Belonging 2018

You Belong.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

So leading up to the belonging service next week, we've been talking a lot about community, what it means to be in community and today I'm going to be talking a little bit about why, uh, why we should belong, why it's important to belong. Oh yeah. I get to click the clicker. Here we go. Let's see. Sweet. All right, let's pray. Heavenly father, thank you for tonight. Thank you for bringing us all together to be in this one building in this city that you have brought rain. And uh, I got, I just pray that you would speak through me and that your Holy Spirit would come on me and that, um, yeah, that we could hear what you have for us. All that it wouldn't be from me. Instead. Got It would be from you. And um, as we hear your thunder roll, uh, that we could realize that you are above us, that you're in control and that you are a, you are a trustworthy God. Uh, so lord, bring us your word tonight. We pray in your name. Jesus. Amen. Alright, s got 20 pages of notes. So I only need a couple hours of your time, so I think I spoke on belonging or something similar, a belonging like a few months ago. And in preparation I had like the we belong in the night, then the something song stuck in my head for the whole week. And once again I had that song stuck in my head all week until about 30 minutes ago, um, when I was given this contraption and then, then I had Madonna's vogue stuck in my head for the last 30 minutes. Madonna, you know, the vogue song, I'll sing it for you after. Um, so a strange thing about belonging, you know, I've been part of the village for like 10 years. I started coming when it met over in our Savior's Lutheran church over by UMC. Um, and I used to work the night shift at that hospital. So I would come to service, I would scarf like two or three pieces of pizza and then I would run across the street while I drive across the street and work a 12 hour night shift. So I kind of felt like a nomad at that time. Uh, I didn't stick around much for conversation, I didn't get too personal with anybody, um, and it was a very comfortable kind of practice for me to be a villager who just kinda got to come and go. And then as Coleen and I entered into engagement and we were meeting Eric for premarital counseling, I got a sense that, you know, Pastor Eric cared about me and other people in the community cared about me, other married couples, single people, they, they cared about me. It was probably mostly because they cared about colleen and they were being protective over her, um, but they wanted to invest in me and I really appreciated that. Um, I was relatively a new believer so I didn't really consider like the body of Christ and what that meant to be a part of that. So after like a year or so of doing premarital counseling, um, and, and being invited over to people's houses for dinner or taken out to dinner, you know, I could feel the authenticity of the community and I saw that they really wanted to get to know me and that was really cool. Um, so it was cared about and also I understood that I had capacity to care about other people, I had something to offer and I like to believe that there was a switch that happens when it comes to belonging and it mostly has to do with coming up against the lies that you don't belong. Well, with the thunder clash, let me make a bold statement. You do belong. I did not time the thunder I wish I would have. That would have been cool, but there are a million reasons to feel like you don't belong. I'm too different. My sin is too big. My secrets and my past or two terrible. Nobody can understand me, my abuse, my addictions, my history, my bank account statement, my Internet search history that is too much to bear. The village is to unorthodox and weird for me. I'm not so sure about this Jesus guy. I am not worthy of being loved. Every friend, family member and other church I've attended has rejected me. I appear put together enough and had been going here long enough that I will just be overlooked again. So that's only about eight and I'm sure that there are a few others. I'm wondering if you could help me out and just offer maybe a reason that comes to your mind that you don't belong, that you wouldn't belong. I don't fit to old people. Don't understand me. I don't know all the crazy songs. Who are these people? Good. So Satan, the liar will tell you that belonging is overrated and that your life is better lived in isolation. You're better off not learning these songs and just being the guy in the back who just doesn't do the songs outside of community. It's better to be outside community. It's better to just come and go and beyond the run, but the truth teller, Jesus will tell you otherwise and he will call you to him and he and he will give you rest. He says to take his yoke upon you and learn from him. For he is gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. His yoke is easy and his burden is light. Is there rest in belonging or is there rest in exile. Oops. Okay. That was planned, that was planned, alright, alright, so no seriously you do. You do belong and I, I want to argue for that despite all the reasons that were unsaid that you might feel prove that you don't belong, but another aspect of belonging is choosing and risking. It's easy to be passive in community waiting for someone to invite you to their house for dinner or waiting for a sermon to strike the right chord and it's okay to be a village receiver and just kind of receive for awhile. But belonging is risky. Learning the words is risky. Learning the people is risky. Engaging and accepting your age and what sets you apart is risky. And this is not about belonging to the village except for that I really want to share life with you. This is about belonging to the community and the Kingdom of God. So we must also choose to get involved at least a little and the fact that we're all here today or that whoever might be listening to the sermon online, that we've taken a tiny little step into choosing to belong. Um, but of course we're risking rejection. So on that note of risking rejection, this is a picture of me when I started coming to the village. Thank you. I think this picture was taken in 2009. Not pictured here is a foot Dora that I would often wear. Does anybody remember the Fedora? Yeah. I'm sorry you guys. I'm sorry. Okay. Bring back the Fedora. I already got like so many no votes to the man bun, so I'm not even going to put it to a vote for the Fedora, but it doesn't take. It doesn't take a 22 year old with a nearly completely developed brain to understand that fitting in and belonging is hard. It's something that's super difficult. Uh, but wherever you are in your spiritual journey, I imagine that there are messages in your story that make convincing arguments against belonging. Somebody can be a mic runner for me. I'm Kevin can be in my corner for me. Um, I'm wondering if you could give me some reasons why you should belong or give me some reasons that you have chosen to belong. After preparing for my sermon, my wife asked me of this. She said, why did you choose to belong? And it never even occurred to me to start thinking like, wow, cory, like, let's, let's work this out for me and I'll share more about that later, but what are some reasons that you have to belong that you've chosen to belong? We got cory and Kelsey over here

