Several months ago, the hottest mobile device game was an App called Logo Quiz. The point of the game was to identify logos by their color and shape without any identifying words. My children were very 'culturally savvy,' progressing very quickly through the logos. After some thought, I found it somewhat disturbing how good my children were at this game. First and foremost because their 'expertise' was rather condemning of my parenting skills and the amount of media they were consuming. However, the more troubling aspect was that they could easily identify an entire company and/or product by virtue of its label.
In our culture, marketing has done a great job in communicating very succinctly the images, emotions and ideas tied to a particular logo or label. That is fine for a shoe or drink but when we try to reduce a multi-national company or a complex organization down to a label we dismiss a lot of information.
The same is true of people. All too often, we try to reduce people to a label - a single aspect of their entire personality by which we define them. And yet, the reality is that people are the Imago Dei - which is the image of God. God is so complex and multifaceted that He has many names to describe His character, countless attributes which demonstrate His nature and all of history to reveal His work in the world. Likewise, when God creates each person, he gives them a multitude of qualities, character traits and talents.
Jesus should be our example in this. He never reduced anyone to one aspect of their entire being (a label). Rather, Jesus always saw the person for the unique individual they were created to be. It is difficult to be like Jesus -- after all, he was perfect -- but He has called us to follow in His steps. To love as He loved is to see the complete person and the entire individual, not just the most prominent or easy to identify trait.
Blessings - Cynthia
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