Erasing Labels

Lately I have been especially struck by the destructive practice of labeling, and how widespread it is in our time. In America these days racial profiling seems to be on the rise. Partisan political categorizing and outright hatred towards people of different persuasions are increasing as we move towards a national election. I regularly hear people refer to others as right-wing republican, liberal, fundamentalist, illegal, racist, evil, terrorist or jihadist.

Around Tierra Nueva people struggle with labels continuously. Some seek to remove tattoos that mark them according to their gang affiliation. Others seek to find employers who will hire them in spite of their felon or ex-offender labels. Many of the people we serve have been diagnosed as ADD, psychotic, bipolar, borderline, and many others labels, and told by mental health professionals that their conditions are permanent, requiring them to be on meds for the rest of their lives.

I have grown to hate the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) and our current penal code. Labeling dehumanizes people, reducing them to something that is much easier to incarcerate, medicate, deport, hate or even eradicate. Labels categorize, entrap, curse and brand us in ways that are nearly impossible t shake. Thankfully when we find ourselves before Jesus there is hope. He can remove labels and undo “permanent” conditions!

In Luke 5:12 there is a man covered in leprosy, a condition was seen as permanent in Jesus’ day. Jesus’ way of dealing with this man most certainly challenged the people’s normal, limited “realism” regarding what was possible, bringing them into a Kingdom of God-inspired imagination. In a recent jail Bible study I describe leprosy as a condition that was viewed as irreversible in Jesus’ day.  I ask the inmates: “What are some conditions or labels that are viewed today as incurable and therefore permanent?”

The men come up with a list that grows as I read this story in four back-to-back thirty-minute gatherings with inmates. “Addict,” “alcoholic,” PTSD, hepatitis C,” “HIV/AIDS,” “bi-polar,” “felon” and a host of other labels and conditions, including “disabled,” “terminally ill,” “sex-offender,” “chimo”(short for child molester), thief, liar, thug, psychotic.

A number of men share that they experience the labels “felon”, “ex-offender,” and “ex-con” as fairly permanent identity markers that keep them from getting jobs and from being accepted in normal society, including in churches. I describe how according to Mosaic Law, lepers were required to keep their distance from the public, crying out “unclean” when they came around people. We talk about what it would be like today if they would be required to cry out “I’m a criminal” or “I’m a felon” warning people whenever they walked through a mall or grocery store. This led to some good discussion, and the men could see that lepers in Jesus’ day had it pretty bad. We next discussed the question about how the leper got breakthrough.

“So what does this leper do when he sees Jesus?” I ask, inviting someone to read the next verse.

“When he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged him, saying, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean” (Luke 5:12).

The men take note of the leper’s humility, desperation and faith. Rather than yelling out “unclean,” the leper declares that if Jesus is willing he can make him clean. The inmates can see that the leper believes Jesus is able to take away a disease viewed as permanent, cleansing him totally of this condition and removing a label thought to be permanent. Many of the men don’t seem to question Jesus’ ability and power to change their situation. The bigger question for them is that of the leper: ‘is Jesus willing?’

Many people caught up in addictions, criminal lifestyles and multiple labels assume God is behind their afflictions or the consequences of their sins. Hyper-sovereignty and retributive justice are inherent in the dominant mindset among the world’s poor and marginalized.  If your fate and punishment are written in God’s book, there’s no choice but to surrender. In contrast, the leper here voices a thin but true faith as a kind of declaration that awaits Jesus’ response: “If you are willing you can…”

Jesus responds with direct action that goes beyond the leper’s request. “Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him,” making himself contagious in the eyes of any onlookers.

“Does the leper say, ‘if you are willing, you can touch me’? I ask.  “Why would Jesus reach out and touch him?” I ask. 

The men are moved that Jesus’ care for the leper surpasses his fear of impurity, or of what people think.

Jesus both touches the leper and also declares his desire to cleanse him instead of showing agreement with and fear of his condition: “I am willing, be cleansed.”  Immediately the leprosy leaves the leper, showing itself to be a foreign invader that withdraws before Jesus powerful touch in the same way that demons flee at his command. Jesus holiness is stronger than the contagion. Jesus’ purity overcomes the impurity, eradicating the contagion and erasing the label. Jesus acts here as the ultimate tattoo remover!

Jesus sends the man who is now healed of his leprosy to the official diagnosticians for verification: “go, show yourself to the priest and make an offering for your cleansing, just as Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” Jesus sends him as a sort of apostle to the labelers, inviting them into a robust realism that includes the fact that Jesus eradicates conditions thought to be permanent. We talk about how that would be like going to the court to check on your criminal record and finding that it was erased or having your doctor verify that you don’t have Hep C.

