Pastor, you are a keeper of secrets.
You have secrets because people tell you things. You may be one of the few people they can trust. They see you as someone safe to whom they can whisper their heartbreaking secrets. You may be the first or only person with whom those struggling with unrelenting sin or crippling doubt can confess these things and begin their healing. You hear secrets, and you protect those secrets1 because it’s your job. If you are being the person you were called to be, you are a keeper of secrets.
But not all secrets should be kept. We who are good at keeping secrets may keep secrets about ourselves that we should not keep.
Recently the news broke that a prominent pastor had pled guilty to a felony that apparently involved him engaging in public sexual activity with a woman not his wife. The details and names here do not matter. What matters is that he had kept all of this secret. For ten years, the leaders of his church did not know. Those who invited him to teach in their venues did not know. The boards of the organizations on which he sat did not know. Like many of us, he was quite skilled at the keeping of secrets. He kept a secret that should not have been kept, and now his career is destroyed, his church is reeling, and the reputation of pastors in general has one more very public strike against it.
This sickens me as much as it frightens me. What secrets do I have? What cards am I holding too close to my vest? What is there about me that I want no one to know? And more importantly, why?
In keeping secrets we should not keep, we become personally engaging but cagey and superficial. Some topics will remain off limits. Our skill with words allows us to dance around a subject when others get too close.
My wife came to me yesterday concerned that I was keeping secrets regarding a visit with my eye doctor. In this case, it was a misunderstanding, but this reminded me just how precious truth is between us.
The truth of something like a medical diagnosis can be buried by saying, “It’s nothing, really.” We justify it by persuading ourselves we don’t want them to worry. The same logic can be used to cover a dawning affair. “It’s nothing, really,” you say, because, you persuade yourself, “I don’t want her to worry.” We’re good - too good - at keeping secrets.
The pressure to keep such secrets is fueled by a desire to keep our jobs. An automobile technician whose affair is exposed will destroy her family, and she might lose some respect from her peers. But on Monday morning she’s back in the shop, and on Friday she still collects her paycheck. Pastors on the other hand know they could be fired, and so they hide their drinking, their financial irregularities, their porn addiction, or their sexual liaisons. And they hide it well. We’re so good at keeping secrets.
My elders gave me a gift the other night. They gave me an opportunity to reveal my secrets. They asked me what, if anything might be hidden in my life which, were it to be exposed, would surprise them. They had seen the secrets pastors kept, and they had a right to know if I had any. I was humbled by and grateful for the courage and the love that moved them to ask. I told them there was nothing.
But I’ve thought a lot about that question since. Sometimes the secrets we keep about ourselves, we are keeping from ourselves. We don’t want to admit something is an issue or a problem, and so we wall it off from our awareness. Those walls need to come down. There are secrets that should not be kept.
It’s not just lost jobs that are at stake. We represent Christ, and when pastors’ secrets are exposed Jesus’ reputation suffers. That should matter to us more than whatever our secrets protect.
We all need to be asked what is lurking in our lives, and we need to have the courage to come clean. If you need help in doing that, find an understanding therapist to guide you through what that takes. You cannot keep those secrets forever.
On Sunday I greeted a young woman at the door of the church when she arrived. She gave me her name, but averted her eyes, giving every impression she wanted to have no more conversation than was absolutely necessary. She left quickly after the service. Someone who knew her told me that she was from another church where, the week before, the secret of her pastor’s affair had been revealed. She was devastated and, at that moment, understandably very distrustful of pastors. It was a grace that she was at church at all.
All because pastors keep the wrong secrets.
Exceptions, of course, apply. But even when you must reveal secrets, you do so with the full knowledge of the one who has shared them with you.