Label Maker

I’ve never been one to buy according to a label.  If there is a comparable item at a lower price, then I consider it a deal.  But the Pharisee within me doesn’t buy the deal. The Pharisee only sees through the eyes of a label.

When it comes to humanity:

Labels = Impressions

Impressions = ideas

Ideas = prejudices

I would have hoped that my years in ministry would have peeled this from my inner sanctum, but no.  My religiosity has created so many new labels to slap on some unfortunate soul.  When I see an obese person, I slap on the label “glutton”. When I see an overweight individual -  “lazy”. When I see someone wearing dirty clothing or unwashed hair -  “unclean”.  When I witness a frustrated mother and a loud child arguing - ”undisciplined.”

My inner label maker is quick to the draw too. Within a nano-second, I can label just about anyone that walks by.

In my job I am constantly organizing something that needs files. In order to know what is in the file, I slap a label on it. Every time I see that file, I know what it contains.

So convenient.

So organized.

So unfair to humanity.

Jesus was the incarnate Heart of God toward humanity and if Jesus truly owns my heart than why do I do this?

If, as the Word says, I am turned or changed into the same I reflect, why am I not reflecting Christ instead of pasting labels? “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Because instead of my mind and heart being riveted on the Risen Christ and how He sees people, I am consumed with how they appear to me.

And thus…how I appear to them.

Brennan Manning wrote, “Contemplative awareness of the risen Jesus shapes our resemblance to Him and turns us into the persons God intended us to be.” Abba’s Child.

I guess if I contemplated my Jesus more, I would reflect Him more. If I reflect Him more, I will see as He sees. If we Christians contemplated Christ as much as we contemplate our navel, or one another, we would see as He sees.

Besides contemplating my navel makes a crick in my neck.