Be Real

I have an odd collection of Bible commentaries on my bookshelf. They are a weakness of mine when I visit used book stores. There is something compelling about them that draws me in. Often they seem to be undervalued, and unappreciated, relegated to a dusty shelf in the corner of a back room that is dimly lit and seldom visited. In my mind they always seem under priced, which justifies my purchase and addition to my collection. My wife often disagrees, but, fortunately, she is quite tolerant of my obsession.

My collection started when I was in Bible school in the 1980’s. One of my early purchases was a commentary on 1 John, written by Warren Wiersbe, published in 1977. For $2.25 I thought I was getting a great deal, only to realize sometime later, when I removed the price sticker, that the original price was $1.95. Nonetheless, I own it and I have actually used it a few times. I can’t say that about all my purchases, but I can about this one.

This particular commentary, though, has caused me more contemplation than any other simply because of its title. On the dark cover is a trash can overflowing with theater masks and in typical 70’s bubble lettering is the title, “Be Real.” Two words, six letters - Be Real. 

I’ve spent a lot of time in churches since that purchase and I have spent a lot of time wanting to leave churches since then. I am certainly not without guilt, but it is the very absence of being real that often stirs up my desire to flee. There have been countless times over the years, where I find myself in the company of other Christians wondering if they shouldn’t consider reading Wiersbe’s commentary. “Be Real” often comes to mind listening to vague, flowery sermons on Sunday mornings, dramatic testimonies in small group settings, and laments over our white, American, middle class “sufferings” as Christians. Be Real. It seems we Christians too easily lose our sense of reality. Sometimes I wonder if we know what is real anymore at all.

Wiesbe’s subtitle of the book is just as appropriate today as it was in 1977 - “A realistic look at love and right living in an age which knows little of either.” Most Christians will be quick to agree and point fingers at the “worldly” culture around us. But 1 John (and Wiersbe’s commentary for that matter) was not written for the world, it was written for the church. The truth is that the people of the church, from its very inception, have struggled with what it means to be “real,” both in what it means and in how it looks. As simple as it seems on the surface, reality can be quite confusing.

Of course the intent of the commentary is to point us in the direction of reality lived in a life that has submitted to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, through the work of the Holy Spirit. While all Christians would almost certainly nod in agreement to this idea, the truth itself is more elusive. Because we live in a post enlightenment age, we expect truth to have tangible expressions. What’s more we have become accustomed to having control over those manifestations. As new creatures, new creations through Jesus Christ, there is a new reality that is not always tangible. It is a new sense of “being real” that is not, and should not, be in our control. The new reality is the work of the Holy Spirit, not the work of ourselves. But this is where we so often fail. It is where we fail as individuals and it is where we fail as the church.

What I have seen is that the culture of most churches promote only lip-service to the work and reality of the Holy Spirit while implicitly expecting the individual to maintain control. In this way being “real” is a matter of copying the culture of the church, not a matter of listening to the Spirit. It may be expressed through raising hands, or the way we sing, or the way we pray, or the version of the Bible we read, or how we relate personal experiences of others, or how we translate events happening to us or around us. It could be countless things. Unwittingly, we encourage others to take control of themselves and transform themselves to look more like the rest of the church. We tend to, inadvertently, discourage sensitivity to the reality of the Holy Spirit working to transform us and instead encourage individuals to make every effort to be who the church wants us to become. In the process we may look more “spiritual” by the standards of a particular church culture, but we lose a sense of the uniqueness of who God has created us to be.

God has created me to be unique and he has created you to be unique as well. Why should I expect you to be like me? Why would I expect you to worship exactly the same as me? Why would I expect you to be passionate about the same things I am passionate about? We all have our own life experiences, our own unusual DNA, our own baggage, our own struggles, our own personalities. God created us that way because our God is a creative God and there is every reason to believe that he relishes the special traits that he has granted to each of us. 

