Modern-Day Lepers

My lovely wife and I are dating more of late (a sweet thing) - in part, to celebrate our 20th anniversary (we'll essentially celebrate all year), and also because the kids are away on extended holiday, so it frees up a bit more. (Moral of that story: parents, send your kids away once in a while. You'll re-connect, and you can still love them from afar. It usually does them good to get out of the nest too). Anyway, on one of our recent dates we decided to take in the new X-Men: First Class movie. Cool fun!

These X-Men guys, if you don't know the previous films or the comics, are "mutants," human aberrations of some evolutionary process-gone-wrong (or right, depending on your point of view). Some mutants grow colorful insect wings and spit gooey fireballs (Angel), others can heal super-fast and have gravity-defying hair-do 's (Wolverine, who makes a cameo in this one), and still others can read your mind (Charles Xavier) whether or not you want them to - and then counsel you on what you were about to do (Ahh, just the mutation I need!)

Evolutionary mutations do make fascinating fodder for fantasy movies and Comic-con gatherings, but I happen to like the X-Men films because, not only are they creative, well-made, and fun - but I also relate to one of the underlying premises: Don't we often feel like a modern-day leper (or mutant) in our own skin?  

The average guy on the street in X-Men either has it (this mutant gene) or he doesn't - and the film certainly plays with the tension of who's really the "normal" and "acceptable" in society (there's a whole Nazi angle dangling in the background too). But of course if the guy's got it, he's not talking - it's very much a covert affair. The reason for the silence hits all too close to home.

Watching these characters wrestle, I couldn't help but think: "What is it inside us, this "mutant gene" that shuts us up and sends us into hiding?" I suspect that one especially strong strain, with many facets, might just be our "mutant feeling" in a nutshell: shame.

Not Just X-Men Hide

Shame has a unique power to shut us up, taking away our voice and our honesty. We've all sensed it. It can leave us feeling cast-aside by others -which like the mutants, might actually be true, sadly- or even draw us to take up residence in our own self-imposed "leper colony;" one that lives within. (If we were honest, we might rather have actual leprosy than shame - the former being a "disease" that's now fairly easily cured, while the latter is much more stubborn to go.)

So imagine we can take out the microscope for a minute, and pause long enough to look at this mutant gene called "shame." After all, the original design was "naked without shame" (Gen. 2:25). The sample on the glass? The human heart. 

Now here's one strain, a case of what I call "every-day shame": You've done something wrong (why is this so hard to believe?), or stupid, and you don't want to confess your weakness or sin to anyone - especially your spouse or family. Like the mutant, you really despise the idea of looking bad or wrong (feeling shame), or appearing weak, and the possibility of not being thought well of or accepted just kills you. 

So, how do you deal? Well, like the mutants, you just don't talk about it - you shut up - but then end up not so honest when your spouse, or parent asks, "How was your day?"

In this case, the motivating desire (call it 'My Favorite Self-Salvation Attempt') comes into focus: "If I just pretend to look good, I will secure my acceptance with others - which if I could actually be honest, is often way more important to me than God, and what he thinks." Yep, pride is definitely involved here in this mutated strain.

Different Strains of Shame

Or, there are other versions of shame one might detect in certain individuals, such as accident victims and war vets. This "survivor guilt shame" courses through their veins, in some cases, even though they've done nothing wrong relative to the trauma - yet they still feel a certain shame about being alive. "Why them, and not me?" they ask...but mostly just to themselves. Just shut up and try to live with it, they think. (The question of a good God invariably is at root, and nags at the edges of their heart.)

Or - and this one deserves a whole book - shame may be cast on you by another, such as in sexual abuse, leaving you with a deep sense of feeling defiled, or dirty. "Unclean," the ancient cry of the leper, becomes your silent cry. This one may be the hardest of all to talk about - rarely will you hear this dealt with in family contexts, or churches - and so the sufferer (leper) lives in silent shame. (And what's even worse - if one can imagine it - is when the sufferer finally has the courage to talk about it, and then is labeled by others as the problem - in order to silence them again! This is all too common, if not enraging for the victim. Note: For an excellent new resource on this subject, see Rid of My Disgrace, by Justin and Lindsey Holcomb)

A Wounded Hero Comes

What's cool in the X-Men story is that an unlikely hero/rescuer emerges to lead the outcasts to a place of refuge - his own lavish home. In the process, "Xavier" suffers greatly at that hands of the enemy. Still - and this is the beautiful part - he gladly welcomes the weird and strange to join him, and he teaches and takes care of them. He doesn't just talk the talk, He "embodies it," identifying with them. And not only this, his heart is big enough to seek other outcasts too, and bring them home. What's more beautiful to a "leper" than that? Sound vaguely familiar?

Hopefully. But here's something even better. In Jesus, you have a TRUE Hero and Rescuer who see your "mutant" condition of shame. (Look at his time on earth - Jesus longed to be with the misfits, the outcasts, the broken - good news for us!)  And much like Xavier, once he finds you, he makes his home with you and begins to target and go to work on the very things that Evil uses to attack you (the whispered distortions about God and His goodness, as well as your own guilt and shame. See I John 3:8).

This message about Christ is what brings faith (Rom. 10:17), and faith renewed is what we need. Why is it so vital to hear, again and again, these Gospel promises? Because we can still think like mutants, often, even though we've been bought with the precious blood of the King. We've been adopted into His family, but we're still prone to shut-up in our shame, or pride. We still need daily grace to shun our pernicious self-reliance and be on guard to open our hearts to be encouraged and loved by others, so that we won't be "hardened by sin's deceitfulness" (Hebrews 3:13). We still need to remind each other of the promises and character of our good God every day.

Our Daily Dose
The moment by moment issue is still this: we are to come with empty pockets and hands. "Come empty? Seems so simple, right?" But in fact, it's often the hardest thing to do! (Despite the fact that we may sing "I Surrender All!") Leave your reputation as a "good parent," and come. Leave your "status and position" at work or church or wherever, and come. Leave your right answers, and your "right appearance," and come. Leave it all...  

Come to the fountain and receive, as Francis Schaeffer put it, "A present application of the blood of Christ." Hear again "Be clean!" and believe. Believe that Christ is all you need, see Him only, and when faith is enlarged again, (even if only a mustard seed size), understand that now anything is possible. Christ is for you!

The old preacher JC Ryle puts it well (a quote sent to me this week by my wife):

"He can wash us thoroughly from all the defilement of sin in His own blood... Let this sink down deeply into our hearts. There is medicine to heal our sickness. If we are lost it is not because we cannot be saved. However corrupt our hearts, and however wicked our past lives, there is hope for us in the Gospel. There is no case of spiritual leprosy too hard for Christ."

That's how the mutant and leper becomes a son or daughter. And that's also how we, as adopted sons and daughters, learn to actually live out of our "Son-ship," or union with Christ, and embrace daily our new identity. And finally, it's how our shut-up mouths learn to sing and praise once again the One who called us home.