2 Corinthians 3:17--4:2
Once upon a time there was a man. He was a despicable man. He had led a mean and disreputable life. His character was vile. And his face. You know how our faces reflect the kinds of lives we have lived, especially once we are old. This man’s face was almost beastly. Because that’s the kind of life he lived.
But, lo and behold, this despicable man fell in love with a beautiful woman. Hers was a beauty that shined through a nearly pristine character. She was adorable.
The man knew he probably had no chance. Here was a woman totally out of his league. He knew. She had no idea who he was. All he knew was he had fallen in love.
So the man put on a mask. It was the mask of a visage of a man who had lived an entirely different life than he had led. It was the visage of a man who had enjoyed life, who had lived his life in service to others. It was the mask that showed a face to the world that he had spent his life well.
With his mask firmly in place, he began to woo the woman. He approached her as if he was the mask he wore. The man treated the woman as the face on his mask would have treated her. She fell in love with the man.
But then, out of the man’s past came one of his old associates—a one time partner in his previously shameful and heinous life. He saw what the man was trying to do, and that he had nearly succeeded. So the associate confronted the man in front of the woman he had come to love, and who had come to love him. The associate dared the man to take off his mask and show this poor woman the real person behind the mask. Demonstrate to her how he had duped her. Show himself. Show his true detestable self.
Sadly, looking into the eyes of the woman he loved, the man reached up to the mask. He slowly lifted the mask up and away from his face. And there, to the shock of the lowdown associate, but unknown to the man who had been de-masked, was a face identical to the mask he had just removed.
What you love, who you love, changes you.
A couple of weeks ago, my message was about the three people we are: the person we are, the person others see, and the person we wish we were. The man with the mask, having fallen in love with the woman, gained a vision for the person he wished he was. The question, though, is once you have gained that vision, how do you change? Even though you have had a long held pattern of living, that you may not be especially proud of, how do you make significant change? Put on a mask?
No. It all depends, as I just said, on what and who you love. And it depends, as I shall explain in a minute, on glory. The truth is, change can happen. But there’s only one way.
II
I wish I could have glued a little mirror on the front of each of the bulletins. Because, if I had done that, I would now be asking you to look in the mirror at yourself, and think about the person you see—body, mind, and spirit. Let’s pretend. Look into the picture of the mirror on the front of your bulletin, and pretend you are looking at your self. What and who do you see? What are you thinking as you look into that mirror?
Then I wish I had the super power of being able to hear all your thoughts—to hear all that you are thinking about your selves as you look in the mirror. What would I hear? Would I wish I didn’t have that super power after I heard what you were thinking of your reflection? Would what I hear break my heart for you all? Would what I hear make me aghast at your blatant narcissism?
For the most part, I think I would be saddened by what I heard from your minds. I would be saddened at how hard you are on yourselves. How self-critical you are. Maybe even how ashamed you are of yourselves. That would make me sad. I think that would certainly make God sad.
I was introduced to a woman by the name of Brene Brown a couple of weeks ago. Alan Luttrell introduced me to her. Actually, Alan’s daughter Lindsay introduced her dad to Brene, who then introduced her to me. It was all done via a Ted Talk. I hope you’re familiar with Ted Talks online; they are a great resource of brief, informative, inspiring talks on just about every subject under the sun.
This one particular Ted Talk by Brene Brown is titled “The Power of Vulnerability.” I showed it to my class on Wednesday Family Night. In that talk, Brene shows how shame, and the many ways we feel ashamed of ourselves leads to all kinds of dysfunction.
In the Ted Talk Brene describes how we try to deal with our shame and attempts at vulnerability. She talked about four ways we attempt to cope with the shame we feel personally. First, she said we numb. The problem, Brene says, is that if we try to numb one area of our life, we end up numbing other important feelings and emotions. We operate under the fallacy that we can numb just our negative aspects, and leave the positive aspects to themselves. That, evidently, isn't accurate. Numbness affects the whole of our aspects.
