The apostle Paul says that in true community love is to be genuine. In the book of Acts we read that in the very first church people "met together with glad and sincere hearts." They were authentic. They were real. They learned to stop pretending to be something they were not.
Ortberg refers to a brilliant essay that C. S. Lewis once wrote called "The Inner Ring." In it Lewis says that in every society, every school, every church, every workplace, there are little groups of people who are on the "inside." And you can tell because they use nicknames and have inside jokes and get invited to certain events. And then there are those who are on the outside, those who don't get chosen at recess or invited to the dance or who get voted off the island. And all of us have the desire to be on the inside and the fear of being left on the outside.
The existence of these rings, Lewis says, isn't necessarily bad. We're all limited and can only maintain so many relationships. But the desire to gain status by being part of a high-status Inner Ring is a deeply dangerous one. It can lead us to constantly compare ourselves with others, to feel anguish when we're left out, and deeper anguish when someone close to us gets ushered in. It can make us compromise and do things that make us look good to those who are deeper in and higher up.
But the Inner Ring turns out to be like an onion. Once we make it to a certain circle, we discover there is another circle, and another one after that. And beside no inner circle can give us the worth that we want so badly to find, because inside each circle we discover that we're still the same person.
Jesus' disciples wrestled with this desire to be on the inside. Two of them, James and John, actually approached Jesus and asked if they could be in the Inner Ring when they got to heaven. They even had their mom lobbying for them. And when the other ten heard about it they flipped out, because if that happened that would mean, that even though they were apostles too, they wouldn't be on the inside. And Jesus just shook his head and wondered when these guys would finally get it that God's desire is to invite everyone into the Inner Ring. His church is not to be a community of exclusion, but a community of embrace.
One of the most penetrating stories about who's in and who's out is told by Matthew. If you have a Bible turn to Matthew 15:21-28. Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession." 23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us." 24 He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." 25 The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said. 26 He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs." 27 "Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." 28 Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed from that very hour.
So let's get real practical now and look at three stages of authenticity that will lead us into deeper levels of community in any relationship.
The first stage is guarded communication. Authenticity doesn't mean we tell everybody, everything about us. That would be unwise and unbiblical. There is a place for guarded communication. We need to be discerning in what we share with whom.
Proverbs 20:19 says, A gossip betrays a confidence; so avoid anyone who talks too much.
Don't be too quick to share something personal with somebody you don't know or somebody you can't trust. You can get hurt real bad. Most of us have had that experience and it's painful. I've been on both ends of that equation. I've had confidences betrayed and I've betrayed a few myself, which caused great pain. And when that happens it can shut us down for years in our attempts to build deeper community with people. And we can get real cynical and say things like, "There you go! What did I tell you? You can't trust anybody." When the truth is, "You can't trust everybody. But you can trust somebody."
So there's a place for polite, surface conversation. We all need that and that is a level of community, but it's not the deepest level. We were meant to go deeper.
The apostle Paul has a wonderful line in his second letter to the Corinthians when he writes in 2 Corinthians 3:18, And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
His point is that it's possible for people to live in community with "unveiled faces." We would say without wearing masks. He uses the line in retelling the story of Moses whose face glowed after he met with God on Mount Sinai. And everyone who saw him went, "Wow! What a man of God! He is so special!"
But one morning when Moses looked in the mirror to brush his teeth, he noticed his face wasn't glowing as much. He was losing his radiance and it scared him to death to think that people would see his fading glory and think less of him so he put a veil over his face. He hid his face because he wanted people to think he was more spiritual than he really was. Until his wife finally said, "Moses, take that ridiculous thing off you're not fooling anybody!" What a relief that must have been!
But we can do the same thing that Moses did. We can keep a veil over our face, or a mask, to hide who we really are. Some of us hide behind clichés. We're always "Top draw. Doing great. Never had a bad day." Some of us hide behind humor to deflect conversations that get too personal. Some hide behind their shyness or their busyness or their spirituality. You can impress people from behind the veil, but you can't make friends that way. The truth is we're drawn to people who live with unveiled faces.
If you want to be in a relationship where people share deeply with you, then you need to take the next step towards authenticity, which is appropriate self-disclosure. Someone has said, "Disclosure begets disclosure." It has enormous power.
The apostle Paul puts it this way in Ephesians 4:25, Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body.
