How “You Too” Can Heal
As the event organizer took his place behind the music stand, styrofoam plates were slid to the middle of the tables, and the small talk began to hush. As the fluorescent lights hummed above us, weighing heavily on our weary eyes, I joined a hundred men in coming to terms with why we came together even before the sun came up. We were there to share breakfast and to share in a discussion on biblical manhood and sexual holiness.
As I looked around the room, I was struck by how I could feel both like an outsider and, at the same time, knowing that I was exactly where I needed to be. Fresh into my twenties, I sat in the same chairs as teenage kids and men in their seventies. Some in the crowd were single. Some were married. Some were fathers. Some owned their own businesses. Some served on church staffs. Some had been Christians for five months, others for fifty years. It didn’t matter. Satan shows no partiality.
I knew I belonged because I could feel the collective sense of burden men of all ages carried into the room that morning. After all, none of us were there to recognize ourselves for our accomplishments. Quite the opposite. We were there to be vulnerable and admit who we really were, before God and our brothers. It was a conversation no one jumps to begin.
Yet, in spite of knowing why we had come together, I strangely felt like the odd man out. The lie the Enemy often sells us in such an environment (and in all of our gatherings with believers) is that becoming vulnerable would be to our shame. We are convinced that the moment we vocalize our brokenness, no one could possibly continue to receive us or respect us. The pain of potential rejection, we tell ourselves, will hurt more than the hurting we’re doing right now in the depths of our pain. And so, we clam up. Or, even worse, we practice a false, comfortable version of authenticity, giving the impression of honesty while allowing our real selves to stay in hiding.
But on this morning, the speaker desired more for us. And so, he opened our time in a way no other man in that room would have wanted to. He began the conversation not with the one finger pointed out at us, but the three pointed back at him. Here was a man, respected and known by many in the room, practicing vulnerability to a degree none of us would have predicted. And in doing so, he brought me to the realization that made a dramatic difference for me.
You too.
In The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis is remembered for making the argument that “The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.’” Realizing commonality with someone in even the small and mundane elements of life lays a surprisingly sturdy foundation on which a friendship can be built. We’ve all experienced this in some fashion. We meet someone, and we find out about a mutual friend. We discover that we share a birthday or an anniversary with someone. We realize someone roots for the same sports team as we do. These “You too?” findings are so significant because they communicate the recognition of another person.
I’ve usually applied this principle to the context of friendships. But what if it cuts deeper than simple affinity? What if this same sense of recognition is vital and necessary to our flourishing in community with other believers? Our openness to invite others into being seen by something far deeper than what’s seen on the surface? Our willingness to confess sin to another?
Hide and See
The value and necessity of recognition for us as humans anchors the entire project of Andy Crouch’s book, The Life We’re Looking For. The first sentence could be its own chapter, as it is pregnant with insight for us: “Recognition is the first human quest.” Crouch points to a baby’s development and well-being, from its first moments into infancy and childhood, are entirely dependent upon this sense of recognition. It is why a newborn’s eyes bounce around as he is rocked and fed. He is looking for another set of eyes to look back at his own. It is why the preschooler holds up her latest art creation for Mom to see. She is longing to hear back how praiseworthy her work is from someone she knows and loves. It is why a graduating college student smiles and waves when he sees his family in the bleachers. We want to be known.
And yet, we don’t.
The instantaneous consequence of Adam and Eve’s fall into sin is highlighted in Genesis 3:7. “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.” Just seven verses earlier, the two were “naked and were not ashamed” (Gen. 2:25). But now sin has infected the human heart and spread immediately to their eyes, not only how they see, but how they might be seen. Sin turns unashamed vulnerability into a desperate fashioning of camouflage. Not only does sin steal our joy and kill our intimacy with God, but it destroys our desire to be seen for who we really are. Recognition might be the first human quest, but recognition is also the very first thing we hope to avoid in the presence of sin.
Walking in the Light
If the body of Christ wants to pursue true authenticity and accountability, it must find firm footing in the wisdom of 1 John 1:6–7:
If we say, “We have fellowship with him,” and yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. (CSB)
Notice the conditional nature of John’s writing. What is the outcome of a life that confesses to fellowship with God and his people while at the same time choosing to remain camouflaged? It is an exercise in self-deception, a refusal to live according to the truth of Scripture. But what is the outcome of a person’s decision to “walk in the light”? What happens when we commit ourselves to being seen for who we truly are?
Two key benefits are mentioned: First, it produces fellowship with one another. It forges the ability, and the desire, to sit with and pray with and rejoice with our brothers and sisters. Only the Spirit’s work through our honest vulnerability can do this. Second, it produces confidence (amazingly!) in the atoning work of Christ to cleanse us from our sin. Because, after all, who of us needs less assurance and hope in such truth?
Brené Brown, a leading researcher on issues of shame and vulnerability, provides helpful insight here, “If you put shame in a Petri dish, it needs three things to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence, and judgment. If you put the same amount of shame in a Petri dish and douse it with empathy, it can’t survive.” It seems that anti-authenticity or faux-authenticity breaks down the potential for true fellowship, while recognition of one another in our sin actually creates the potential for true fellowship.
Think about the people in the church with whom you practice community. It could be a small group you are a part of, a group you are pouring into or serving, or a handful of your close friends. What if the one thing that’s holding them back from stepping into real fellowship and vulnerability with your group is your own courageous choice to walk in the light before them? What if, by God’s grace, you can be honest about your sin, your anxieties, your challenges, and your honesty gives them the permission they’ve been waiting for to open up? Let’s love our brothers and sisters enough to go first. It’s our turn.
Zach Barnhart currently serves as Groups and Discipleship Pastor of Fountain City Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, and M.Div. student at SBTS. He is married to Hannah, and they have three children. You can follow Zach on Twitter or check out his personal blog, Cultivated.