A Place to Belong
I have no desire to stand here this morning and rehash the election. But there’s one little tidbit from the campaign that I want to put before you this morning.
About a week or so before election day, I read an article that interviewed voters in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where Joe Biden was born and where he spent the first ten years of his life. Now, Biden likes to talk about Scranton, and during the campaign especially when talking to Pennsylvanians, he’d remind them that he was from there. But one of the interviewees - one who was not planning on voting for him, said this: “He likes to claim us, but we don’t claim him.”
In other words, because his family moved away when he was ten, that voter, at least, didn’t think that Joe Biden could or should claim to be from there. To that voter, Joe Biden no longer belonged.
That statement stuck out to me for this very simple reason: I was ten years old – the same age as Joe Biden – when my family first moved from Vermont to New Jersey.
And that statement, “we don’t claim him,” stung me, because it rings so true.
I still consider Vermont to be my home state, even though I haven’t lived there in 31 years. It’s where all my formative memories were made. Where I made my first friends. Where I celebrated my first birthdays and holidays. I learned to swim in Harvey’s Lake. I learned to ride a horse on Mack’s Mountain. I learned how to ride a bike on the Old Cemetery Road. And I go back to visit my mother’s grave on Peacham Hill.
But with every year that passes, those trips north become less and less like homecomings and more and more like visits. Almost like any other tourist.
The land is the same. Most of the houses and buildings are the same. The bell still rings from the Congregational Church at 10am on Sunday mornings, and the cows still moo at the Kempton’s Farm.
But the people have changed. The ones I remember growing up with have all passed on or moved away. And the new ones are just strange faces in a familiar landscape. It’s their hometown now. Not mine. And I’m still from there, and no one can tell me I’m not… but I doubt anyone there would claim me.
It’s a strange feeling of both belonging and not belonging. So when Biden talks about being from Scranton, and some folks there now say, “we don’t claim you,” I know exactly what they mean. 10 years old is a strange age to move away from a place. Old enough to make some formative memories to become familiar with the land, to learn the best shortcuts to your friends’ houses, to know your way around when you revisit, even decades later – but not old enough to have made your own mark.
You remember the place, much more than the place remembers you.
I was thinking about that sense of belonging, and in considering that, the words of the first answer of the Heidelberg Catechism came to mind.
Q: “What is your only comfort in life and in death?”
A: “That I am not my own, but belong – body and soul, in life and in death – to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.
And those words led me to this scripture from Romans 14 this morning. That none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.
Embracing the faith that God has put in you; embracing the love that God shares with you; embracing the community that God surrounds you with… is a different kind of belonging. It’s not belonging to a particular town or a piece of land or a collection of memories and experiences. Those things are important and they shape us into who we are… but they also change over time. They ebb and the flow. Even if we stay in one place our entire lives, the people around us still come and go.
Yet the belonging we find in Jesus Christ, in the faith of God, in the embrace of God’s comforts and blessings – these things are permanent. Not just for a few years or a few decades, or even for a whole lifetime, but permanent from now and through death and for all the time of the universe.
We don’t have to beg God to claim us.
We don’t have to ask God to please remember us.
God claims us and remembers us every minute of every day of our lives, and into the next life as well.
In God we find unmistakable, unyielding, unending belonging.
I just have one more thing I’d like to say this morning. If you read this month’s Focus on Faith, or if you have a really good memory, you’ll know that my very first Sunday in this pulpit was the Sunday after the 2016 election. And so, for today, the Sunday after the 2020 election, I looked back at that sermon I preached four years ago. And there’s one thought I shared with you then that I’d like to share again.
In the wake of that election, which had half the country feeling joyous and the other half feeling angry and despondent – something we see again today – I talked about all the churches I’d preached in. Some liberal congregations and some conservative; some older and some younger; some richer and some poorer – and the one thing that everybody had in common in every church I went into – was that everyone wanted some reassurance of God’s love. Everyone wants that reminder that no matter who we are or where we come from, what we look like or who we know – that God remembers us. That God has a promise in store for us; a promise of everlasting love and everlasting life – a promise that we will never be forsaken. A promise that no matter our highs and our lows on earth, no matter who our president is, our leaders are, whether our country is on the right track or wrong track – that God still has our best interests at heart. That God will always be there for us to turn to, to find comfort, to find wisdom, and solace. Everyone, in every church, no matter who they are or what else they believe – wants to belong to God.
And we do.
Each of us. Every single one.
We are all God’s people. We can walk into any church, pray with any people, give worship together or even alone in our own homes – and God will remember us. God will welcome us. And God will claim us as his own.
I’ve never claimed to be a fortune-teller. I don’t know what the weeks and months ahead will hold for our country. There are some politicians I like more and some I like less; there are some policies I think are good and some that maybe aren’t so good; I think it’s important to stay engaged in the world and be active in the civic life of our communities.
But as people of faith, we don’t put our trust in any person, party, or policy, but in God and God alone. For it is God in Christ who won victory over death for us. It is God in Christ who redeems us and makes us worthy of the heavenly kingdom. It is God in Christ who claims us, and gives us a place full of love, joy and peace, where we all belong.
To God be all glory, praise, and honor. Amen.
Let us pray.
God of grace and eternal love, we pray to you this morning. We pray for our country, on the edge of a significant transition. We pray for our current and future leadership. But more than anything, we pray in thanks for the place of belonging you give us. For our families, for our friends and neighbors, for our church family, and for the eternal love of Jesus Christ. In whose name we pray. Amen.