Speaker 2: 8:57

because people here don't care that I'm weird. Uh, I think it helps me to continue to have faith in God, to have people around me who also believe.

Speaker 3: 9:15

Thank you Keith.

Speaker 4: 9:21

This is my family.

Speaker 3: 9:24

Great. Two more. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:31

In our book club, we read a book on Liturgy and so that's just like in the forefront of my mind and I think belonging and coming on Sunday, there's the liturgy and the liturgy overflows into our week. And the other reason I belong is I loved the sermon series on healing and I think this is a place where I have received deep healing and healing is to be seen to be known and to be called out and who you truly are. And I have both received that and I am working on being a disciple who offers that and you all received my experimentation with that. Thank you.

Speaker 3: 10:08

One more.

Speaker 1: 10:10

Yeah, it's two rows and rod to mark

Speaker 5: 10:17

because, um, first of all, the alternative to belonging is not belonging and that's isolating and scary. And secondly, I feel like the village is a gem of serious authenticity and I've been around a lot of places and you do not find that like. So when you do find that you should really hold onto it because it's rare and it's wonderful.

Speaker 3: 10:44

Amen.

Speaker 4: 10:52

This is the body of Christ and I'm being made whole and beautiful. And to be part of that. And then it's also plays to both be served and to serve, to love and be loved.

Speaker 3: 11:07

Cool. Thanks everybody.

Speaker 1: 11:11

All good reasons. All good reasons. So Jeremiah wrote a letter to the people of Israel. When they were in exile, the Israelites were taken out of their home, move to a new place, kept on the move so they could not establish their own sense of identity, their own sense of government. And they constantly dreamed of returning home. So this is a quick, well not a quick, it's kind of a long a verse from Jeremiah Chapter Twenty Nine, verse four, and following says, this is what the Lord Almighty the of Israel says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, build houses and settle down plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters. Find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage so that they too may have sons and daughters increase in number there. Do not decrease. Also seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it because if it prospers, you too will prosper. Yes. This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel says, do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have their prophesying lies to you and my name I have not sent them, declares the Lord. This is what the Lord says when 70 years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me. When you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you, declares the Lord, and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile. So I feel like there are a few ways to belong that are scripturally sound, build houses, and settle down care about the city. We are a people who are about healing the city, one person at a time. We say that all the time. We understand though that in a way we are exiles. We are people who believe in a God who heals. We are people who believe in a god who was resurrected from the dead, that is practical theology, but it's also an unusual theology. So in some ways we are exiled from secular thinkers, but Jeremiah reminds us that we are meant to put roots down and resist the pull back into being transient and God promises peace even in exile. And God promises blessing. When my wife Colleen and I moved to Seattle, we thought we would only be there for three years and then we would come back to Tucson. Uh, I took a lot, a little bit longer, took an extra year to complete my program up there, but I had this mentality that I'm only gonna be here for a short time and then I'm going to go back so I'm not going to invest myself. I had a transient mentality, one where I was looking to the future all the time. I was really not living in the present at least for the first year, but the word for belong in the Greek is a me, e, a, m I a me. It means to be to exist and to be present, thinking too much of what was coming next really took away from what was happening in the now, but I was able to be present in a church body and belong to the small group that formed around us. We called it a celebration group and it was as close to the village. I would say, as you can get only with six people to know, to know each other, to be known by each other and to grow toward Jesus. I feel those forces when I'm here and I felt them there, so perhaps you don't have to have the bankroll to buy a house or to sign a lease or to get involved in a yearlong living arrangement, but Jeremiah is inviting you into today, into right now. Can you settle down into today? Is God inviting you to commit to this community to belong? Is God inviting you to reach out to that person who has been on your heart and say, let's live life together.

