therefore you should love others out of gratitude to God based on a life of love. So for the Christian, the Golden Rule has a foundation in love which is centered in God. So it is in actuality the Golden Godlife. This is supposed to be a natural love lifestyle and not a legalistic rule of measurement.

So many times the windows of love in our lives get blocked and we operate out of selfishness and the Golden Godlife becomes, "Do unto others because they deserve it," or "Do unto others in order to have them do unto me." In both cases the focus is on me and my life and not the Godlife Jesus had in mind!

Can you imagine if we actually lived out the Golden Godlife as Christians on a daily, moment by moment basis. Instead of getting mad at my wife for running late getting ready, I ask to help her. Instead of ignoring that person on the corner with the sign asking for help, I take them to lunch. Instead of criticizing my boss, I imagine what it must be like to make such tough decisions based on information I'm not aware of. Instead of complaining about trash in the parking lot, I actually help to clean it up. As Americans we are quick to rush to the aid of disasters like Haiti (and we should) but my neighbor or work associate becomes forgotten. Putting ourselves in others' shoes is what the Godlife is all about. Seeing what God sees involves an outer awareness that comes from an inner open window.

These actions must come from an open window of love. As I sit in my window box I am reminded that daily I must open the window of my life to God...to His presence, His love, and His acceptance. In the same fashion when I let that same love flow through the open windows of my life to people, the Golden Godlife becomes a natural practice and not just a mechanical rule. This Godlife is meant to be shared and not just cherished...given away and not held... It's time to open my windows to Golden Godlife opportunities.

The We in Me

The road to being me is a journey that is often misunderstood. Because I live in a society in which I am indoctrinated with a focus on self-improvement, self-acceptance, self-help, and self-growth, the thought of another light shining on "being me" seems contradictory to the Biblical charge to "deny myself". The problem lies in the understanding of what denying myself means and it's relationship to community.

First, when Jesus shared that I was to "deny myself" He was not talking about stuffing myself out of sight in order to blend into a clone world of Jesus freaks. In fact the opposite is true. When I live in a world of true contemplation bathed in the light of the constant presence of God, I begin to be free from the fears of living lies and masks in order to be accepted by society and friends. This freedom to truly "be me" comes only from being with God honestly and openly and accepting His love. His presence breaks down those walls.

Secondly, as a contemplative I am not isolated in myself, but liberated from my external and egotistic masked self (the Biblical self denial) by humility and purity of heart (derived from a life of being with God). Therefore there is no longer any serious obstacle to simple and humble love of others. The more I am alone with God to learn how to be me, the more I am able to be my true self with others and the more freedom I have to unselfishly focus on serving people. I no longer have to fear what people think to cloud my service of love. I accept His love in order to channel that love to others.

So the opposite is true. To find the real me, I must sacrifice the masked me. When that false self with all it's fronts and pretenses is laid to rest, I can then live out of God's love freely to serve others. My life as a contemplative lived in an open world of serving others, leads to finding my true self and discovering others as we truly are. Here is the genuine reality of the free abundant life Jesus talked about!

Being me is meant to be experienced in the freedom and dynamic of being us.

Do You Know Who You Are?

We truly come to know ourselves in the context of others. The more isolated and disconnected we are, the more shattered and distorted our self-identity.
We are not healthy when we are alone.
We find ourselves as we connect to others.
Without community we don't know who we are.
Have you ever watched the early stages of American Idol - you know the part where unimaginably untalented people audition for the show? Have you ever wondered whether it's really possible that a person could be so unaware of a lack of talent? How could a person be twenty-four years old and not know? Didn't anyone ever bother to tell them? Wouldn't it be the loving thing to do? Yes, and that's the whole point. In a health context of loving relationships we come to know ourselves.
When we live outside of healthy community, we not only lose others,
but we lose ourselves.