I have no desire to stand here this morning and rehash the election. But there’s one little tidbit from the campaign that I want to put before you this morning.
About a week or so before election day, I read an article that interviewed voters in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where Joe Biden was born and where he spent the first ten years of his life. Now, Biden likes to talk about Scranton, and during the campaign especially when talking to Pennsylvanians, he’d remind them that he was from there. But one of the interviewees - one who was not planning on voting for him, said this: “He likes to claim us, but we don’t claim him.”
In other words, because his family moved away when he was ten, that voter, at least, didn’t think that Joe Biden could or should claim to be from there. To that voter, Joe Biden no longer belonged.
That statement stuck out to me for this very simple reason: I was ten years old – the same age as Joe Biden – when my family first moved from Vermont to New Jersey.
And that statement, “we don’t claim him,” stung me, because it rings so true.
I still consider Vermont to be my home state, even though I haven’t lived there in 31 years. It’s where all my formative memories were made. Where I made my first friends. Where I celebrated my first birthdays and holidays. I learned to swim in Harvey’s Lake. I learned to ride a horse on Mack’s Mountain. I learned how to ride a bike on the Old Cemetery Road. And I go back to visit my mother’s grave on Peacham Hill.
But with every year that passes, those trips north become less and less like homecomings and more and more like visits. Almost like any other tourist.
The land is the same. Most of the houses and buildings are the same. The bell still rings from the Congregational Church at 10am on Sunday mornings, and the cows still moo at the Kempton’s Farm.
But the people have changed. The ones I remember growing up with have all passed on or moved away. And the new ones are just strange faces in a familiar landscape. It’s their hometown now. Not mine. And I’m still from there, and no one can tell me I’m not… but I doubt anyone there would claim me.
It’s a strange feeling of both belonging and not belonging. So when Biden talks about being from Scranton, and some folks there now say, “we don’t claim you,” I know exactly what they mean. 10 years old is a strange age to move away from a place. Old enough to make some formative memories to become familiar with the land, to learn the best shortcuts to your friends’ houses, to know your way around when you revisit, even decades later – but not old enough to have made your own mark.
You remember the place, much more than the place remembers you.
I was thinking about that sense of belonging, and in considering that, the words of the first answer of the Heidelberg Catechism came to mind.
Q: “What is your only comfort in life and in death?”
A: “That I am not my own, but belong – body and soul, in life and in death – to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.
And those words led me to this scripture from Romans 14 this morning. That none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.
Embracing the faith that God has put in you; embracing the love that God shares with you; embracing the community that God surrounds you with… is a different kind of belonging. It’s not belonging to a particular town or a piece of land or a collection of memories and experiences. Those things are important and they shape us into who we are… but they also change over time. They ebb and the flow. Even if we stay in one place our entire lives, the people around us still come and go.
Yet the belonging we find in Jesus Christ, in the faith of God, in the embrace of God’s comforts and blessings – these things are permanent. Not just for a few years or a few decades, or even for a whole lifetime, but permanent from now and through death and for all the time of the universe.
We don’t have to beg God to claim us.
We don’t have to ask God to please remember us.
God claims us and remembers us every minute of every day of our lives, and into the next life as well.
In God we find unmistakable, unyielding, unending belonging.
I just have one more thing I’d like to say this morning. If you read this month’s Focus on Faith, or if you have a really good memory, you’ll know that my very first Sunday in this pulpit was the Sunday after the 2016 election. And so, for today, the Sunday after the 2020 election, I looked back at that sermon I preached four years ago. And there’s one thought I shared with you then that I’d like to share again.
In the wake of that election, which had half the country feeling joyous and the other half feeling angry and despondent – something we see again today – I talked about all the churches I’d preached in. Some liberal congregations and some conservative; some older and some younger; some richer and some poorer – and the one thing that everybody had in common in every church I went into – was that everyone wanted some reassurance of God’s love. Everyone wants that reminder that no matter who we are or where we come from, what we look like or who we know – that God remembers us. That God has a promise in store for us; a promise of everlasting love and everlasting life – a promise that we will never be forsaken. A promise that no matter our highs and our lows on earth, no matter who our president is, our leaders are, whether our country is on the right track or wrong track – that God still has our best interests at heart. That God will always be there for us to turn to, to find comfort, to find wisdom, and solace. Everyone, in every church, no matter who they are or what else they believe – wants to belong to God.
And we do.
Each of us. Every single one.
We are all God’s people. We can walk into any church, pray with any people, give worship together or even alone in our own homes – and God will remember us. God will welcome us. And God will claim us as his own.
I’ve never claimed to be a fortune-teller. I don’t know what the weeks and months ahead will hold for our country. There are some politicians I like more and some I like less; there are some policies I think are good and some that maybe aren’t so good; I think it’s important to stay engaged in the world and be active in the civic life of our communities.
But as people of faith, we don’t put our trust in any person, party, or policy, but in God and God alone. For it is God in Christ who won victory over death for us. It is God in Christ who redeems us and makes us worthy of the heavenly kingdom. It is God in Christ who claims us, and gives us a place full of love, joy and peace, where we all belong.
To God be all glory, praise, and honor. Amen.
Let us pray.
God of grace and eternal love, we pray to you this morning. We pray for our country, on the edge of a significant transition. We pray for our current and future leadership. But more than anything, we pray in thanks for the place of belonging you give us. For our families, for our friends and neighbors, for our church family, and for the eternal love of Jesus Christ. In whose name we pray. Amen.