Weekly Sermon: Where do I belong? - 05-11-2025

The Holy Gospel according to John. Glory to you, O Lord.

At that time the festival of the dedication took place in Jerusalem.

It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the portico of Solomon.

So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, How long will you keep us in suspense?

If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.

Jesus answered, I have told you, and you do not believe.

The works that I do in my Father's name testify to me, but you do not believe,

because you do not belong to my sheep.

My sheep hear my voice.

I know them, and they forgive me.

They follow me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish.

No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater

than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father's hand.

The Father and I are one. The Gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, O Christ. You may be seated.

So my family and i moved around a lot

when i was little at first it was because of my biological father's time in

the military and then later we moved because of my then suddenly single mother's

determination to give my brother and i a safe and loving environment to grow up in,

So suffice to say that before I finished elementary school,

I had moved from Washington State to Hawaii to Washington to Kentucky to Oklahoma

to Pennsylvania to Wisconsin,

and then finally back to Oklahoma.

And all this moving was a lot for a little kid.

And while I knew my mother was doing her absolute best, never being able to

settle down and make long-term friends and build positive connections took a toll on me.

But when we finally started to establish ourselves in Oklahoma, things began to change.

I was beginning to adjust to this new life.

I was making friends at school, and my grades were improving.

I started following the Sooners, and they won a national championship,

and a couple of friends I had met I found on the bus route.

One was a guy who would end up being my friend throughout high school and college.

Another was this girl who we just instantly clicked together.

But a few months into my first year of middle school, a group of older students

decided that I would be their next target for bullying.

There's probably a lot of reasons why they chose me. I was a pretty quiet kid,

and some thought I was pretty weird being a closeted queer kid and all.

And I was still pretty poor, and that showed up in the way I dressed and the way I carried myself.

And so for all those reasons, and probably a few more, They chose me as their target.

And on that day, those kids flung nasty words in my direction.

They went through my backpack, and they chipped away at my confidence.

But what made it all sing the most wasn't just the bullying itself.

It was the girl I thought was my friend.

She joined in with these kids in bullying me, and she laughed along with them.

When my first stop finally came on the bus route, which was the last stop,

I got off the bus feeling completely betrayed.

I was feeling the weight of this new home in Oklahoma pressing down on me,

and I was feeling like I didn't belong there.

All I wanted to do was go somewhere else. When I got home, I walked through

my front door, and I saw my mom sitting there on the couch.

It was one of her rare days off of work, and my mother could tell in her own

special way that something was wrong with me.

She asked me what had happened, but I was, at the time, super moody and very emotional.

And instead of answering in a healthy way, like where I was supposed to, I snapped at my mother.

And I went straight to my room and slammed the door behind me,

where I then curled up in a ball on my bed,

and I was feeling the heavy feelings of shame, regret, anger,

and heartbreak, hating the place I was starting to call home,

and feeling betrayal from somebody I was starting to call my friend.

And most of all, I felt like I didn't have belonged there anymore.

I don't think moody pre-teen Ashley is alone in her feelings.

Many of us have had those moments in life where we felt lost and alone,

where it seems like we didn't quite fit in with the world around us.

And in those moments, we ask the aching question, where do I belong?

That longing doesn't begin and end in middle school like with me.

It follows us throughout every stage of our life.

Maybe you just started college trying to find your place in a new environment.

It shows up when you enter the workforce for the first time as you try to figure

out what adulting means.

You might feel it as your co-workers come and go, retire, leave,

and new ones replace them.

Or you may feel it when you move to a new city and are forced to rebuild your

community from scratch.

And then you feel most tenderly in your later years when loved ones pass away,

routines shift, and you have to adjust to new forms of living.

The question of where do I belong is universal.

It doesn't discriminate by age, gender, race, class, or ability.

And if we let this question control us, if we allow it to become the voice that

defines us, It can cripple us emotionally, spiritually, and relationally.

And it can lead us to respond in ways that hurt us rather than heal us.

One common response to the question

of belonging is that we might start changing who we are to fit in.

We tell ourselves, if I just change this part of me, this one thing about me,

If I can tone down, if I can hide for a racist thing about me,

maybe I can finally belong.