Secondly, she says we deal with shame by trying to make the uncertain certain. If we can make everything black and white in our lives then we think we're in control. But there's a certain amount of mystery in being human and that mystery doesn't fit in neat categories. One of those mysterious aspects of being human is the feeling of vulnerability. Uncomfortable with vulnerability, we try to turn that mystery into a certainty so we think we can control it.
Thirdly, she said we deal with shame by trying to be perfect. Shame is the basis for our perfectionism. If we can make ourselves perfect, and never mess up, then we will never feel shame. For those of you who are perfectionists, how many have succeeded in becoming perfect? None!? You should be ashamed! And so the cycle goes. The less you measure up, the more shame you feel, the harder you try to be perfect.
And lastly, we deal with our shame by pretending. We pretend we are someone else. We pretend we don't feel anything. We pretend we're OK. We pretend we're fine. And the more we pretend, the less real we become.
I've become fascinated with all this, so I bought three of Brene Brown's books and am currently in the process of reading one, titled, I Thought It Was Just Me. In that book, she wrote,
"Shame often prevents us from presenting our real selves to the people around us--it sabotages our efforts to be authentic. How can we be genuine when we are desperately trying to manage and control how others perceive us? How can we be honest with people about our beliefs and, at the same time, tell them what we think they want to hear? How do we stand up for what we believe in when we are trying to make everyone around us feel comfortable so they won't get angry and put us down?" (p. 242)
III
In a review of this book, one reader wrote, "Reading Brene Brown is like having someone standing in my face, shaking me, and saying, 'You see that crazy thing you're doing? Stop it!'"
Brown is certainly making me think, as she has for thousands of people, according to all the reviews of her book.
But the person who really does it for me is the apostle Paul. Paul, in ways only Paul does, stands in front of me, nose-to-nose, and tells me the truth about myself. But the truth he tells, especially here in "two" Corinthians--as Donald Trump calls it--may surprise you.
Let me read again, the verse that was read before. This is from the King Jimmy Version. (I wonder if anyone called King James, King Jimmy. Probably not without losing their head.)
But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. (3:18)
Did you get that!? Did you get how amazing that is--what he said? He said that as believers in Jesus, we all stand in front of a mirror, looking at our reflection. But the reflection you see isn't the one I mentioned earlier, when I talked about if there was a mirror on the front of the bulletin and you looked at yourself and what you would think as you looked.
Paul says, with our faces fully exposed and open, with no masks to hide behind, look into God's mirror. What do we see, asks Paul? Paul says we see in our faces, the "glory of the Lord." We don't see a reflection of someone who is despicable and awful.
The word "glory" in the Greek literally means, honor, dignity, grace, majesty. That is, especially, when the word glory refers to people, as well as God. So when Paul says we look into God's mirror and our reflection is one of God's glory, we are seeing ourselves as people of honor, dignity, and grace. We can share in that glory only because we love and belong to Jesus.
It is like my opening story. We have been despicable at one time. But we fell in love with Jesus. We thought we had to put on a mask that showed Jesus we were different people. We were ashamed, thinking that Jesus wouldn't love us unless we looked a certain way, or our visages were hidden from him. So one of the ways we tried to get in good with God was through wearing a mask. Which only lead to numbing, perfectionism, and a pretend life.
But our love for Jesus was all we needed to change us. Remember, I said, who we love, changes us. If we love Jesus, that changes us. When we love Jesus, God hauls in this mirror that Paul describes, and we are asked to stand in front of it and take a look.
Instead of flinching and seeing the person we thought we were, created by our shame, we see a person with the face that reflects the glory of God. Paul says we are changed into that same image of the glory of God because we love Jesus. But that's not all. Paul goes on to say that we are being changed "from glory to glory." We are being transformed into glory and more glory and more glory--more honor, dignity and grace because of who we love.
The only way to change who we are is to fall in love with Jesus. Once that happens, God uses that love to change our faces into the glory of God. And keeps on changing our faces, adding more and more glory. It means not having to live according to a shame-based life, but a glory of God based life, a love for Jesus based life. It all depends on who you love.
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