Losing the Labels - Matthew 3:13-17
When you think of John Wayne, what
type movie or television show do you think of?
Action, western…He’s probably considered to be among the top, if not the
top, ten-gallon-hat, gunslinging actors of all time. Could you ever have pictured him in the lead
role, opposite of Mary Tyler Moore, in the Dick Van Dyke Show, though I guess
it would have to be changed to the John
“Duke” Wayne Show.
What about Jim Carrey? A majority of his film credits would be
labeled as humor with a serious twist—Liar
Liar, Bruce Almighty, Ace Ventura, or Dumb
and Dumber. Would you be able to
picture him taking Arnold Schwarzenegger’s place in the rumored Terminator 5 movie?
It’s called typecasting. An actor or an actress plays a certain type
of character, and, especially if it is a successful movie or television show,
it becomes the only type of character that they are considered fit to
play. Some actors may relish
typecasting, but many grow frustrated by it—simply ask Leonard Nimoy, otherwise
known as Spock, Bob Denver who many of us remember as Gilligan, or Maureen
McCormick, you know, Marcia Brady.
Typecasting happens to many of us as
well. We just don’t call it typecasting. We call it labelling. It parallels the labels that many folks may
place on us and refuse to see us as anything different. You know those labels: “Liberal” or
“Conservative,” “Yankee” or “Red-Neck,” “American,” or “Foreigner,” “Stuck-up,”
or “Trailer-trash,” “Geek” or “Jock,”…you can probably think of a number of
other labels that are thrown on you. In
some cases it is not necessarily a label they hang on you, but it is the
assumptions and stereotypes that are assumed—such as “if you’re tall, you must
play basketball,” “if you’re from a rural area, you like country music,” and we
won’t even get into all of the racial stereotypes. All of these labels put on us simply by how
we look or activities we enjoy. Here’s a
picture my niece drug out of my parents photo album during a session of
Facebook picture wars, from probably my freshman year in high school, I’ll let
you consider what labels may have been placed on me. I understand having labels thrown on you.
It was last winter when our youth
group at St. Paul’s went to Lake Junaluska for Infusion. The first night we did not arrive until too
late to go to the opening worship session, so we went to a break-out room in
the hotel and did our own group-building exercises and just spent some time
talking. The discussion drifted to the
area of labels this very subject, dealing with the labels that are put on us,
either by those around us in the world, or sometimes even ourselves—some of the
ones that we have talked about, and others, like “loser,” “dumb,” or
“ugly.” We spent time talking about how
the labels that are thrown at us, seeking to limit us or put us down. Then we turned to understand that the only
“name” that we need to take to heart is the name given to us by God, and that
is that we are “beloved children of God.”
Interestingly in the way that God
works, the very next Saturday Anita, Davey, Joshua, and I went to Winter Jam in
Greensboro, primarily to hear tobyMac, as part of Anita’s birthday celebration. tobyMac has been one of our family favorite
Christian artists for a number of years.
However, it was not one of his songs that spoke to me the loudest that
night, it was a song that I had never heard before by Mathew West—and it went
right back to the issue of dealing with the labels put on us. It is the song
that I asked Cale to sing for us this morning. In the midst of that song is the
following line, and while it mainly deals with self-imposed labels, I think it
applies across the board: “These are the voices, these are the lies/And I have
believed them, for the very last time/Hello, my name is child of the one true
King….”
My friends, my brothers and sisters,
that is truly the only name that is put on us that we should ever care about…it
doesn’t matter what the other kids in school think of us, it doesn’t matter
what the folks in our town think of us, it doesn’t matter what our family says
about us, it doesn’t matter what lies the voices in our head may say about
us. God comes in and erases all the
names we have ever had put on us and says, this is who you are, You are a
“Child of the One True King.”
Consider our reading this
morning. Jesus has made his way from
Nazareth in Galilee down to the Jordan River.
As a side note, Jesus’ hometown would make him well able to identify
with any of us that have been labeled in any negative way. Consider John’s account of Jesus calling the
disciples. When Phillip approaches
Nathanael about following Jesus, Nathanael responds, “Can anything good come out
of Nazareth?”[i] Being from Nazareth was like being from “the
other side of the tracks.” Jesus
understood being labeled. After he
started his ministry, when folks started getting a little uneasy with his
teaching, they started hurtling labels: “Isn’t he the carpenter’s son?” “Is not his mother called Mary?”[ii] (That could have carried with it, isn’t he
the son of that girl that got herself pregnant before she and Joseph got
married.) Jesus understood being
labeled, and how people would try to use those labels to limit Him.
However, I believe it is the scene
that we encounter this morning that enabled Him to ignore those labels and
fulfill what God had set before Him.
Jesus had made His way down to the Jordon, where His cousin John was
conducting baptisms, and entered the water to receive the baptism. After countering John’s suggestion that he
was not worthy to baptize Jesus, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come
to me?” Jesus and John entered the water, and Jesus was baptized. When Jesus came up out of the waters, the
Scriptures tell us, a voice from heaven was heard, “This is my Son, the
Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
That’s the name, that’s the label, that Jesus received and held on to as
He entered into a tough and troublesome world that would seek to limit and
destroy him. He heard God’s
proclamation. Jesus was the God’s Son,
God’s dearly loved Son, and God was pleased with Him. Jesus was a declared to be the son of the One
True King.
What does that mean for us? It means that we need to lose the labels that
the world tries to place on us and hold on to only name that means
anything. We are to remember we are “a
Child of the One True King.”
How do we move from Jesus receiving
that label or name to it being available for us to claim?
The Gospel of John tells us that “all
who [receive Jesus], who [believe] in his name, he gave power to become
children of God.”[iii]
Paul told the Church in Rome, that
“all who are led by the Spirit of God are called children of God.”[iv] He told the church in Galatia, “for in Christ
Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you were baptized into Christ have
clothed yourself with Christ. There is
no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave of free, there is no longer
male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”[v] Paul says, “those labels you used to be known
by, that people used to try to limit you with, they are no longer valid…you are
one with Christ now…You are a child of the One True King.”
Through our Baptism, we are joined to
Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit and declared to be Children of God…Children
of the One True King. Through each of
our baptisms, God looks upon us and says, “You are my son, you are my daughter,
with you I am well pleased.”
“But preacher…you don’t know me…you
don’t know who I really am when no one is watching…you don’t know the things I
have done. I am not worthy. I have not earned it. I have not done anything for God.”
That’s the point my friends. It is through grace that we are made children
of God. We don’t earn that title, it is
given to us by God through Christ. God
declares that we are His children as He cleanses us from our sins…removing our
past…removing our sin…removing the labels of the world. Just as before Jesus even begin His ministry,
God declared Him to be His Son with whom He was well pleased, as we come humbly
before His throne, as we receive those waters of baptism, no matter where we
are in our lives, God looks upon us, before we’ve ever done anything to change
our lives, and he changes us and declares us to be His children—Children of the
One True King.
My brothers and sisters, don’t accept
the labels that the world, or you yourself, would place to devalue your worth. You are each are a Child of the One True King…valued
by Him…to the point that that He offered His very life for you. Cherish that Name…hold it in your heart…and
know that you are loved and you are priceless.
In the Name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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