Sermon Illustrations
The Unnamed
It seems that more than ever the compulsion today is to identify, to reduce someone to what is on the label. To identify is to control, to limit. To love is to call by name, and so open the wide gates of creativity. But we forget names, and turn to labels; there are many familiar ones today, such as: Fairy tales are not real and should be outgrown. Christians are people who are not strong enough to do it alone. Chopin is only a romantic. El Greco must have had astigmatism to account for his elongated people. All Victorian poets had TB. Roman Catholics are not Christians. Protestants cannot understand Holy Communion. People who write for children are second-class and cannot write for adults. And the list could go on and on and on. If we are pigeon-holed and labeled we are un-named.