“My friend Ray once told me we have the choice of being impressive or being known, but we can’t be both. I’m not sure I agree (especially since I’m impressed by people who aren’t trying to impress!), but I get his basic point. What we try to do with our efforts to impress is subterfuge. We put up a façade to hide our real selves from others. This is what’s so weird about the performative nature of so much social media. We know more about each other than we ever cared (or ought) to, but we still don’t know each other. We know only the carefully curated versions of ourselves we present. Ironically, all our attempts at being “seen” are actually attempts to hide…
Jared C. Wilson
What I love about Jesus is that I can’t play any of these games with him. He sees the angles I’m running. He knows the cards I keep close to the vest. And he knows what’s behind the vest…
One thing I love about Jesus is that everybody around knows he’s hanging out with sinners. He isn’t even trying to hide it.
He doesn’t care who sees. He doesn’t care who knows. He doesn’t even care that by spending time with “those people” he effectively is setting himself up to be judged as being one of those people himself. Jesus shares table fellowship with the wrong kind of people. This is a really big deal. It’s a much bigger deal, in fact, than a lot of folks make it out to be today. Some will say it’s proof, for instance, that Jesus “likes to party,” that he is cool with people doing whatever they want to do, that he just likes to have fun. This is an asinine reading of the relevant biblical texts, not simply because it makes Jesus out to be careless about sin but because it misses the real scandal, which is that Jesus both hates sin and is willing to be identified with sin in order to destroy it.”
Reflection:
Jesus Christ sets us free in countless ways, and one significant way is by empowering us to be honest. We often feel the need to carefully curate our image for others. It’s the frantic cleaning before the in-laws arrive, the little lie to seem more impressive or less embarrassed, and the constant concern over what others think of us.
Yet, Jesus meets us with His grace and truth, revealing and renewing us. The next step is allowing our relationship with Jesus to overshadow all other relationships. When we find safety and acceptance in Jesus, we can embrace the freedom of honesty in our lives with others.
Ultimately, we need the real us to encounter the real Jesus. That is true freedom.
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