This response is especially painful for our LGBTQ and neurodivergent siblings

who've been told time and time again that they're too much or not enough.

To cope, this response of feeling like we need to change can cause us to shut down.

We might delete parts of ourselves just to experience a small taste of belonging,

just enough to survive but that kind of belonging comes at a terrible cost.

Another response is overachievement. We might try to convince ourselves that

belonging is a reward, something we earn by proving our worth.

In a culture where productivity is king, we are told to hustle for our value

at school, at work, and even in our relationships.

But when love and belonging become conditional, we live in fear.

We fear that if we fail, it makes us think that we have lost our place.

The chase for success becomes a way keeping us from resting and keeping us from

fully being known by anything other than what it can produce.

And finally, when we can't find a healthy answer to the question of belonging,

some of us might turn inward and ask, what is wrong with me?

A question which is quieter but also very dangerous, which when left unchecked

can cause spirals in shame, depression, and self-hatred.

This question convinces us not only that we don't belong, but that we never could.

And when our sense of belonging is based on what we do or who we pretend to

be, we end up exhausted and hollow.

But Jesus flips the script and offers a healthy way to respond to this question.

In John 10, he says, my sheep hear my voice and I know them.

He doesn't say that they passed the test or they became acceptable.

Jesus says that I know them.

In that knowing that deep divine recognition can be the foundation of our belonging.

Our passage today opens by setting

the scene in a portico with solomon which is a covered walkway around the temple

known as a place of public debate and teaching in john's gospel this location

is significant has accused us as

the readers and as listeners as something important is about to be said.

In other words, the teacher is getting ready to speak Jesus,

and we, the readers, are meant to pay attention.

Then John adds another layer of meaning.

This conversation is happening during a festival of dedication, also known as Hanukkah.

While many of us are generally familiar with Hanukkah, in this context it's

important to understand what it signifies.

Hanukkah was and is a celebration of Jewish identity, of rededication,

and of God's faithful presence in the face of oppression.

So this moment isn't just about abstract theology. It's about identity.

It's about place. And this moment in Scripture is about belonging.

And as we insert ourselves as readers into the setting, Jesus offers a metaphor. Sheep.

Sheep are not strategic animals they don't

survive through cunning or strength they rely on relationship sheep know their

shepherd not because of cleverness but because of a deep connection to the shepherd

they listen for the shepherd's voice and the shepherd in turn knows their sheep intimately.

What Jesus is doing here is beautiful as he's establishing a relationship of mutual recognition.

He is the shepherd and we his followers are the sheep.

He knows our voice and we know his voice and we trust in Jesus's care.

So when we come to the climax of this passage in verses 27 and 30.

What I want to draw focus on is the language that Jesus is using.

It's about relationship.

Jesus uses possessive words. Words not to mean to convey control,

but possessive in a way like a mother cradling her baby.

Jesus says, my sheep. And he promises no one will snatch him from my hand.

This is not about ownership. It's about deep love. It's about protection.

It's about the commitment Jesus has for us.

This is the language of belonging. Jesus claims it's not because we earned it,

not because we did everything right, but because we are His.

And that kind of belonging, that deep kind of fierce, unconditional,

love is something we don't only see in the scripture, but also in our own stories.

And if you remember the story I told a little bit earlier, if you listen closely,

you might have noticed I did something awful.

I committed a cardinal sin in my story. And does anybody know what that sin was?

I talked back to my mother and I slammed the door on her,

So here's what you need to know about my mom. She's been here once,

and so you got to meet her a little bit, some of you.

But my mother does not tolerate that kind of behavior.

Especially not from her children.

So there I am in the story, and I'm curled up in my bed. I'm overwhelmed, and I'm upset.

And then my bedroom door flies open.

And there she is my mother the strongest toughest woman i know standing in the

doorway with the look that says i'm about to teach this child a lesson,

and at that moment i am not just crying i'm preparing for my funeral,

You know, okay, name, date of birth, date of death, probably say she was quiet,

but she was kind, nice, and yeah, I think I'm going to have a good funeral.

But just as I'm crying and upset and planning my funeral, I won't be there,

I'll be, you know, dead. But I look up and I notice something.

Something changes in my mother's demeanor.

