labels…
I had the privilege of watching Rich, famous and homeless on the BBC iplayer the other evening. As the title suggests the program involved five individuals who were either rich or famous who gave up their respective lifestyles to become homeless for a 10 day period. As I watched the program I was struck by how each came with preconceptions of those who are labeled as homeless or rough sleepers. As the program continued the preconceptions changed as the five came in to contact with individuals who were ‘homeless’ and as they begun to lose their own identity and they themselves became labeled as ‘homeless’ or ‘rough sleeper’.
You see the problem with labels is that is causes us to start to forget that those we are labelling are people just like you or I.
I guess that is what struck me afresh that these people who are labelled are real people with real stories with a need to connect, to know they are noticed I guess to know they matter. I was particularly struck in the second part of the program where one of the rough sleepers, who had been a rough sleeper for 20 year’s, spoke of how comforting it was to be woken at 2am when someone checked to ensure that he was alive.
Jesus told us to love our neighbour as we love as ourselves, the question is who is our neighbour? Let’s ensure that in our labelling of others that we don’t lose sight of the fact that they are people, they are individuals and they are our neighbours.
One of things that strikes me in the Bible is God’s bias to those who are poor, marginalised in society or who have no voice. For those of us who are followers of Jesus surely we are to reveal these same traits.
Next time we see someone on the Streets let’s make the time to reveal these traits by reaching out, connecting and showing them that they matter to us and that they matter to God they are not just a label!
