St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD
April 28, 2024
Year B: The Fifth Sunday of Easter
Acts 8:26-40
Psalm 22:22-30
1 John 4:7-21
John 15:1-8
The Place to Belong
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
About three years ago now, after I had been called to serve as your next Rector but before Sue and I arrived here, I received an email from a parishioner who really wanted me to know that our church website was overdue for a major overhaul.
Now, I don’t want to say who that was, but I’ll give you a clue:
We’re all very sad that, soon, he and Carla will be leaving us and moving to Kansas!
So anyway, thanks to this unnamed but most determined parishioner, dealing with the website was high on my to-do list even before I got started here.
As many of you will remember, we formed a small committee – which of course included Bob – I mean, you know who – and we got to work on creating a brand-new website.
We aimed to create a beautiful and easy-to-navigate site, one that would give visitors a good sense of who we are and what we’re about and would also be useful to parishioners.
Since it’s possible that people driving by our beautiful church might wonder if they would really be welcome here, we wanted to express our hospitality, to send the message that, yes, our doors are open to absolutely everyone.
Hospitality is definitely very important and we work hard at it, but, we shouldn't pat ourselves on the back too much. I mean, everybody is also welcome at McDonald’s and Starbucks, right?
But here, here in church, we offer something even deeper and more meaningful than an open door.
And so, if you look at our website, you’ll see the phrase that we came up with to describe something that is even richer than hospitality.
We describe St. Thomas’ as:
A place to belong.
A place to belong.
I was reminded of those beautiful (and hopefully true) words a few weeks ago at our Vestry Retreat.
Our facilitator was my friend and colleague the Rev. Arianne Rice. Until very recently, she was the Rector of Good Shepherd in Ruxton.
At one point in the retreat, Arianne drew a distinction between “fitting in” and “belonging.”
I’m not sure I had ever really thought about that before.
In fact, I’ve probably used “fitting in” and “belonging” interchangeably.
But they’re not the same.
“Fitting in” involves conformity - suppressing our own personalities, traditions, tastes, quirks, and hopes in favor of whatever the group – whatever the majority – likes and wants.
“Fitting in” might be summed up with a quote from the classic movie, Mean Girls:
“On Wednesdays we wear pink.”
But “belonging” is something much deeper and richer than “fitting in.”
We belong when we can bring our whole selves into a community, when we are cherished for our unique gifts, for our whole selves – when we are forgiven of our failures and shortcomings - when we are loved just as we are, quirks and all – when we can wear whatever color we want on Wednesdays, or any other day.
What a gift to find a place to belong.
I hope – I think – St. Thomas’ is that kind of place.
But I know that all of us branches – all of us beautiful, diverse, complicated branches – find our true place to belong, our true place to abide, with Jesus – with Jesus the True Vine.
As you know, I’m a big fan of Baptism so, of course, I love today’s first lesson from the Acts of the Apostles, the story of the Ethiopian eunuch.
He is such an interesting character – he’s an outsider several times over – a eunuch, and a foreigner – a eunuch and a foreigner interested in the God of Israel.
Although he’s been given a great deal of responsibility in his country, he’s in charge of his queen’s treasury, I wonder how difficult it was for him to fit in.
Well, we meet the eunuch as he’s riding in his chariot on the “wilderness road” between Jerusalem and Gaza, a geographical detail that certainly carries a painful resonance today.
The eunuch is clearly drawn to God, curious about God’s Word. There he is in his chariot, poring over the words of the Prophet Isaiah, trying to make sense of it all when suddenly the Holy Spirit sends Philip, one of the first deacons, over to him.
And Philip proceeds to teach the eunuch how Isaiah’s words are fulfilled in and through Jesus.
And then, in my favorite moment, the eunuch spots a body of water and asks Philip a marvelous question:
“What is to prevent me from being baptized?”
Since the correct but unspoken answer is absolutely nothing, Philip and the eunuch enter the water, the eunuch is baptized, and Philip vanishes.
Although the Bible is silent about the rest of the eunuch’s life, there are ancient traditions that he proclaimed the Good News back home in Ethiopia, which seems exactly right to me.
But, regardless of what he did next or what happened to him, through Baptism, this man – this outsider several times over – was grafted onto the Vine of Jesus – just as he was - grafted onto the True Vine of Jesus.
Through his Baptism, the Ethiopian eunuch could and would abide in Jesus.
That day on the wilderness road, thanks to Philip, the Ethiopian eunuch found a place – found the place - to belong.
Jesus is the vine and we are the branches.
On Friday, along with hundreds of other people, I attended Janet Harvey’s beautiful and moving funeral at the Church of the Redeemer.
I went because, although unfortunately I only met Janet a few times, I admired her commitment to doing so much good work, her tireless efforts at building community and nurturing new life, especially in some really tough soil.
I also went to kind of officially represent St. Thomas’ and, in some small way, offer support to Janet’s many friends here who have been grieving.
And I also went for a personal reason.
In the last few days, two wonderfully faithful people from two churches I previously served at have died, Carlotta and Eric.
So, I’ve been mourning their deaths, and really feeling the distance from them and from those communities that will always mean so much to me.
Truly, the hardest part of my job is the leave-taking.
Actually, I guess leave-taking is the hardest part of life.
We build close and loving relationships, we walk through joy and sorrow together, and then it’s time to go.
Sometimes, going means leaving a church and making way for another priest to step in and walk beside the people, making their way together along the next stretch of road.
Sometimes, going means moving to Kansas.
Sometimes, going means stepping into God’s eternal embrace, as now Janet, Carlotta, and Eric have.
Leave-taking is hard.
But, through our Baptism, through loving one another as God loves us, we are grafted onto the Vine of Jesus, the vine where all of us – the Ethiopian eunuch and Philip, Bob and Carla, Janet, Carlotta, Eric, all of us, have found a place to abide.
On the Vine of Jesus, we have found the Place to Belong, forever.
Because...
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Amen.
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