Peek A Boo, I See You

 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

Jesus, the Great Shepherd, to the Pharisees, who knew a thing or two about shepherding.

 

This all started when one of my friends asked another the question, “Why does Mike leave church during the last hymn.”

I love these guys and meet with both of them once a week for coffee. But when word got back to me about the inquiry, I shrugged it off. I think it’s because I decided I didn’t know why, when in truth I did, but didn’t want to talk about it.

Because the answer is layered, and complicated.

For as long as I can remember, I have been someone who poured myself into other people. In the beginning, it was blatantly codependent: I’ll make you feel important, and in return, you’ll like me-okay?

In my adult life, I became a choir director. At the zenith of this work, I led a junior high program with 245 singers, who in small and large groups, were in my classroom every day. For a season within those five years, I was responsible for 11 singing groups, extending my work from the junior high, to a Christian ministry choir and small group at a local college, and also the youth and adult choirs at a church two-and-a-half hours from my home.

To all these singers I was friend and mentor, leader, accredited musician, but to the younger ones I was also big brother, father, confidant, and at times, guru. Through our coordinated efforts to make great music and become the best versions of ourselves, I poured into them all wisdom, grace, forgiveness, and a vision for the beauty of their best selves and wonder about their potential.

I considered what I did with these people as a ministry. I was sharing the grace of Christ in my classroom, when I wasn’t, of course, gratifying my flesh in my sins. I gave the benefit of my own journey to them. But eventually, I couldn’t bear the weight of my success. In my fifth year, I was too responsible to too many people. I had a seventh-grade choir with 89 students in it. I never learned all their names. The circumstances were beyond my ability to pour much of myself into anyone.

In response, I finished requirements to become certified to teach math, which I did for a couple years. It was so much easier to pour myself into students with a 30-seat legal maximum for my classes. However, now that I was double-certified, I was a candidate to teach overseas, and we moved to England for two years, and then The Netherlands for six.

When we returned, I ended up teaching music again in a neighboring town, and I didn’t enjoy it. Ten years later, my daughters, who had been my best friends, moved out and began families of their own. Problems in my marriage, for which I take the fullest responsibility for my part, were rising to a head. I was bored in my work, frustrated at home. Disillusion with all the churches we had tried led to our just not going at all.

And I began to make a lot of bad decisions.

Here, I’ll jump forward a few years to the day I left a local box store in handcuffs. That result was because of one specific act, but I had been out of control for a couple of years. In my selfishness and pity, I had decided to agree with my flesh. Sinful behavior would be my escape. Sinfulness would be the way I made sense of my world.

That day, the trajectory of my life was altered. I lost my teaching position and became disqualified from ever teaching again. My face was on the front page of our city’s paper twice; once after the arrest, and again after I pled guilty to two counts of harassment. I did 30 days in jail as a weekender, spending two nights of my choice, a week in the local jail. I was unemployable, even after completing my sentence.

It was my impression, and I think this is pretty accurate, although no one ever said this out loud to me, that I was not welcome anywhere in our city. I was a dirty sinner, and anyone who wanted to know about why, including the nasty details, could learn it. I began attending a 12-step program, because I fit in there. We were all broken sinners whom the local community was pleased to keep at a distance. There, I met a few men who would walk with me in my new life. They still do.

However, the possibility that I might still have something in me to pour into just anyone was a ridiculous notion. The enemy of my soul, who Jesus referred to once as the thief, had promised me relief while secretly planning to rob me of nearly everything I held, including healthy relationships. I lost, well, a large piece of my life.

I started attending a church, but after eight years, apart from the staff, I had no friends. I finally got a job at a Christian non-profit in town, whose board felt they could take a risk on a notorious sinner to scrub toilets and vacuum floors. After ten years there, I was an acquaintance to so many people in our city, most of them members of cooperating churches. Through my work in the food pantry, I was friend to many of our city’s down and outs, poverty stricken and homeless. On serve day, about 20 or so volunteers would show up and in team meeting before opening, I would get to pour myself into them. I so looked forward to those days! I made them laugh and cry as I shared my heart and the sanitized version of my walk with Jesus.

Then I retired.

After Covid 19 kept me out of church, and then led to my leaving my former church over whether Covid was a legitimate danger, I had looked for a church more solid, grounded in the truth and the gospel. The church I wanted was the church where one of my friends I’d met in the 12-step attended.

At least two years ago. Now, I was being pushed in my spirit to answer the question, “Well, Mike, why are you leaving during the last hymn?”

I confessed to my friend this morning over coffee I was doing it because of fear and insecurity. “I am afraid to be seen and, even worse, to be known.” He completely understood.

I’m a notorious sinner, and although everyone’s hearts should be broken by their least offensive sins, we all tend to make light of our sins, even the gross ones, if we know someone whose sins we deem worse than ours. Even Jesus-loving believers can be self-protective around a notorious sinner.

My friend confessed a similar hesitation, and we talked about being ourselves. He relayed he didn’t even know who he was after having tried to be whoever he thought others would be most pleased for him to be. I, alternatively, have a pretty good handle on myself. I’m terrified of outcomes, so I try to control circumstances that I might escape outcomes, which I can never do.

What’s a notorious sinner to do?

The answer, I think, is to trust Jesus with the outcomes. To trust Jesus in the moment anyone reveals they know my sins or remembers my arrest from 12 years ago. To trust Jesus in the awkwardness of sharing myself with others, knowing I’ve got a past experience about which I’d rather they not learn. To just trust Jesus.

Trust. Jesus.

Maybe you’ve sinned up your life. Maybe you’re a notorious sinner, too. Maybe you’re terrified to be seen and known. Maybe you’ve been ducking out of places during the metaphorical parting hymn. Well, I’ve decided I’m going to start sticking around, talking to people, letting others see me, even know me, and dare to believe I might pour myself into others again. I’m encouraging you to try this as well.

I’ll see you after church.

Mike