We live in a label-heavy world. It can sometime feel like everyone is checking to see what car you drive, what clothes you wear, where you shop for your food, and what kind of computer you work on – and should have chosen the wrong label, you are seen as somehow less. But, it gets worse. Once we have chosen our labels, we begin to define ourselves and our relationships by those labels. We associate with people who carry the same tags on their stuff as we do, and we separate ourselves from those who have different tags. We have special clubs for different makes of cars, different clothing stores, and different kinds of technology. We wear our labels like merit badges.
Of course, our labels extend to other parts of our lives as well – and here it can sometimes get very destructive. We label ourselves by our skin colour, our gender, our language, our culture, our nation of birth and our sexuality. And sometimes, as the recent xenophobia in South Africa has shown, our labels lead us to violence.
I wish I could say it was different in the Church – especially when it comes to worship – but it’s not. It’s not so much that there are different denominations or traditions that worries me – no more so than that there are different brands of clothing or cleaning fluids. It’s that we begin to label ourselves by our denominational, theological and stylistic names, and then separate ourselves from one another. We define ourselves as traditional or contemporary, liberal or conservative, charismatic or evangelical, orthodox or reformed, emerging or mainline. And then we look at those who carry different labels and view them as somehow less – less spiritual, less Christ-like, less worshipful, less holy, less honest, less committed. We even bring in some of society’s labels for good measure – pro-choice or pro-life, pro-gay or anti-gay, pro-evolution or pro-creation – and on and on it goes.
But, in this Advent season, a strange thing happens. We read of a coming King who is called the “Prince of Peace”. The forerunner – John the Baptist – invites all people into the water together, and we know that Jesus (with complete disregard for how it might look) will join the masses in getting wet. In this week’s Old Testament reading Isaiah envisions a world where wolves and lambs lie down together, and children play safely with snakes. And the Apostle Paul, describing how both Jews and Gentiles have found a home in God’s Kingdom, encourages us to accept one another as Christ has accepted us.
The biblical word for this kind of world is Shalom. This is more than just the absence of conflict. A shalom world is a world of compassion and justice, of well-being and safety for all, of togetherness and mutual respect, support and care. And it is this Shalom that we celebrate in Advent and Christmas. It is this Shalom that we sing and pray about every Sunday. And if we really believe in Jesus’ message of a Shalom world, then sooner or later we will have to face the truth – it’s time we removed our labels.
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John van de Laar is a Methodist minister, liturgical consultant and the author of the book Food for the Road – Life Lesson from the Lord’s Table. He holds a Master’s Degree in theology from UNISA, and is the founder of Sacredise.com, an international worship training and resourcing ministry. John is married to Debbie, and they have two sons.
Visit www.sacredise.com for more articles by John, as well as resources for personal and public worship – music, prayers, liturgies, images and drama scripts.