I end the Bible study inviting the guys to risk asking Jesus to cleanse them of a label or condition that they’ve experienced as permanent. I suggest that taking a step of faith will increase faith, and that this story shows Jesus’ willingness to give us a new start.  The men appear willing to take a step of faith and ask Jesus to touch them, to cleanse them. I invite people to silently speak out what they want Jesus to do for them and the circle is quite. With eyes closed the men appear to focus in on the task at hand with hope.

I encourage you to try praying this way yourself, expecting Jesus’ cleansing, transforming touch. May you let Jesus the label-remover challenge your tendencies to label others and yourself. May you remember to see yourself and others the way God sees you and them: as made in God’s image, a beloved daughter or son of the Father of Jesus—our Father. May we let our own and other’s identities in God’s Kingdom become the dominant reality in our mindsets and practices, “on earth as it is in heaven.” 

See http://www.bobekblad.com/category/blog for past blog entries.

Jesus' Recruitment Strategy

Jesus’ calling of fishermen has struck me afresh as I’ve read Luke 5:1-11 with inmates in Skagit County Jail and Washington State Reformatory and our faith community at Tierra Nueva.  Before reading aloud the text, I introduce the topic of shame, and ask people to describe situations where they experience shame. I define shame as the feeling of being irreparably faulty and visibly lacking—like a beat up car that has so many things wrong that it beyond repair.

Inmates talk about being escorted by guards in their red jail-issue clothes with leg irons and handcuffs into court before the judge, the public, prosecutors and other attorneys and court personnel in their suits and ties. Their inability to bail out gives them the appearance of being failures, guilty of charges before they even plead. Someone else mentions groups of citizens on official jail tours looking in on them through the glass of their cellblocks. “It’s like they’re viewing us like animals in a zoo except worse- because we have obviously failed.”

We read together Luke 5:1, which describes Jesus as standing by the lake of Gennesaret surrounded by a crowd of listeners. The men are intrigued that Jesus is not teaching in an official religious location but outside in nature, at the job site of fishermen who are men at the margins of Galilee, which is already at the margins of Israel. Jesus goes to where people are, not expecting them to come to him or to religious places.

Jesus’ entrance into the world of ordinary, working-class people has inspired me over and over, and most notably when I was first called into ministry. This inspired Gracie and my move to Honduras to work with peasants in their fields and homes, and our move to Skagit County 21 years ago to ministry to migrant farm workers in the fields and migrant camps and inmates in our local jail.

Jesus sees two boats lying by the edge of the lake there at the jobsite of fishermen. We observe together that in contrast to the crowds “pressing around him and listening,” the fishermen are washing their nets. We imagine them off to the side checking out Jesus from a distance, a posture that most everyone I’m reading with can relate to. We soon learn that they hadn’t caught anything in spite of toiling all that previous night, making Jesus present there in the place of their shame. 

Jesus is next described as taking the initiative in moving closer to one of the fishermen, Simon. Jesus does this by physically entering deeper into his workspace, an empty boat—the site of his most recent failure. I invite someone to read Luke 5:3.

“And he got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little way from the land.”

“Jesus is rather famous at this point,” I suggest to the inmates. “He was likely viewed as a kind of celebrity. He had gathered a big crowd of local people. If you were Simon how would you feel if Jesus publicly got into your boat and asked for your help to push out from the shore there in front of all the people?”

People can easily see that this would be a big honor-- to have Jesus ask you for your help, and to be able to use your boat and skills to help Jesus and to help your community hear Jesus as he teaches. We read on about how he sat down and taught, and then imagine the scene there before the whole crowd.

“And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” And Simon answered and said, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets” (Luke 5:3-4 ESV).

“How would you feel if you were Simon, being asked by Jesus to put down your nets in front of the entire community who had gathered to hear Jesus after having worked all night and caught nothing?” I ask the men, having noted the likely public nature of Jesus’ request for the first time. 

We discuss how Simon has just cleaned his nets after catching nothing, and how Jesus is asking him to get them messed up again. People mention the potential shame that Simon (and they) could easily feel to fish again after failing, and the utter disgrace they’d experience pulling up empty nets there before the whole community in full daylight-- an embarrassing exposure of ineptitude.

We discuss with the inmates how saying “no” to Jesus would bring disgrace before the community, and how Simon’s calling him Master (boss) and acquiescence “but at your word, I will let down the nets,” could show Simon’s accommodating hospitality or at worst a humiliating submission, even more than authentic faith. Simon lets down his nets before the onlookers on the shore, and we’ve only read Luke 5:5, so there’s anticipation as I ask someone to read the next verse.

