You would not claim to play the piano, if you could not!

One of the episodes of the Simpsons that for some reason sticks with me, is the one where Bart claims “I didn't do it”, when it was perfectly obvious that he did. He became famous for this one liner, went on TV etc. It was thought to be “cute.” It's not so cute when we do this as adults, but I suspect that at some level we all have done it, and continue to do it. Let me ask you this “Can you think of something in your past of which you are ashamed, something you do not want anyone to know?” I would be surprised if the answer was “no”. Admitting it, is another thing!

One community that I was a part of for a time, had this thing about being mature. It was a crock actually, a way of keeping people from dealing with what needed to be dealt with. It works like this, you accuse someone of being hyper sensitive when you have hurt their feelings, and then imply that if they were more mature, they would be able to overlook it. In the meantime it allows you to ride rough shot over the other persons genuine needs and desires. Its called control. Whatever else this is, it is not maturity, and it is does not foster Christian community! In fact it is one of the things that prevents it.

There is often a deep woundedness that lies behind this kind of control. More than likely it is covering a stronghold of shame, fear and control. Such strongholds start with the shame (the painful emotion caused by a strong sense of guilt, embarrassment, unworthiness, or disgrace). They continue with fear “what would people think if they knew?” And the fear progresses to control “I must prevent them from knowing about this, I must be very guarded”. Such control spills over into a way of dealing with life.

The best way to make sure that no-one finds out, is to erect walls and keep people at a distance. This way they will never find out. The problem with walls though, is that while they may at some level keep the bad out, they also keep the bad in and the good out. When a wound is not cleansed it festers, and this is what happens with our shame. It festers and increase, deepening our sense of shame. The whole cycle starts over, and becomes more and more entrenched. It leaves us lonely and isolated, and in some cases driven.

How to escape the cycle? We need to find safe places where we can be real and open and honest. Unfortunately even church can be shame based, that is driven by the need to appear whole and mature even when we are not. You would not claim you could play the piano if you could not! It would be too easy to be shown to be false. But if we did, in order to avoid being caught out, we might avoid anyone who owned a piano. We do the same sort of thing when we are trapped in a shame fear control cycle. Such strongholds cannot co-exist in the long run, with genuine Christian fellowship. If a shame based person (one described above) is part of a fellowship then one of three things will happen. Either the whole fellowship will become (or remain) shame based, or the shame based person will leave. The third option is that the fellowship will be deep enough to love the shame based person unconditionally and that person will eventually feel safe enough to open up and find healing in the process.

Unfortunately places such as I have just described are rare. The default is for us to “pretend we can play the piano when we cannot”. And this false maturity results and has resulted in multitudes of people out there, being deeply hurt by Church. Those of us who understand and are willing to be vulnerable need to create safe places. It is not easy, not the least of which is because we are likely to be shamed in the process (it is part of the control, driven by fear). But it is Christlike, He too was a wounded healer (Isaiah 53:5). It is the only way forward, and it is, and will in the end be seen to be, worth it!