Sunday Sermon: We Belong Here
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1 Corinthians 12:27
“We Belong Here” Series: “Why Church Matters”
August 16, 2020 Connection
The other day, as I was driving down I-65 in Shelby County, I started looking at the billboards along the interstate, like many of you no doubt do. There was one billboard that in particular caught my eye. Now, I have to admit that it caught my eye because it was a billboard for my alma mater, the University of Montevallo. The billboard featured a nice-looking student, visibly content that she was a part of the “Falcon Nation.” (Yes, there is such a thing.) But what I found most compelling was the tagline under the student’s picture. In big, bold, gold letters against the purple backdrop, the tagline read: “You belong here.” “You belong here.”
I have no idea who came up with that tagline, but whoever he or she was deserves a big, fat raise in my opinion. That’s because the tagline speaks to prospective students on at least two levels. On one level, it says to prospective students that if they make any other choice of a school in which to pursue their studies, they may be missing out on the ideal school in Montevallo. In other words, “You don’t belong at that school. You belong at this one. This school is where you ought to be. You belong here!”
But I don’t know that such an appeal is really all that effective, not in this day and age when people, especially the college-age crowd, aren’t as quick to respond to authoritarian pronouncements. “Don’t tell me where I belong. I can make that decision for myself.”
OK, I get it. But the second level the billboard speaks to? Now, that’s a different story. “Montevallo is a place where you’ll fit in. It’s a place where you’ll feel at home. It’s a place where you can connect.” And in a day when people are yearning for connections, any place that can offer itself as one where people might do that has a better than average chance of winning out over their competition. “You belong here!”
As I drove on down the interstate, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride for the place that helped to form and shape me in so many ways. But I also couldn’t help but think about the implications of that tagline for the church in general and Mountain Brook Baptist Church in particular. In a day when so many folk are feeling lonely and disconnected, weary from having to practice social distancing and sheltering in place, what are the possibilities for a church like ours that might represent itself to others as a place they can belong?
That’s actually a question the Apostle Paul posed for the church in Corinth to think about because of how that first century church was on the verge of seeing its light be snuffed out because of factionalism and elitism and all other manner of divisions that had wormed their way into their community of faith. I’ve often said that any problem you can think a church might face today was a problem that confronted the church at Corinth in Paul’s day. And all of the problems stemmed from the fact that the believers there just couldn’t seem to get on the same page. They were disconnected and disengaged, and many in the church felt as if they simply didn’t belong.
That’s not an appealing place to be; is it, to be in a place where you don’t feel that you belong? I’m sure that many of you listening today can think of a time in your life where you found yourself in a crowd you couldn’t for the life of you break into. Maybe it was a time when you were new to a place or maybe it was a time when you had been cast off by someone or some group that had come to see you as dispensable. Or maybe it was a season in your life where you suddenly were made painfully aware that you couldn’t make it through this life entirely on your own, that you were not an island, as the poet John Donne once put it, and that you really did need people to be with in order to make it through that difficult time.
So, shouldn’t church be the one place in this life that promises a sense of salvation from all of those fears and anxieties of not fitting in? Shouldn’t church be a place where we might feel acceptance and support so that we can face each day in the confidence that we are surrounded by a strong system of support? Paul would say yes. The only problem is, however, that left to our own instincts and impulses, we tend to gravitate only to those who think like us and look like us and live like us. I remember how in the past we used to call that a “clique.” But now, we call it a “tribe,” and for some reason that seems to sound better, though it’s not. It’s really not.
Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, was inspired by the Holy Spirit to choose a different metaphor. He was inspired to speak of the church as a “body.” But not just an ordinary body, the Holy Spirit helped Paul see the church as nothing less than the body of Christ. “Now, you are the body of Christ,” he wrote to those snooty and all-over-the-map Corinthians, “and each one of you is a part of it.” In other words, even though you’re not alike and even though there might be a gazillion reasons for you not to come together, the one thing you do have in common is your experience with the grace of Jesus, and therefore each of you is essential in using whatever talent or ability the grace of Jesus has awakened in you so that the cause of Christ might be advanced in this world. Therefore, as the body of Christ, there should be an openness and a willingness to make a place for everyone the Spirit of Jesus leads our way.
As we think about our church today, can we say that we are that kind of place? Can we say that we have “spaces in our togetherness” for those who need connection? Do we honestly value every soul the Spirit sends our way or do we silently view some as better off someplace else? Most importantly, do we have the capacity and the social capital to make sure that there’s a place for everyone who needs a place to belong?
When our son John was a little boy, he loved playing with Legos. You know what I’m talking about; don’t you? Legos are those plastic pieces that fit together so that you can make all kinds of contraptions and constructions. By the way, you may not know that the word “Lego” comes from a Danish phrase that means “play well.” What I do know is that my son could sit for hours with his Legos.
But I will always remember the day when while putting something together, he came to me with a small dilemma. One of the pieces that he wanted to use didn’t have the capacity to connect anything else. Its spaces were all taken up with other pieces, and for my son it seemed like his entire building project had come to a screeching halt. “Oh,” I told him. “That’s no problem. This piece has no more spaces. You just need to find a piece that does.” And that’s exactly what my son did. He came digging and digging through the pieces until he came up with one that had enough space for more connections.
If the “experts” are right, we’re living in a day when folk are feeling there are less and less places where they can connect. And all the while, there are an alarmingly high number of churches that are closing their doors because of dwindling numbers and aging congregation. And remarkably, few of those churches fail to see any correlation between those two realities. That’s a dilemma; and if this church is not careful, it is one that will catch up with us in due time.
So, what do we do? Do we take out a billboard? No, billboards are not necessary. The fact of the matter is that we already have one that God Himself set up years ago on the outskirts of Jerusalem where His Only Begotten Son was nailed to a Roman cross as a way of saying to the whole world, “You belong here! You belong here!”
What we need to do is to recommit ourselves to be the body of Christ in our world today – a place and a people who always have one more spot, one more space for anyone who needs a place to belong. If so, that word will get out and they will be moved to come our way. When they do, let’s make sure that for Christ’s sake, we’ll be ready to make sufficient room. Whatever that takes, let’s make for them sufficient room.