We Belong to God Preached on September 13th, 2020 At Wollaston Congregational Church Virtual Worship Scriptures: Genesis 50:15-21 and Romans 14:1-12 How is your spiritual health? How do you think is the spiritual health of our community right now? And why do I ask? We are living in complex times assaulted by news stories of devastating events and upheaval in our nation and our world. And we are experiencing the trauma of the ongoing need for social distance and vigilance over the coronavirus pandemic. In the midst of all this we are faced by many questions on a cultural and personal level. Right now, we need resilience; spiritual resilience, to move forward. Our spiritual resilience is built up when we are spiritually healthy. And so, over the coming weeks we are going to focus on elements of the spiritual health, using a tool created by the Hebrew Seniorlife organization. These elements are: - Love and Belonging - Identity - Forgiveness and Reconciliation - Trust - Meaning and Legacy - Gratitude - Hope This morning we begin with Love and Belonging, most especially Belonging. A sense of belonging is needed for emotional and physical wellbeing, as well as spiritual health. Author Brené Brown writes “Love and belonging are irreducible needs of all men, women, and children. We’re hardwired for connection—it’s what gives purpose and meaning to our lives. The absence of love, belonging, and connection always leads to suffering.” [1] A sense of belonging begins in our very early lives, within our families, our neighborhoods, our communities and schools, our places of worship, workplaces, and home countries. That foundation is vital for our emotional wellbeing. Today we heard two readings from scripture concerning belonging. The first was from the book of Genesis toward the end of the story of Joseph; the second was from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Roman church. The lectionary readings from the Hebrew Bible over summer have been following the story of Jacob’s family, culminating in the story of Joseph, Jacob’s favorite child. Young Joseph must have had a foundational sense of belonging in his family of origin. They were a nomadic group, an extended family, including Jacob’s wives, servants and Jacob’s children by both the wives and servants. As they traveled the wilderness with their flocks of sheep, the children must have felt a strong kinship and a sense of belonging. But Joseph’s belonging doesn’t last. He becomes puffed up and arrogant, because of his father’s favoritism. He has the special ability of interpreting dreams, which he skews in his own favor. His older brothers become so jealous they plot to kill him and to tell their father he has been attacked by a wild animal in the wilderness. The brothers only decide against that plan when they meet a caravan of traders who are passing at the time. And so they sell their brother into slavery. They return home and tell Jacob that Joseph has been killed. Joseph is taken from his place of belonging in Jacob’s family. He becomes an outsider in Egypt. As a slave he has the lowest possible status. Gradually, though, he establishes himself using his ability to interpret dreams to his advantage. He matures in Egypt and becomes more humble, trusting in God for his guidance and his sense of belonging. Even in his darkest hours, Joseph has a sense of his belonging to God. This sees him through his journey from belonging to his immediate family group, to a greater sense of belonging in the human family. The second reading we heard today is written to the early church in Rome. The Apostle Paul writes to a church, offering words of wisdom and guidance: a theme in all his letters. In this church there seems to be conflict and tension, a sense of “them and us”, perhaps the well-established church members and the newcomers. These are issues that echo in our churches to this day. The tensions in the church in Rome concern dietary practices and observance of a special day. Some members eat meat and others remain vegetarian. Some members judge one day to be better than the others, perhaps the Jewish Sabbath. Others do not. Paul characterizes those who are most observant as weak in faith. Perhaps they need to observe these stricter practices because their faith is not yet fully developed. Paul reminds the community to welcome the weak in faith and not to pass judgment. He reminds them that whether we live or die, we belong – not to one group or another – but to the Lord. Our ultimate belonging is neither family, nor team, nor social group, nor even nation. Our ultimate belonging is in God. I was fortunate to have a strong foundation in terms of love and belonging. I come from an intact family, that has lived in the same northern English town for many generations. As a child I would recognize aunts and uncles, grandparents and cousins in the pews of our small Methodist chapel. Church always felt like home. When I left my hometown to go to college, I lost my sense of belonging in a place where my accent marked me as an outsider. But I discovered I could always find a place of belonging in a church community. That feeling remained with me through my move to the United