Label Makers

 

One of the chores I struggle with is folding laundry. Ben is easy, and so are my clothes when it comes to sorting. But every time I seem to mix up Nicole’s clothes with Jaedyn’s clothes, or Emmy’s clothes with Jaedyn’s clothes. I must read the labels.

 

Labels are good and helpful for that, helping us to determine what is what and where what goes. When buying groceries, it is good to know if the sauce is mild or spicy. Labels are good and helpful for things like that.

 

There is something where labels get us into trouble. It is when we apply them to people. When a person is given a label, it pigeonholes how we think about them and often our attitudes about them. We use labels to vilify and ostracize, discounting a person’s value and contributions based on their labels. Often are labels cause us to see an enemy when God sees a person.

 

Our passage today examines the danger of labeling people and what the practice reveals about us.

 

 

     Matthew 11:11-19 (CSB):

 

“Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one is greater than John the Baptist has appeared, but the least in the Kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of heaven has been suffering violence, and the violent have been seizing it by force. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if you’re willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who is to come. Let anyone who has ears listen.”

 

“To what should I compare this generation? It’s like children sitting in the marketplaces who call out to other children:

 

We played the flute for you,

But you didn’t dance;

We sang a lament,

but you didn’t mourn!”

 

“For John came neither either or drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon!’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”

 

 

This is the Word of God.

For the people of God.

Thanks be to God.

 

 

     Verse 11 is Jesus giving a compliment to John the Baptist. It may not be read that way given how the verse ends, but this is a tribute. Jesus is establishing the Kingdom of God is greater. John had faith in Jesus to the fullest sense he could have it. What the other Old Testament prophets only foresaw, John was getting a taste. But John only got a taste, as he would die before the crucifixion and resurrection.

 

     John the Baptist was sent to declare the end of the Old Testament covenant, as it would give way to the greater covenant found in Jesus. He proclaimed this truth faithfully, but again John only had the faith to foresee it. Malachi 3:1 is a prophecy about John the Baptist, saying, “Look, I am sending my messenger who will clear the path before me; suddenly the LORD whom you are seeking will come to his temple.” This was John’s purpose, and this is what he fulfilled.

 

     Many of the Jews would flock to John and the message he shared. But it was the least of the people who gravitated to God’s message through John. The elite, both religious and political, refused the message and rejected John.

 

     In verses 16-19, Jesus is going to share the labels folks would create in their unbelief. John is labeled as being demon-possessed. A person who is a hypocrite. These same folks label Jesus as “a glutton, a drunkard, and a friend to tax collectors and sinners.” Their lack of faith caused them to label God’s servant and the Messiah with their false understandings.

 

     This is why Jesus closes verse 19 with a statement on wisdom. The label makers were the spiritual elite and political elite. They have all the advantages of status and knowledge, but they cannot see what those they deem as “lost” see. The flocking crowds, baptisms, and miracles all affirm the truth about Jesus and John, but the elite were so wrong they refused to be right.

 

     The labels made in this passage were made by those who lacked faith. They had put God in a box and then defined God’s servants and movements by the box. Then they looked at people and said God would never associate with them, while Jesus was sitting at their table. When John the Baptist, in his somewhat crazy appearance, showed up with a radical message their only conclusion was demon-possession. Jesus is in their midst, and all their lack of faith could see was a drunkard and glutton. These folks dared to label Jesus!

 

     The ones who had the labels, what did they do? They trusted God and kept ministering. Those who were broken and in broken lifestyles flocked to Jesus and John because their faith drew the crowds. Faith in God and His Kingdom was so radically different in them that it brought those desperate for a different life to Jesus and John.

 

     This tells us that there is only one label that matters. As great as John the Baptist was, Jesus does say in verse 11, “the least in the Kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” What Jesus is saying is the only label that matters is “redeemed.” Do you have faith in Jesus and belong to His Kingdom? This label trumps and erases all the others. The only label faith in us should produce for others is “redeemed” knowing the blood of Jesus has purchased their salvation, and it is available to them through faith. Faith in Jesus leads us to see people, not as our societal labels, but as a person of value.

 

     Redemption, the trading of labels, is available to all who have faith in Jesus. Are you labeled a cheater or liar? Faith in Jesus replaces those labels with redeemed. Are you a drug addict or drunkard? Faith in Jesus replaces those labels with redeemed. Are you a label maker for people? Faith in Jesus replaces that label with redeemed, and removes the machine from your hands.

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