- Look for our next Lenten Home Practices to post here.
- Look for Holy Week poems and readings to post here.
- Easter Sunrise at 6:30am on the Steps. Regular Easter Services at 9am. Easter Egg Hunt at 9:15am.
Watch the Recording HERE.
We often try to be like everyone else. To find and do what’s “normal”. Have you noticed that if we’re not doing what everyone else is doing, we usually have our own group of people not doing what everyone else is doing together? We don’t like to stand alone. We like groups. It’s primal. It’s a natural go-to. It’s safety. It’s comfort. Have you noticed how the more we feel like we don’t fit in, the more we try to fit in? We try so hard to fit in…remember our “let’s try so soft” instead a few weeks back?
We see this most obviously in middle school and high school. But we’re all doing it. Trying to fit in. Trying to figure out how to fit in. Where to fit in. Often trying to fit into the group that is the coolest, not the group that is where we’d fit in better.
I was reading Brene Brown this past week. She’s a researcher and a lot of her work is around “belonging”. Belonging is not fitting in. Fitting in are the ways we conform ourselves to try to feel a part of the group. Have you noticed it always seems like it’s just us struggling to fit it? The funny thing is, that if you ask people, everyone feels like they are struggling to fit in. Even the ones who ARE the group that everyone else is trying to fit into.
Fitting in is changing ourselves to conform to the box or expectations of others in order to be accepted.
Belonging is being accepted for who we are, as we are. Whether that’s with a single person, a group of people, or a whole society of people.
Belonging is very different than fitting in. It even sounds more delightful than fitting in. Belonging sounds, and is, authentic and real.
A lot of what Jesus does is create a place of belonging for people who don’t belong. We don’t have to be perfect. We don’t have to be powerful. We don’t have to be rich. We don’t have to be a certain gender. We don’t have to have right jobs. We just get to be who we are and belong.
That doesn’t mean we don’t strive to be better versions of ourselves, more gentle, more kind, more faithful. It means we belong even when we err and even when we fall. Even if we live on the “outside” of the norms, one way or another. One could argue that it seems those that don’t fit in are more likely to belong in Jesus’s way of being in this world. We’ve got the meek and the poor. We’ve got the sick and the criminal. We’ve got the tax collector and the prostitutes. These are not people in the boxes of conformity.
Jesus got the the heart of who people were, or could be, behind the masks. The masks of rich and poor. Sick and healthy. Male and female. Sinner and saint. Beyond this or that, where there is no judgement, comparison, or separation. We are One. Jesus wasn’t about fitting in and conforming to a set “new normal”. Jesus was about getting to the heart and belonging, just as we are, just as it is. Everyone belongs.
We might disagree about this, that, and the other thing, but we still all belong. Disagreeing is okay. It really is. Disagreeing is actually healthy—if we all agree (and only hang out with people we agree with) we have a Big fitting in and conforming problem. PAUSE. We don’t have to agree, but we all still belong. As long as we take off the masks (and the boxing gloves or swords in the world of Jerusalem) and get to the heart within one another. One of the core take aways of Jesus is…we belong. Come…follow me…just as you are (definitely come, follow me long before we “fix all our problems and flaws”).
We belong. Even if, and maybe especially if, we aren’t perfect and we don’t fit in.
It’s Palm Sunday. It’s a day of celebration. The Romans and the citizens and visitors of Jerusalem are celebrating with parades in the streets. There are Roman chariots and displays of wealth and power and war. There are competitions of who has more and who is stronger.
This is such a great counterpoint to Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem and something to know and think about. What is Jesus doing?
Jesus is riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. That very different than a chariot. Palms are being waved and laid at his feet. That’s very different than the pomp and circumstance of the other Jerusalem celebrations. Maybe, just maybe, there’s something deliberate about this entry into Jerusalem. PAUSE.
There’s no chariots or weapons or displays of wealth. It’s like an opposing mirror image of peace and humility to war and pride. PAUSE.
Jesus doesn’t fit in. He’s not molding himself to any of the expectations of society or any of the groups to fit in, not even his own (notice how we’re always surprised by Jesus–it’s never the expected, never). He’s doing something different. PAUSE.
It might be a donkey and palms, but there is something incredibly beautiful in that simplicity and grace. That’s it’s not about the big and superpowers. It’s about us. The little people. The humble and the grace-filled. It’s that we all belong. That we are all friends. That the important things are belonging, friendship, and love. One another…not the stuff. One another…and…something more. Jesus is thinking less about the expectations of those around him, fitting in to the society and the groups, and focused on: what does God expect of me?
What does God ask of me? How can I belong to God?
As Jesus lives the human experience fully, he leads the way toward not being distracted by fitting in, but to belonging. To fix our eyes always on Love and Grace and to know that true belonging is not always human belonging, but true belonging as One held in the hands of God. *Although, always remember that human belonging can echo the love of God, so love, love fully, and love lots!
Happiest of Palm Sundays. As you take your palms with you, remember, you are held in the palm of grace…and you belong…
Community Church of North Orange & Tully 