Her expression shifts from anger to compassion as she sees me crying.

She walks over, she sits beside me, and she pulls me into her arms.

She lets me cry. she listens I as

I tell this story about kids picking on me and then

with all the love in the world she reminds me that I am loved that I am her

child I am her child and that she will do everything in her power to protect

me and that no matter what everything is going to be.

So today would it be Mother's Day? If that image of sheep and shepherds doesn't

quite fully land for you, maybe this one will.

Just as a mother claims her child and holds them close and refuses to let them

go, so does God with all of us.

I need you to hear this good news. You are a child of God.

You online you in the back you here up front whether you're here for the first time or for,

the millionth time for the past 30, 40, 60 years you are a child of God,

and that you belong to God not because you earned it not because you never slammed

the door or never made some silly mistake but because God is the one who calls you by name,

holds you in love and says, you are mine.

The mothering God who created you claims you as a child.

The Christ who gave everything on the cross claims and protects you as his own.

And the Holy Spirit who longs for you and nurtures you, says your name,

and continually calls you back into the loving arms of God, also claims you as a child of God.

God. So what we need to remember from this passage is this, in those moments

when we don't feel like we belong, we can't hold fast to the truth that no matter

where we are or what we're going through,

we are God's beloved children.

In those moments when we feel like we have to overperform in order to belong,

like grown children raiding their mother's fridge and knowing they're still

welcome, We can walk through the doors of God's house and be reminded that we

don't need to earn our place.

We are ready along.

In those moments when we whisper to ourselves, I am not enough.

We can act like a child who slams the door on our mother, only to be embraced by love anyways.

We can return at any time to scripture. and we can speak honestly to God in

prayer and be reminded that we are unconditionally loved and claimed.

And in those times when we enter a new chapter in our lives and we feel unsure

of our place in it, like a son or daughter returning home and taking their seat

at the table for Thanksgiving or Christmas,

we too can take our seat at Jesus' table.

There in the sacred act of communion we are reminded time and time again that

we are children of God and we belong at God's.

Imagine what it would look like if everyone lived with the reminder belonging

to God written onto our hearts.

We could all collectively breathe easier because we wouldn't have to feel like

we need to overperform or change ourselves for other people.

We can let our guards down and be our authentic selves free of judgment.

And we can love each other unconditionally. as a family comprising of the children of God.

If everyone lived with this in our hearts, there would be more compassion in

our world because like a mother who forgets her child for slamming the door on her,

we would be reminded that the mistakes of our family are not out of malice,

but often out of life circumstance.

And even if malice was met, we can still forgive each other anyways.

We can see through each other's mistakes and show love and compassion for our fellow family members.

And there would be an infectious energy among us.

Every person who walks through our doors or simply comes into contact with us on the streets.

Would encounter people connected through the common claim that God has on each

and every single one of us.

And even if we never see these people again, they couldn't forget us.

Because the love that we would show each and every person, that would imprint on their minds.

And what I find beautiful about all this, all these dreams, is that we are doing

that as a community of St. Luke's already.

Through our outreach ministries like Community Breakfast, we are reaching out

to so many in our community and are offering them physical and spiritual food.

Our formation team is full of talented teachers and loving souls who are creating

a safe and thriving ministry for our children.

And then just last week, I had the opportunity to sit down with the yard birds

who give their time and talents each week to make sure that this sacred space

that we share is as beautiful as the souls that inhabit it.

And honestly, I've just gotten started with all the wonderful ministries that this church does.

And if I kept going, we would be here all day.

But we are already living into this vision of being the children of god and

what that means for each and every single one of us and what i'm hoping is to

throw a little extra fuel on top of that fire i'm being a pirate today.

Because the reminder that we are children of god that we belong to god that

we are claimed, known, and never abandoned.

That can become a catalyst for joy and purpose.

That can fuel our excitement for the ministries of our church,

the ministries of our daily lives, and it can open our hearts to receive the peace,

courage, and calling that comes from being a part of God's unfolding story.

So if you came in today wondering, where do I belong?

I hope today that you leave knowing deeply within your heart that you belong in God's loving arms.

Filled with the joy of new life, go in peace to love and serve and welcome all.

Thanks be to God and we will.