States with my husband, years ago. It has remained during the times when I left behind another “home church” for a new place of worship, most recently when I came to pastor Wollaston Congregational Church just four years ago today. Joseph’s story echoes for many of us as we remember our own journeys away from “home.” We were forced or we chose to leave, for education or military service. Or perhaps our home disappeared, through changes in our culture. Our childhood neighborhood melted away as strangers replaced old friends. Family members died, or we were divorced. We were evicted or given no choice but to move to an eldercare facility. In these COVID times, we may feel stripped of our belonging, like Joseph. Our communities like church, our social and neighborhood groups, many of our workplaces, have shifted from real, tangible places to online platforms. Paul’s letter reminds us, though, that we, you and I who are gathered in this virtual space, are fortunate. We have made that transition. As we hear our fellow church members speak, or we see one another on the screen, we are reminded that we still have one another. We have our community, the church. Whether we live or we die, we belong to God. We are challenged, not only to make a place of belonging for ourselves, but to enlarge that place of belonging to include anyone who might be looking to belong. Paul’s letter talks about division between those who observe certain dietary practices and those who don’t; divisions between those who make one day holy and those who don’t. These are not issues for our times. Instead we might think about those who wear masks and anti-maskers, those who support vaccines and anti-vaxxers. Can both those groups co-exist in a church community? And what about those who insist on worship in person, in the face of the pandemic, calling us to rely on God for miraculous protection? What about those who are tired of staying away from in person gathering, and want to re-gather in spite of the risk? And then there are those who are opposed until we have been declared safe, vaccinated and protected from this terrible plague. Then there are religious practices. We are called to welcome those who have not found a place of belonging elsewhere. Can we welcome those who have different religious practices, enjoy different types of music and use different styles of prayer, and draw on beliefs that are different from our own? We recall that Paul exhorts the Christians in Rome to accept the differences between groups, and reminds them that when it comes to belonging – whether we live or we die – we all belong to God. Paul prefers inclusiveness in belonging over exclusiveness. Exclusiveness is easier. We make a set of beliefs that belong-ers must adhere to. We create a set of religious practices that define us: type of music, styles of prayer. We ask those who “join” us to declare that they are “in” with these beliefs and practices. Inclusiveness is much harder. It means that the existing belong-ers must be willing to grow and change. It means they must be willing to give up their sense of belonging shaped in their early life, for a more mature and inclusive sense of belonging. It means accepting beliefs and practices that are associated with other groups. The Franciscan author, Fr. Richard Rohr, invites us to move beyond the idea that our belonging means if we are the “in group” and others are on the outside. In the book Falling Upward, he writes “It is fine for teenagers to really think that there is some moral or ‘supernatural’ superiority to their chosen baseball team, their army, their ethnic group, or even their religion; but one hopes they learn that such polarity thinking is recognized as just an agreed-upon game by the second half of life.” [2] Exclusive religious communities promote disdain of others, whether they are people of other faiths, atheists, or even those of the same faith but a different perspective. Author Brené Brown writes that “It doesn’t matter if the group is a church or a gang or a sewing circle …, asking members to dislike, disown, or distance themselves from another group of people as a condition of ‘belonging’ is always about control and power … disdain toward other people as a membership requirement … may be disguised as belonging, but real belonging doesn’t necessitate disdain.” [3] And so, friends, whether we belong to Wollaston Congregational Church or other community of faith, as we re-gather, virtually for now, may we know a deep and true inclusive sense of belonging. To quote another of Paul’s letters to the church in Ephesus, a belonging that is as broad, long, high and deep as is the love of Christ. May we know that whether we live or we die, we belong to God. May all God’s people say, Amen [1] Brown, Brené. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (pp. 11-12). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. [2] Rohr, Richard. AARP Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (p. 147). Wiley. Kindle Edition [3] Brown, Brené. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (p. 109). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
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