And you have your numbers, your roles, your labels too.
So many labels. And all of them signify a little something about us. But none of them completely define us.
Labels. We live in an age of labels. Perhaps never more so. And it seems to me we like to use them, at least for others. It gives us a handle on people. It allows us to simplify and reduce and put people into categories that we can manage, stripping away the complexity.
Of course there are broad categories of labels that carry a lot of weight. One of them is "us" and "them." A lot of weight there. Wars are fought over that label. People have been enslaved or excluded on the basis of that label.
Do you know your Dr. Seuss?
"Now the Star-bellied Sneetches had bellies with stars.
The Plain-bellied Sneetches had none upon thars.
The stars weren't so big; they were really quite small.
You would think such a thing wouldn't matter at all.
But because they had stars, all the Star-bellied Sneetches
would brag, "We're the best kind of Sneetch on the beaches."
Maybe a star seemed a good thing for a Sneetch. But it wouldn't have been such a good thing to wear a gold star in 1939 in Germany. Us and them.
Or how about "good" and "bad." It often goes hand-in-hand with "them" and "us." We'll hear a lot of that in the coming political season....what's good and bad, painting with broad strokes a picture that conveys the message, "I"m good and the other is so bad that only a Mother could love them."
Well, speaking of Mother's love that is the kind of love that overcomes such labels....what of this story? There are plenty of labels here, labels of ethnicity and nationality: Partians, Medes, Elemites, resident of Mesopotamia and Cappadocia, Pontus, Phrygia, and Asia, Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs, Sneetches with stars and Sneetches without. That's a mouthful of labels, so much so that I thought it probably best not to burden any of you with reading it, so we brought in a professional do the liturgy today!
But that's the point: all these labels. All these differentiations. And the writer of Acts wants to jog our memories and make us think about a story of long ago...a story of a tower that humans built so tall that they intended it to reach to reach to heaven. In response God scattered people over the face of the earth and confused their languages, so they could not understand one another. The tower of Babel,
And here the process is being reversed. People do hear, each in their own language. They hear a common message about one sent from God to draw them together.
And what happens on this day of Pentecost reflects what Jesus began in his own ministry. Because he had the habit of hanging around with people with labels. Mostly it was "tax collectors" and "sinners." He was no respecter of such differentiations. He sought out those with the "scarlet letters," who were labeled "guilty." And he looked forward to this day of Pentecost when all in the Spirit would be brought to new wholeness, when a new sense of community beyond divisions would be realized.
But how to include the guilty?
I was part of a discussion this week that wandered into another group that carries a label: convicts. These days this is a label that sticks. The laws make sure that an individual never ""once was"" but will ""always be"" a convict, no matter how limited the crime or deep the rehabilitation. In fact, the virtual idea of rehabilitation seems gone from the discussion completely. No ability to vote - lifelong.
Now we can talk about responsibilities. And that's fair. Absolutely. But along with that, we also need to talk about how healing takes place, how community can be reclaimed, how wholeness is nurtured. Because "us" and "them" makes people disposable.
For what labels do is substitute the partial for the whole. I use a credit card, but I'm not only the user of a credit card. I like to fly, but that doesn't sum up who I am. I'm a Father...and that's a little larger piece, as being a Mother is a larger piece too, but it's still not the totality.
But there is one label that does express something more inclusive....a label that challenges you and me to be all that we are, to fulfill our whole personhood, not only within ourselves, but in relationship with others.
The label that I would gladly accept, if others put it on me, is "a follower of Jesus." Here's an identifying tag that is open rather than closed, that does not create boundaries but moves beyond boundaries, that heals community rather than divides. Oh, I understand that some have used it in those ways. But I don't believe that they've really understood Jesus in this. Nor do I think that they've understood this story of Pentecost... Medes and Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphilia, Egypt, and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome....
Even those Romans, the Pharisees would have asked? They are included? Even those Romans, some followers of Jesus himself might have asked - those who crucified our Lord? But there they are, listed as part of Pentecost, part of the Church, part of the new community.
Now there's a label to end all labels.
Let us pray,
God of redeeming love, so often we are boundary makers, but you are a boundary breaker. Let your vision claim our spirits. Let us see the world as you envision it, and once having caught a glimpse of it, enable us to grow toward, through Jesus we pray. Amen.
Children: If you were on TV right now, with the camera on you, to whom would you say "hello?" People of significance in relationship include Mom.