“And when they had done this, they enclosed a great quantity of fish; and their nets began to break; and they signaled to their partners in the other boat, for them to come and help them. And they came and filled both of the boats, so that they began to sink” (Luke 5:6-7).

We note together how the text emphasizes that “they” let down the nets, and wonder if “they” includes Jesus and Simon, as there is no one else mentioned as being in the boat. However it looks like “they” refers to Simon and perhaps his assistants, as “they signaled to their partners in the other boat” to help them.  They are described as filling the boats that nearly sink, and it looks like the text gives all the credit is going to Simon and his helpers.

“How would you feel if you were Simon at this point, pulling up this enormous catch before the gathered public and your fellow fishermen?” I ask.

The men all state that this would be hugely encouraging. Everyone agrees that Simon is experiencing public exaltation and vindication as a fisherman and a human being. Jesus’ presence with him and specific instructions empower him in his vocation, making him visibly successful and meeting his subsistence needs.  Most importantly they bring healing to his shame.

Everyone present can see how beneficial something like this would be for them right there and then. We look next with the inmates at Simon’s reaction to the amazing catch, and I invite someone to read Luke 5:8-10.

“But when Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus’ feet, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!  For amazement had seized him and all his companions because of the catch of fish which they had taken; and so also James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.”

Here we have the first mention that Simon is Peter, right at the moment when he saw the abundant catch, and fell down at Jesus’ feet expressing his unworthiness. We are getting to know him better as we hear his full name.

“But why does he tell Jesus to go away from him because he is a sinful man? I ask.

People respond that Simon Peter was feeling unworthy of such a big blessing. We discuss how he may have been afraid of his sudden success, and the men can all relate to this.

“When you succeed in front of everyone you’re set up for a bigger fall.  It’s better to stay down than to have visible success and then relapse or reoffend and lose everything,” a man states. Many of the men are in visible agreement.

I suggest to the inmates that Simon Peter was possibly known in the community as a notorious sinner. We talk about how maybe Simon Peter knows that everyone watching him from the shore knows that he’s running a meth lab on the outskirts of Capernaum, or that he’s suspected of stealing car stereos or burglarizing houses to feed his drug habit, has done time for domestic violence or is a felon. Maybe Simon Peter can’t handle Jesus publically blessing him in his “sinful man” state, and knows that his neighbors probably are not excited for him.  Does Jesus know who he is blessing? I invite someone to read on to see how Jesus reacts to Simon’s command that he leave.

“And Jesus said to Simon, “do not fear, from now on you will be catching men” (Luke 5:10).

Rather than agreeing with Simon’s request to go away from him, Jesus perceives that fear underlies his reaction, and tells him not to fear. We discuss together how Jesus addresses Simon’s fear of success, his fear of failure, of shame’s return— whatever fear he might have—we might have. Rather than being put off by Simon Peter’s confession, and leaving him more shamed than ever before the public and his colleagues, we notice that Jesus further elevates him by giving him a public promotion: “from now on you will be catching men.”

There in the boat, through Simon’s enormous catch of fish, Jesus catches Simon Peter, James and John. These fishermen are won over by Jesus’ shame-removing ministry, and say “yes” to his full-on inclusion of them in spite of any perceived unworthiness.

“And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him” (Luke 5:11). 

The men in the jail bible studies and people in our Tierra Nueva community can see why the fishermen were drawn to Jesus and are themselves drawn to him.  We summarize Jesus’ recruitment strategy as a way to remind ourselves what to look for now as we anticipate his fishing for us.

We note first that Jesus takes the initiative, going to the margins of the margins—to the workplace there on the shore of the lake of Genesaret in Galilee.  Jesus continues to take the initiative, stepping into someone’s workspace, which is a place of failure (Simon’s empty boat). Jesus approaches Simon needing his boat and asking for his assistance. Next Jesus asks his recruit to do something public that is difficult to refuse, inviting risky obedience that leads to public elevation and empowerment in his vocation.  Jesus responds to push back (Simon’s unworthiness), addressing underlying fear and inviting him into something bigger (from now on you will be catching men).  Jesus’ recruits leave everything to follow him.

Jesus’ style of fishing is catching me again even as it caught Simon and John. I witness this Gospel story come alive in ways that catch inmates and people in our Tierra Nueva church. We pray together that our eyes would be opened to notice Jesus' presence with us in our places of shame. May the Holy Spirit open our ears to hear Jesus’ shame-healing words and follow his call into a life of adventure as his disciples. May we learn alongside Jesus how to be agents of healing and calling in the places of failure of our world.

See http://www.bobekblad.com/category/blog/ for past blog entries