Speaker 6: 15:55

Maybe

Speaker 1: 15:57

I'm going to tell a story about Jessie and did not ask his permission, but I'm sure he'll be fine with it. It's not that embarrassing. Is it? Okay. Perfect. Thanks. So I'm not a great gardener, but I have seen the full life cycle of a lot of plants in my life. But the art to gardening is constant attention and patience. So in addition to settling down and being rooted in one place, there is an invitation to intentionality and investment. Learning the words, uh, learning the people getting involved. But if you're like me, that intentionality and investment can result in disappointment and a wilty dry dead plant. But as mark recently preached, we the Community of God or like a nursery where we can help each other grow. And it, this is kind of Tacky, but I'm gonna say it anyway in the garden of relationship. Okay. Here comes. So the other day I had a Duh moment. I was lamenting the lack of growth of my purple Bogan via Bush in my backyard. It's been there for like two years and it has never grown. It appears healthy. It gets a lot of water and plenty of sunlight and as beautiful little purple flowers that appear on it once in awhile, but it doesn't grow, grow the way that I want. I want it to grow up my brick wall and just be this majestic thing and I told Jesse about it. He's our resident plant expert and he said, well Corey, how did you plant it? And I said, well, I dug a 10 gallon whole. I filled it with potting soil and I put my plant in it and he gave me that look like interesting choice. He said, well, why would a plant reach out beyond the place where it has everything it needs? It won't root beyond the richness of the soil it has in that one tiny place. You've got to dig it out, remove all the potting soil and then give it regular dirt and some compost and plant it. Put it back. Sounds like common sense, but common sense is not that common. I've learned. So I managed to gingerly dig this plan out. I did it, I pulled it out and I replanted it the way that you said, and I put it back and it in like three weeks has already grown like two inches and I did not kill it. I did not. I managed not dismember the roots to the point of its demise. This is. Yeah, this is Keith. That's the sun at some lightning. Here is a legitimate metaphor though for repentance. My tree can grow because I am now oriented the right way. This is fantastic, so fantastic. I have the right soil. I have a better setup I had and someone wiser in my community helped turn me to that I had to trust Jesse's wisdom, humbled myself to my mistake and my ignorance and dedicate myself toward a better way. It's the same way with sin. I trust my community to call out my sin and helped me reorient towards God and I can do that without humiliation, without judgment, without resentment from my peers. I just have to say that Keith also had some part in that whole cycle. That's the only payment. Okay. First Peter Chapter two says, but you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness out of that tiny non-growing Bogan via into his wonderful light, into the Bogan via that grows in a natural soil. Once you were not a people, but now you are a people of God. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy, now you have received mercy. Mercy is when Jesse comes back to my house and says how beautiful the Bogan via looks and walking alongside me when not if but when I need more help. What mercy is not is Jesse saying, remember that time you bury that plant in a hole full of potting soil. What an idiot. We can celebrate the reorientation because we are dedicated to each other and community and my responsibility is to continue to engage repentance throughout my life. This mercy and repentance has led me to repair relational repair and certainly that plant is grateful for it's life. This is an invitation. Get married and have babies to actually get married and actually have babies, but more than that, it's an invitation to embrace a growing community, which we of course have that embrace is more complex than just planning weddings and baby showers were not doing a bad job at responding to this literal invitation. But I think that, um, the invitation in First Thessalonians is about more than just getting married. It's about loving on widows and their children. It's about creating relationships with foster kids, adopting children, being with children, with absent parents. It's about connecting with people who appear, put together or have been involved for a long time who actually have a deep down longing to be seen and known and loved. It's about celebrating birthdays and Baptisms, dedications, graduations. It's about grieving at funerals, at losses. It's about single people speaking into marriages. It's about marriages working through hidden addictions, histories of abuse. It's about understanding our stories and seeking God in our sexuality and our gender identity in our spiritual formation. Places that we dare not go in the light of day. Perhaps you're not married, have no babies, never will be married, never will have babies. I don't know. Perhaps our community is meant to grieve this with you and to bless you, but you have a role. Here you belong. What determines your belonging? Goodness is that God has set of you. You are my child who I love and with you I am well pleased because you have chosen to receive what God has to offer, resurrection and a community to live life with you. You belong. You've come here to engage in our community. You belong. Perhaps you are the single person. Perhaps you are the orphan. Perhaps you are the hurting person. Perhaps your choice to belong here is where your journey, your journey to healing begins, and I'm going to quote my wife. It is safe to be broken here. When we say healing the city, one person at a time, we might be talking about you. We might be talking about me, so what does that mean? What are we supposed to do? Belonging means to give and receive blessing. When pastor Rod, welcome back from vacation, raises his hands at the end of service and says, receive God's blessing. Hold out your hands as if bless you as if you are Ron wideman. Everybody would pass her rod, raises his hands at the end of service and says, receive God's blessing. Hold out your hands as if you are receiving a freshly baked loaf of bread or gluten free equivalent, something that will fill your belly and warm your soul and when you say and also with you, turn your hands outward as if to say, here, pastor Rod, I want to share of this amazing gift with you and now you are in fellowship. Now you belong together and now imagine that that bread is actually Jesus. You are both engaged with Jesus and you are practicing blessing and being blessed even if you don't feel committed, even if you don't feel rooted, even if you never come back to this church you belonged in that moment. Also repentance. We are to establish trust amongst us so that we can have authority to speak into each other's lives. I went to Jesse, asked him about my plant because I knew he wasn't going to call me

