Labels & Boxes - Redeemer Episcopal Church

Matthew 11:16-30 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

16 “But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another,

17 ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
    we wailed, and you did not mourn.’

18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; 19 the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”

25 At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; 26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

28 “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

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I preached this sermon for our pre-recorded Morning Prayer for July 5, 2020 at Redeemer Episcopal Church in Jacksonville, Florida. It is preached to a specific people in a specific time and place, but I believe that God can transcend that and I hope it might also speak to you. You can listen to the raw recording of the sermon here.

If you are one of my friends who forced me to go to Chick-fil-A that day in seminary, then I'm still kind of mad at you because Chick-fil-A has trash politics. And also lol, I was so pretentious back then (still am). 

One of my favorite stories from seminary was one of the first times my husband and I spent time off campus. We went to a fast food restaurant with a few other people we barely knew, and started chatting like new friends do. Everyone was asking different questions rapid fire about each other’s lives: are you a liberal or conservative, where are you from, what denomination are you, were you a camp counselor, did you attend campus ministry? 

These were all questions that were seemingly innocuous, but had a very specific purpose. They would put each of us in a certain “box.” Each question said enough about the one answering to allow everyone else to make broad assumptions about them. I got quiet during parts of the conversation and Daniel asked why. “I don’t like labels,” I said, “I’d rather people just get to know me instead of putting me in some kind of box.” 

It has been seven or so years since that conversation, but Daniel, my husband, brings it up every so often when I label myself in some way. “I thought you hated labels” he’ll say. “No,” I reply, “I hate the box.” 

Right before the gospel text we hear this morning, Jesus has instructed his twelve disciples and sent them on their way. Then John the Baptizer, who is in jail, sends word that Jesus is out preaching and sends all of his followers to go listen to him. John’s disciples question Jesus and Jesus sends them back to John, telling them to tell John everything they’d heard and seen: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.

Then Jesus begins speaking to the crowds that had gathered around him. This is where our reading for this morning picks up: right in the middle of Jesus’ teaching. He seems annoyed that people continue to question him and John the Baptizer, even though the people had seen great signs being performed by these men. Still they doubted. But why? 

It’s easy for us to see, 2000 years removed, that Jesus was fulfilling all sorts of prophecies, so it’s unfathomable that the people wouldn’t believe that he was the Son of God. But people had… expectations of the messiah. When someone came with the label “messiah,” there was a box that people put him in. 

“What is the messiah supposed to look like?” Jesus asks. John came and lives an austere lifestyle: he didn’t eat or drink like an old-school prophet and people doubted him— more than that, they said he had a demon!

Then on the other hand, Jesus came and ate and drank and gathered with sinners and people called him a glutton and a drunkard. 

What then, was the messiah supposed to look like? Jesus asks. 

Jesus seems a bit frustrated by being forced into box because of who he associates with and people’s pre-judgements about who the messiah is. He calls the crowd foolish children playing in the market. 

They cannot see the truth that is right in front of them. The truth of Jesus’ true identity. 

I think about all of the ways people are misunderstood today due to stereotypes. We assume we know something based on a tiny detail, like where she grew up or where they went to school, or their gender or his age or the color of his skin— any number of things that do not capture the complexity of how we are as individuals. And these stereotypes that we assign to people, these boxes that we put them into based on these small aspects of their lives, can be dangerous. At the very least, it takes away from the unique child that God knit as an individual. And in some cases it leads to discrimination and violence, it has even led to the genocide of entire peoples. 

In Jesus’ case, the assumptions that his community and the religious authorities made about him led to his arrest and death. Because they didn’t recognize Jesus for who he really was— a child of God, THE child of God, the messiah.

How often do we do this? Pre-judging people for the company that they keep, the color of their skin, their sexual orientation, or where they are from. How often has it lead to deep and abiding pain in our community, our country, and our world? 

Yet Jesus says that wisdom is vindicated by her deeds. 

And we worship a God who DID something. We worship a God who broke all of the preconceived notions of a deity and become flesh in the form of a tiny baby to a poor unknown family. We worship a God who threw off the labels of the world and gave sight to the blind, healed the sick, cleansed the lepers, raised the dead, and brought good news to the poor. We worship a God who takes the stereotypical and prejudiced boxes of this world, turns them upside down, and smashes them to bits. 

We worship a God who peels away the labels of our lives, peels away the labels that we have given ourselves and the ones that have been forced upon us. And declares that the labels of this world are nothing. And we worship the God who took nothing… and made everything. 

God, who created the entire expanse of the universe washes us so completely the waters of baptism and then declares, “You are my beloved. You are my child. Look at what I have done for you.”

And then God invites us into the story. To look beyond the boxes of sin, death, and the devil and begin to imagine and understand the world that God has promised to us and has begun in us through Christ Jesus. A world without labels or boxes, except the only true one identity that matters: you are a child a God. Amen.