Yesterday, as we were visiting with a church here in Orlando, I heard someone say, “It is here, when I get to church that I wear a mask, and when I leave, I live without it as I truly am.” I was so struck by what I heard that it has been sitting with me since then. I am not sure if it is because I identified with it, or because I was scared by it. Are we our authentic self both inside and outside of church?
Does who we become on Sunday morning match the person we are Monday through Friday? You know as I am thinking about this I don’t mean to say are you mean Monday through Friday and really nice and loving on Sunday mornings. What I mean to say is, are we fully who we are or does church ask us not to be who we are? An example of this mask wearing would be a person who feels the need to check their sexuality at the door because a church would not welcome it.
I suppose the point in wearing a mask would be to hide something, and we hide things because of fear. How many of us wear a mask of some sort when we enter the doors of a church? I would like to think that this church doesn’t call for people to wear masks, but rather with open arms asks them to leave them at the front door. Still, I wonder how many people wear masks at church.
I am sure there are places where we all wear our masks, but as I understand God’s unconditional love as revealed for us through the death and resurrection of Jesus, I understand the church is a place that calls us to leave our masks at the door and ask others to do the same. Further, I think that when we, as a church, are fully living into the call God has for us, we will be in a community where masks are not needed.
I hope that you do not find yourself wearing a mask on Sundays at church. I hope that the presence of your authentic self is all that you need as we are in the presence of God and that those around you welcome that true expression of yourself. For this is a place to call home. But still, the truth of the matter is, God knows who we are with, or without a mask. There is nothing that we can hide from the Creator. I am reminded of a Psalm.
Psalm 139
For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.
O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.
If only you would slay the wicked, O God! Away from me, you bloodthirsty men! They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD, and abhor those who rise up against you? I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