Speaker 3: 24:58

idiot. Thank you.

Speaker 1: 25:02

Part of repentance also is about listening to the elders and the leaders and to follow them as they follow Jesus. Part of repentance is to give back to the church in ways that God has given to you with your time, with your money, with your skills. Part of repentance is to receive from the church in ways that are accessible, eating dinner or lunch starting in two weeks while also sharing your story. Pastor Eric often says this, and I will say it again. The elders and the leaders of this community will fail you because we are human right there. Disappointment. We will disappoint you, but we are dedicated to following Jesus. Paul writes in his letter to the Romans and you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, and then later if we live, we live to the Lord and if we die, we die to the Lord. So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. Meaning we will have disappointment and our relationships, but we are united around Jesus and so we can repair. When I was in college, I was a Frat guy, tried to wrap your wrap our minds around that, and our fraternity had a motto that focused on the three principles of true Brotherhood, love, charity and esteem. I don't really know the definition of esteem even though I was part of that fraternity for a while and we used to recite this big thing at the end of our chapter meetings, but really our fraternity focused on one true principle of true brotherhood, consuming alcohol and partying, and that was an unspoken truth sadly, and after realizing that this type of lifestyle was fleeting and unsatisfying, I became jaded to the system. Why would we say that we adhere to love and charity and esteem when we really don't? I was troubled by the hypocrisy, but love and charity are not enough to hold a club together. When we hurt each other, when we disappointed each other, there was nothing to come back to. There was nothing we could stand on, not until the next party when we could unite again around

Speaker 6: 27:15

alcohol.

Speaker 1: 27:17

We had no Jesus, we had no foundation, but the invitation in this community is to be sober minded and alert in the community that is not caught up in the darkness, so we have some things to put on. Faith, hope and love. Those are our three things, faith, hope and love. It's stepping into relationship and belonging with Jesus. Maybe the village will not be your home, but there is the invitation to belong with Jesus and in the Kingdom of God, Jesus is ruler over all human kings and there's an invitation now to be part of Jesus' community. Back to Paul's letter to the church at Thessalonica. I know I'm running out of time now. Brothers and sisters about times and dates we do not need to write to you for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night while people are saying peace, safety or my case love, charity esteem, Brotherhood, destruction will come on them suddenly as labor pains on a pregnant woman and they will not escape, but you brothers and sisters, you people of the village are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness, so then let us not be like the others who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober for those who sleep sleep at night and those who get drunk get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober. Putting on faith and love as a breast plate and the hope of salvation as a helmet. Paul is inviting us to gear up and practice living in community.

