May the Risen Christ dwell in your heart

Identity and labels go hand and hand. A correct label identifies the name and contents of a container and, depending on the details printed on the label, informs us of the character and nature of the contents. These days, more than ever before, we observe people in the grocery store carefully examining labels that now effectively speak to the nutritional value of the food they are buying. It is very easy indeed to make a case for the importance of labels on food and other inanimate objects.

During this Lenten season I spent some time reflecting on the use of labels in scripture "Scribes, Pharisees, tax collectors and money-changers" to name a few. These labels usually congere up negative images and make it easy to cast the kind of disparaging remarks that perpetuate their unfavourable character traits. As helpful as labels are for identification purposes, they can also effectively create and perpetuate hostilities.

In a recent lecture to the World Council of Churches, Archbishop Rowan Williams explored the theological label issue. He said if asked to identify ourselves, most of us respond with our name. However, he said, if we are asked to identify ourselves theologically we are apt to respond with a label "evangelical, orthodox, conservative, moderate, progressive, liberal." Others might give us a different label "fundamentalist, fence- sitter, heretic." As challenging as it is to give ourselves a theological label, it is even more challenging to find the words to defend our label choice. Remaining true to our label identity, whether it is self or otherwise imposed, is an onerous task.

A theological label tends to put us in conflict with those who wear different labels. We create and perpetuate hurt and injury if we forget that we all carry the name of Christ. At baptism we are given our name and made a Child of God, a member of Christ and an inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven. These labels too, challenge us to identify ourselves as Christian. Archbishop Williams writes: "To be a Christian is not to lay claim to absolute knowledge, but to lay claim to the perspective that will transform our most deeply rooted hurts and fears and so change the world at the most important level. It is a perspective that depends on being where Jesus is, under his authority, sharing the breath of his life, seeing what he sees God as "Abba, Father," a God completely committed to the people in whose life he seeks to reproduce his own life.

If we must be identified by labels, may they always identify God's love within us, a love that changes the heart so that the world may know his love.

May the Risen Christ dwell in your heart always.

Claude Miller is Bishop of Fredericton

Diocesan Communications
April 11, 2006