TWO MASKS MEETING
“So much human socialising is two masks meeting”
This is a quote from Andrew Ollerton’s book on Romans that I was using as preparation for Sunday’s talk.
It got me thinking about a previous Vicar who used to say “Take our masks and leave them at the door”. The inference being that church is a place where we should be able to be ourselves. Classically denoted as “not a home for the perfect but a hospital for the wounded and broken”.
It’s a noble sentiment but in my experience very difficult to achieve in practice.
There are many scriptures which infer that this should be true in theory:
34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34)
12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. (Colossians 3:12-14)
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. (2 Cor 12:9)
Church, if these models were followed should be safe places to be vulnerable, honest and open.
But, Paul also knew that this was not always the case, that is the reason we have the pastoral letters he sent to the churches. We would not have this instruction and modelling if churches he planted did just what he taught, modelled and passed on from Christ. It was the fact that they didn’t that he had to write to them!
A little later in the second letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes this:
20 For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you as I want you to be, and you may not find me as you want me to be. I fear that there may be discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder. (2 Cor 12:20)
So that raises the question about church, about Christ Church, why do we wear masks and play out a version of ourselves that we are willing to let others see?
I would like to suggest that it has more to do with us than them.
Let me explain.
One of the things one learns in ministry is not to react with shock when faced with the distasteful, devastating or outrageous. Empathise of course but to get carried away with the emotion actually can make the sharing worse, and even be regretted by the other person.
It is good to hear often “that must have been very difficult for you” or be asked “how did that make you feel”. Because often, someone just wants to be heard. Not to be fixed.
So what reactions , actual or perceived, might make people hold back. Put on a mask and only share the sanitised version of their lives?
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Feeling judged
There is a story about someone with a troubled past and difficult present being asked “have you thought about going to church?” The response was excoriating – “why would I want to do that? I already feel terrible about myself!”
We are called neither to be judge, nor jury. But listener and advocate.
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Fear of gossip
Gossip is corrosive. It is roundly condemned in scripture and is recognised for what it is, salacious and often based on speculation, wildly inaccurate reporting and a wish to pass on personal information to meet personal need to show off what one knows.
We are called to treat personal information and vulnerability shared with us as a privilege.
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Fear of being vulnerable
If someone can be vulnerable before you, they trust you. Trust is earned, and maintained through consistently being trustworthy. Trusting that will not be judged, gossiped about or subject to simplistic fixes. Trust will build when someone knows that you will sit with them, alongside them, in their difficulties. Not taking from them, but adding a scaffold on which to lean.
We are called to be with people, allowing them the space to be vulnerable.
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Fear that hopes will be laughed at
God works with the unusual suspects. He so often uses the less gifted, weaker, lowlier person to do his will. The world has certain standards and expectations. But God operates outside of those criteria. He works with weakness that comes with faith.
We are called to be encouragers of ambition, prophets of God’s call on people’s lives. Even if it seems unlikely to the world!
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Not knowing people well enough
In some circles in recent years the case has been made that there is a maximum size of an effective church. For Francis Chan in his Letters to the Church, he analysed what a scriptural church looks like, with deep love and prayer, worship that is sacred and a missional fervour to go out together to grow God’s Kingdom. And in his conclusion he states that this is impossible to achieve effectively in a “church” of more than 50! It is not possible to make the connections necessary with more than a few dozen people.
We are called to intimacy, vulnerability, openness and encouragement in smaller units.
We, like almost every church, can do more to be “mask free”. Not in the Covid sense, but in how we present to others. A safe place to belong, be heard and to receive the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the love of God pour into our vulnerabilities – and receive his wholeness and healing.
The challenge for all of us is this – what can I do so that others can take off their masks?
And this might mean forming smaller units within our church structures – is pastoral, its missional and its how they did it when church grew the fastest and most consistently.
The world looked at the early church and could say “look at how they love one another”.
Just as Jesus commanded them to do. Love one another as I have loved you.
Worth pressing into, don’t you think?
Every blessing
Doug
MAKING PASSIONATE DISCIPLES – 2025