How often I've seen this in small groups over the years. The group starts out with everyone being polite and having guarded conversations. But after a while there's this unspoken yearning to go deeper. And if the group doesn't people start to get bored with it and look for other things to do. Until someone has the courage to take the risk and share a struggle that they're having at work or at school or in their parenting or with their health or in their marriage and all of sudden the group dives into a deeper level of community. And often that's all it takes, one courageous person to lead them there, one person to risk being real.
Again, we're talking about appropriate self-disclosure. What may be appropriate to share one on one, may not be appropriate to share in a group or in a mixed setting of men and women. Nevertheless, this is the level where we take risks with those we trust and show our "as is" tag by revealing areas of failure or embarrassment or vulnerability, things that don't make us look good or that we're not particularly proud of. It's communication that goes beyond cliches and opens up the heart. It's the uncomfortable part of becoming real.
Jesus was the only person who ever walked this planet who was completely transparent. He never learned to hide. He let his friends see him in his unveiled moments of joy and sadness, anger and fatigue. At one point, shortly before he died, he said his friends, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Please pray for me (Mark 14:34)."
Every one of us carries hurts and scars and wounds. And our tendency since the garden is to hide as if our life depended on it. But that's exactly what we can't do. God wants us to come out from behind the bushes with him and with at least one other person. Our life depends on getting found. There's no healing in hiding only bondage.
That's even true at the physical level. Studies show that there is a real connection between self-disclosure and physical health. James knew that 2,000 years ago when he wrote in James 5:16, Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
Which brings us to the third stage of authenticity that leads to the deepest level of community. And that is confession. Now there's an overlap between self-disclosure and confession. Self-disclosure can include confession, but it also includes sharing things that have happened to us, hurts and violations that were out of our control. Confession, on the other hand, is a moral term, and involves naming specific things that we've done that need repentance and reconciliation.
Guarded communication is telling people that you're fine when inside you're really scared to death because you just lost your job. Self-disclosure is telling people that you're scared to death about the future because you just lost your job. Confession is telling someone that you're scared to death about the future because you just lost your job and the reason you lost your job is that you were caught stealing from the company.
Confessing our sins to another human being is powerful and crucial to our own healing and sense of forgiveness. When people begin to open up at this level, then God can produce the kind of deep community that he intends for us to enjoy.
Sin thrives on secrecy. And the longer we keep our sin hidden in the shadows of secrecy, the greater its grip will be on our lives. But when we bring it out of the shadows and into the light it quickly loses its power. And we bring it into the light when we confess it to at least one other trusted person. Confessing our sin to one another is the only way we can be delivered from the power of an addiction.
Alcoholics Anonymous has known this for years. The Fifth Step of the Twelve Steps of AA is to admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. It's to come out of the shadows and into the light.
Proverbs 28:13 says, He who covers up his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy. Confession is a powerful thing because it puts us in a place where God can transform our lives.
Believe me, I know the fear that comes with confession. Someone has said confession may be good for the soul, but bad for the reputation. That's why we need to find someone we can trust whether it be a professional counselor or a trustworthy friend.
Never forget that Valley View first of all a community of sinners before we're a community of saints. No one needs to feel alone around here in their brokenness. All of us struggle. Some may hide it better than others, some may struggle in different areas than we do, but we all do battle every single day. We all carry a mat.
So today's love lesson is that community starts with being real. "Becoming Real," said the wise old skin horse, "is a process. It takes time. It doesn't come all at once. It will be uncomfortable. But once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who just don't understand."
1. How easy or difficult is it for you to trust people now?
2. Rate yourself on a scale from one to five for hiddeness vs openness.
Where would you like to be?
3. What are the qualities you look for in a trustworthy person?
4. What is your veil? What do you hide behind?
-superficial conversation
-humor
-intelligence
-busyness/success
-shyness
-spirituality
5. What is one step you could take to reveal a little more of the truth about yourself in a close relationship?
6. Think about a community you are part of; a small group or your family etc, Are any dynamics present that might prevent intimacy?
-inappropriate humor
-violation of confidentiality
-judgmental statements
-premature advice-giving
How might you best address this?
7. Notice attempts that you make through the day to cover up. Practice freedom of speach. See how well you can cultivate a sense of transparency.
Who are you "unveiled" with?
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