Face

"Most people spend their entire lives projecting, protecting, and maintaining this fiction" (Richard Rohr).

Zhang Haihua, author of "Think Like Chinese" says this about image: "Face, we say in China, is more important than life itself." I read this quote in an article written about how Chinese businesses hire white people to show up at events in order to give their products or services legitimacy. These businesses and institutions hire actors to show up, speak a few lines in English that no one understands, and be seen. Apparently, the illusion of white involvement sells. The actor gets paid before moving on to his next gig.

This need for self-misrepresentation isn't, however, just a Chinese phenomenon. We, too, live in a culture obsessed with image and illusion. From the time we are young, we are taught to put our best face forward and hide any part of us that might bring ridicule or judgment. We've mastered this in the church as well and have therefore missed out on a dynamic aspect of our lives together. In our efforts to keep up a reputation, many of us have simply faked it to make it.

In the backrooms of trust and grace, I have encountered many people whose need for acceptance and love was so great that they found it necessary to hide the parts of themselves they felt would be judged by others (struggles, insecurities, fears, sins, etc.). Whether we want to admit it or not, we in the church may be guilty of creating the very hypocrisy we hate. Rather than finding the safety in the Body of Christ for true confession, we keep those parts well hidden for fear of judgment, isolation, and rejection -- or shame. Consequently, if a person's struggles, weaknesses, or sins become public, they often get hammered by those who wouldn't have tolerated their transparency in the first place but still accuse them of "pretending to be something they are not".

Actress Salma Hayek once said, "So many people are busy trying to create an image, they die in the process." (Did I really just quote Salma Hayek?) I can't imagine the consequences of a humanity more interested in image than substance, but we don't need to look too far to see its effect on the human heart, mind, soul, and body. Perhaps this is one of many reasons why confession is so desperately needed in order to bring healing, grace, and mercy to man's condition caused by a pagan individualism that keeps him trapped in his own mind and a victim of his own battles.

I've been thinking about the subjects of hiding, transparency, and confession lately as I've been reading about ancient Christian practices. I still believe the church is called to that place where Jesus intersects with the world's needs, and I can't help but believe that followers of Christ who live their lives in transparency and who practice confession will have a profound, healing, life-giving presence with neighbors and brothers alike. God knows this generation is crying out for authenticity and transparency.

Image is killing us, but many of us are running after it like it is the source of all life!

"...everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind" (Ecclesiastes 2:11).

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