New Orleans is a city of masks. Everywhere, the masks of Melpomene and Thalia, the Greek gods of tragedy and comedy, are displayed. Melpomene and Thalia are street names in the city. Mardi Gras is a welter of masked entertainments, balls, and parades. Everyone has more than one costume and any excuse will do to don one. Masks hide identity. They change into another character. By wearing a mask the everyday world is left behind and one becomes a princess, pauper, or king. The mask is the hardware of escapism. Sometimes escaping provides a harmless entertainment, a way to let off steam or to be released temporarily from the duties required by our station in life. Sometimes, however, the mask hides the truth from those around us, and even from our deluded self. I remember reading of Mardi Gras revelers who, disfigured by Kaposi sarcoma, looked forward to donning a costume and mask to hide for a few days the signs of their disease. Hiding such a fact could have deadly consequences for those who would dare the perverse contact indulged in by some revelers.

There are other kinds of masks; some good, some bad. A father who struggles with his role as a parent, might well work hard to be a mentor and role model for the benefit of his children. Such a mask helps his children who need his parental leadership. God gives us those masks in the stations of life in which he places us. We are all capable of role-playing for the good of others and at the command of God. For example, He has established the role of mother and father in the fourth commandment in which He confirms the family and its structural outlines: "Honor your father and your mother." Our church leaders, such as pastors, also have a God-given mask and are to be honored for the sake of the role God has given them as proclaimers of the law and the gospel. They dare not betray that role. They will wear the signs of their office and calling. Their outward vestments are the accoutrements of the church and her ministry.

Sometimes, such outward vestments are not matched by the proclamation and preaching that come from the one who is so clad. They become a divinely-given mask that covers over impiety and false teaching abusing a divine gift. Therefore, we never believe mere appearances, as important as they should be as signs of the deeper things covered by them. We should not believe what comes out of a mouth because the mouth is beautiful (think: Hollywood). We should not be taken in by a voice whose words mislead because the sound of that voice is attractive. No, we should listen only for the voice of the good Shepherd, whom we will recognize by its content from Scripture. While our pastors may look like sheep, if their speech belongs to the snarling hound of hell seeking whom he may devour, then we must not listen to him. He needs to be swatted on the nose with the Word of God.

"Now, who is able to recognize the wolf under the sheep's clothing and defend himself against him (Mt 7:15)? I reply that the only advice I know is that everyone should see to it, above all, that he is sure of his cause and of the teaching. In his heart he should be so well grounded in it that he can stick to the teaching even though he sees everyone on earth teaching and living contrary to it. Anyone who wants to move along in safety simply dare not pay attention to any of the outward masks in Christendom and guide himself by them. He must pay attention only to the Word, which shows us the right way of life that avails before God. For example, you must hold on to the chief part, the summary, of Christian teaching and accept nothing else: That God has sent and given Christ, His Son, and that only through Him does He forgive us all our sins, justify and save us. Then if you open your eyes, you will see all sorts of differing situations and ways of life-men and women, masters and servants, princes and subjects, rich and poor, and whatever stations and offices there may be in the world, all so intertwined that nothing about them makes any special impression on me. But since I am so well grounded and know the chief part, which includes everything, my heart draws this conclusion: 'Whether, as it pleases God, I see a married person or a single person, a master or a servant, a learned man or a layman, gray clothes or red, fasting or eating, a sour face or a smiling one, what do I care about that? In other words, the differences that I see among them are all identical to me. For I have come to the insight that a girl in her red coat or a prince in his golden spangles can be no less a Christian than a beggar in his gray coat or a monk in his shirt of wool or hair. With this insight I am safe against all kinds of outward masks.'"