Labels Tell The Biggest Lie

My dignity as Abba's child is my most coherent sense of self-- Brennan Manning

In January 1998, Monica Lewinsky found herself in way over her head. Her face was on the front page of every newspaper, and each new day seemed to bring one more humiliation.  She was 25 years old – and caught in a presidential sex scandal.  She had no idea what was coming.

Today, at the age of 38, she’s still caught.  Single, alone, and running out of options, she’s the butt of jokes, the object of stares – the easy sexual punchline.  Seventeen years later. 

Most of us are not former presidential interns.  Most of us haven’t had our decisions scrutinized by pundits and talk-show hosts.  And most of us haven’t had an affair with the most powerful man on the planet. We’re nothing like Ms. Lewinsky.  Or are we?

How many of us live with embarrassment about secrets that got out?  Or betrayal from past lovers and friends?  Or fear that someone will recognize us as a fraud?  Or hopelessness, brought on by repeated failures?  I’m willing to bet Ms. Lewinsky knows what that’s like, and I’m willing to bet more than a few of us do too. 

Those of us caught in embarrassment, betrayal, fear, and hopelessness are living with a label that lies. We live branded by things that happened years – maybe even decades – before. And as a society, we are 100% percent OK with letting that label stick.  

Maybe you’ve heard or said things like:

“He’s the pastor that was bangin’ his secretary and then ran off with her.”

“Isn’t she the one that was hooked on prescription drugs and went crazy?”

“Remember, that’s the pervert youth pastor that was caught looking at porn at work.”

In our desperate need to understand each other and place people in context, we attach permanent labels – usually from the dirtiest and most controversial part of the story.  Sometimes the label is attached to others, and sometimes it is a label we believe about ourselves.  Either way, the label lies, strips away our complex humanity, and falls short of describing who we really are.    

Grace is the second chance that erases labels for others, and it’s the permission to move on that we give ourselves. And yet, grace is so scarce.  It’s disappearing, and its disappearance is leaving an army of wounded “has-beens” and “screw-ups” in its wake. 

In grace’s absence, we instead choose to label.  Our culture thrives on devouring the Monica’s, the Haggard’s, and the Michael Vick’s, replaying their past mistakes for a quick fix of pleasure and entertainment. It makes us feel good to think that people have flaws worse than ours; it feeds the insecurity caused by our own labels.

So what can we do?  For one thing, we can stop kicking people when they’re down.  We can start skipping the water cooler, deleting the emails, and raising our voice on behalf of second chances.  When someone seeks to label another soul, we can speak up on their behalf.

We can start risking our own “personal brand” to encourage the downtrodden and defend life’s outcasts.  In fact, People of the Second Chance was started to do just that – tear down the labels of a Vulture Culture and replace them with a culture of grace and second chances. 

Of course, this is all utterly impossible if we can’t rediscover our own identity in grace.  Giving someone a second chance starts with giving ourselves a second chance.  It means stripping away the labels that we wear and finding the truth of who we are in grace.  I’m sorry, but you can’t give what you haven’t first received. The strength to forgive others and forgive ourselves comes from finding our identity as the one God forgave first.  In the face of that grace, labels are shattered.  In the face of that grace, dehumanization crumbles.  And in the face of that grace, someone like Monica Lewinsky stops being the punchline.

11 Comments »

1. Speaking up for others when we see labels being thrown is such a great practical step we can take.  great reminder of the impact we can have on the world around us.

   Comment by mo - Nov 18, 2011 @ 08:57 AM

2. Beautiful Mike.  Just beautiful.  My desire is to be that person that gives second chances as a matter of habit rather than as a second thought.  Lord Jesus, make it so!

   Comment by Sandy Sandmeyer - Nov 18, 2011 @ 09:05 AM

3. This is what I absolutely love about POTSC!! If we can help more people understand this and live this way, we can change the world. Keep up the awesome work!!

   Comment by Tammy - Nov 18, 2011 @ 10:20 AM

4. We are never to judge - but there is no forgiveness without repentance!  God will judge those in the church *first*, remember.  After one has repented of their sin, God does not even remember it - and so we should follow God’s example.  But Christians tend to shoot their wounded, and play the “holier-than-thou” game.  Jesus had a few words to say about those kinds of folks, and they weren’t nice!

   Comment by Ed - Nov 18, 2011 @ 12:27 PM

5. I want to risk for the downtrodden & outcasted- brilliantly expressed & this is why POTSC is my lifeline.

   Comment by Ash - Nov 18, 2011 @ 02:42 PM

6. This is why I am whole-heartedly POTSC.

   Comment by Mike L. - Nov 18, 2011 @ 03:34 PM

7. In the simplest terms, we must choose to act. (sound like any current events scandal you have heard?)

   We can no longer try to fade quietly into the background as the melee of injustice swirls around us.  We must make a choice to stand up for what we know to be right.  If we do not, we have made a choice to stand up for what we believe is wrong.  Refusal to engage is not enough anymore; we know better.

   There has been a good deal of talk about legacies this week.  Your post challenges each of us to think about our own legacy. How do you want to be thought of and remembered?

   Funny how a discussion of labels and grace is intimately connected to a discussion of right and wrong, isn’t it?

   Thank you, Mike, for the reminder to act…to stop that e-mail, to stop the gossip, to remind others that, behind labels are people - people who laugh, cry, hurt, have families, love, are loved, and are deserving of grace.

   Thank you, Mike.  I am proud and humbled each day I am POTSC!

   Comment by Margaret - Nov 18, 2011 @ 04:09 PM

8. Bravo! Very well put Mike. The example you use works very well. I would say this one hits the nail right square on the head. Very profound lesson. Thank you sir.

   Comment by Reverend Greg - Nov 18, 2011 @ 06:11 PM

9. I remember being one year younger than her, planning my wedding amd judging her for the choices she made.  If ANY of the bad decisions I made around those years (or the ones I continue to make) were held against me, used to judge me, seventeen years later, I don’t know if I could handle it. Grace is freely given, the price has been paid. Yet those of us who have received Grace even still, have trouble with understanding it.  How can anyone who does not know Grace understand the full scope of such kindness and respomd to it when it is not lived out by and towards us by those who are created to be the hands and feet of Jesus. John 14:12

   Comment by Suzie Lind - Nov 18, 2011 @ 06:48 PM

10. thanks guys for all your kind words…really appreciate the opportunity to share….mike.

    Comment by mike foster - Nov 21, 2011 @ 06:10 PM

11. thanks guys for your kind words and feedback…grateful for the opportunity to share…peace..m.

    Comment by mike foster - Nov 21, 2011 @ 06:12 PM

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