But too often, in our exuberance for solidarity, we mistake sameness for unity. Different seems unsettling and it disrupts the comfort of our particular brand of Christianity. So we respond by training others to conform to our culture and we label it discipleship. We discourage those characteristics that may not be wrong, but they certainly don’t conform. Through it all we soak it with Christian language to make our own efforts to transform others into our own likeness sound spiritual. 

God has made me an observer and a listener. It is part of who I am as an introvert and it is who I am as a worshipper. I am not usually animated. I tend to be more subdued than excitable. I can be moved in different ways, which my include a bit of energy, but more typically the physical expression looks relatively calm. I am also not a singer. I always joke that the louder the music, the better I sing. There are times when music causes me to ignore my disability and worship with more physical enthusiasm than is common to me. Sometimes I am so engaged in the song during worship music that I don’t care how badly I sing. At other times, however, my own voice and inability to carry a tune actually distracts me from worship. In those times of distraction or in times when I am prone to be lost in my thoughts about my faith, I find a more worshipful place in listening - letting the music soothe my soul while I focus on the words that stir my spirit. 

I have found that this sometimes does not sit well with many of my more extroverted brothers and sisters who often are leading from the front. I have been part of the congregation, multiple times, scolded for lack of participation during Sunday music. I have even been confronted about it directly. I have been coached to raise my hands (I am much more of a hands low tapper, than a hand raiser) with the not so subtle implication that I would be worshipping better if my hands were elevated. I have also been in congregations where my tapping and rhythmic bouncing has garnered glances of disapproval that say, “we don’t do that here.” Despite my surroundings, though, I do my best to respond in accordance to how I sense the Spirit is tugging on my heart. In any case, I would argue, to act differently in order to conform to the norms of the congregation would deny the reality of who God has created me to be. In order to conform, in either type of congregation, would require changes that I would make, not changes the Holy Spirit would make. So which reality is more important. 

I visited a church not long ago whose pastor has the express desire for a diverse, multicultural congregation. When I met the pastor I immediately loved his heart, and I still do. I love his passion and I love his desire to bring about reconciliation amongst cultures through the work of the gospel. I wanted to see firsthand how this pastor was seeking to encourage this kind of diversity, so my wife and I attended a Sunday service. Unfortunately I found more focus on expectations of conformity to a preconceived norm. I have never been part of a church that expects boisterous audience participation during a sermon, so when the pastor demanded it, I withheld, not out of defiance, but to stay true to who I am. That form of Sunday contribution is not part of my reality and to respond would have been forced, not real. It would have been me seizing control of me, to change my reality. Personally, I was comfortable being subdued while others joined in spirited participation, but the pastor was not comfortable with the volume of the feedback. Responding to the apparent lack of enthusiasm, he implored us to do more, because, of course, God wanted us to speak out more. 

I have no problem with others responding in whatever way they feel is appropriate, in a worship service, in a small group, during a prayer, or whatever it may be, but I hope that they would be willing to reciprocate and accept how I respond as well. I have been in enough churches and odd situations, that I am comfortable with being different in the middle of others. I don’t mind boisterous worship, but I hope that others are okay with my introspection in the midst of it, if that is my reality of the moment. What I am not comfortable with is the demand to participate in a certain way, as if it is the “right” way. I don’t appreciate the accusation that not participating is somehow not as “spiritual” and may even be displeasing to God. My ability to act in a certain way to conform to the norms of a particular group, should never be seen as more desirable than my willingness to submit to or search for the prodding of the Holy Spirit.

Forced conformity does not produce or enhance reality, it distorts it. Celebrating diversity does not mean that we should make a bunch of people with differences become the same, but rather it means being comfortable with and even celebrating those differences while they are expressed and represented in our midst. We would do well to worry less about the physical manifestations of believers in our congregations and tend more to cultivating hearts eager to respond to the prodding of the Holy Spirit to be real - to be real in the way God has created us to be, not who the church wants us to be.

Be real.