Speaker 6: 28:54

Okay?

Speaker 1: 28:56

Some of you know I have a two and a half year old daughter, her name is kate, and her favorite question to ask is why she'll even pull one of these on me. Daddy, what's that noise? A truck. Why? It just doesn't make any sense. I thought I was really looking forward to this phase of her life when she would ask me why and I would say, here is how the world works. I'm going to teach you. You're going to learn, but it is non-ending. So now I just say because God wants it that way, and she'll often say, okay, great, and I've actually learned that this is not a copout because God does want it that way. When you say, why should I belong? Why should I be a villager? Why should I dedicate myself to community? It's because God wants it that way because it is good to belong because the body of Christ consists of many parts and it can't function without all of them. You included. So I created my own trail of wise query. You should belong. Why? Because it's good to be long. Why? Because God says it's good and it scripturally sound theology. Why? Because the resurrection of Jesus is it. Okay, so I just went on and on and on and 30 wise later and I landed at taste and see that the Lord is good. Psalm 34 taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. Fear the Lord you, you, his holy people, for those who fear him lack nothing. So when a person who hands you a fresh loaf of bread, you will know why. When you taste it, it will make sense to you that you would want to share it. When somebody shares Jesus with you, you will understand why it is good to belong. It will make you think. There is nothing, nothing that I lack. It is good to be part of the community of God. The village is about engaging and practicing the principles of courage and authenticity, helping each other in our weakness. Regardless of where you're at. It's about putting God's practice, putting to practice God's will for your life, which is what we said at the which was what Karen read. God's will for your life. Rejoice always. Pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances. This is God's will for you in Jesus. We can't get it right. We're going to fail each other, but we're together in this and we are together in the belief that God is making us holy. He is doing something. He is healing us. This hope can lead us into more healing. So next week is the belonging service. I invite you all to come and check it out. Pastor Eric gave us a little overview of what that means. There is going to be an opportunity opportunity for you to commit to being part of this community for the next year. One year you can sign the covenant. You can proclaim that you align yourself to the values of the village, which are accessibility, authenticity, community, creativity, that disciplines and truth. Go to the website. If you want to read the Covenant, the purpose of the village belonging covenant also is on there. If you don't want to sign it, that's okay. If you want to wrestle with it and still dedicate yourself to this community for a year, awesome. Come and join my group. I would love to share life with you. Belonging is about the community of God, not necessarily the village, so if he wants some help finding a home that isn't the village, then we can. We can make that work, but if you do want to become a villager, come on Sundays. Stay for dinner or for lunch. Starting in two weeks. Join a Bible study. Join a monastic community serve. I'm sure many of you have gifts of teaching, cooking, cleaning, leading the children, pray and seek prayer back. There is a little white chair called the healing chair. After the service, if you feel like you need healing in your life, go and sit in that chair. Somebody will see you and they'll come and pray for you and afterward when we eat, you guys can talk about it. This is what our community is here for. Consider your responses. Consider what it's like to sing and worship, to learn the songs, to do some of the motions, to give some of your money back to the church, to be healed, to get communion. Also, lastly, ask lots of questions. I also wrote know that plenty of other people feel awkward, lonely, uncertain, myself included. Invite yourself over to people's houses for dinner if it doesn't seem like they're doing, they're taking that initiative. It's okay to not have everything together. So we are overtime. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you for being our God. Thank you for being a God that has dedicated himself to loving us despite our awkwardness, despite our uncertainty, despite, um, just the weirdness that comes with being part of a church that comes with being a spiritual person in a secular world. Thank you for never giving up on us even when it seems like sometimes you give us radio silence, but Lord you say that you love us. You say that you care about us. You see that with us. You are well pleased and you will never let go of us. So if you are inviting us into belonging, Lord, may that be so. Thank you for the rain, for your timely claps of thunder and for blessing our city with rain. Would you bless our city with peace? We pray in your name Jesus. Amen.