A Place for all to Belong - Romans 12:3-8
2022 Whitaker House Chapel Sermon
Salman Rushdie’s book, Midnight’s Children, opens with these lines. I was born in the city of Bombay… once upon a time… On the stroke of midnight, as a matter of face. Clock-hands joined palms in respectful greeting as I came… at the precise instant of India’s arrival at independence, I tumbled forth into the world…. Because thanks to the occult tyrannies of those blandly saluting clocks I had been mysteriously handcuffed to history, my destinies indissolubly chained to those of my country.
What unfolds over the subsequent pages is a remarkable story of a young man growing up in India. His life inextricably linked with the destiny of the country because he is a Midnight Child, born at the precise moment India gained independence. The highs and lows of his life mirror the highs and lows of the country.
Midnight’s Children is a beautiful book that evokes so many wonderful images of India and Pakistan, a sprawling narrative that stretches over many decades and generations. As I prepared for tonight, I couldn’t help but think about this book as I thought about the theme, belonging. The main character of this novel finds his sense of belonging through his connection with his country. His sense of self is deeply entrenched in the events of India; it shapes him and in response he also shapes the country. His sense of belonging to place deeply influences who he is as a person.
The desire to belong is inherently a part of each of us. We all want to know that we have a place where we are accepted, cared for and supported. Throughout our lives we are always seeking places where we feel comfortable, places where we are with like minded people, places where we fit in. The desire to belong is deep within each of us.
I was glad to hear that Belonging was the theme chosen by Whitaker House for the Chapel Service, and that it’s the theme for the House for this year. As you create a new House identity and develop who you are, it’s so important that you explore how you might create a place where all members of the House feel like they belong. It’s a theme that we explored in Chapel in Term 1 and it’s something that is so vital to each of our personal identities.
We all have places or people in our lives where we feel we just fit. We gravitate to people with similar interests to us or we find common affinities that bind us together. We find a sense of belonging through relationships of family or friendship. These places become places where we feel comfortable and accepted.
Our Bible Readings give us a wonderful insight into what it means to find belonging in community and how we might create it for others.
The reading from Acts describes the earliest community of Christians, how they lived with each other and supported one another. This reading comes from the time just after Jesus has left his followers and ascended into heaven. His followers are trying to continue his work and have even started growing the faith with new people choosing to follow Christianity. Here we get a glimpse of what this community of believers looked like. They talk about having everything in common, sharing their possessions with one another or selling them and giving the money to support the poor. They’re described as breaking bread with each other, sharing meals and good times. They have generous hearts and goodwill towards all people.
It's a wonderful image of mutual respect and support. No one person asserts themselves as more important than another but they share all they have to support one another, and the wider community. They are caring and generous to each other and don’t worry about personal pursuits but rather seek to do things that support the collective group.
Many religious leader and theologians describe this as the Acts 2 community, the name gained from where it is contained in the Bible. They talk about it as being the most perfect example of what it means to be a Christian and often point out how far people have strayed from this path in the centuries past.
I wonder what it might look like if we strove to create this kind of community where all felt like they belonged. A community that strove for mutual support and care, that didn’t store up personal gains but shared and created a collective flourishing for their community. Perhaps as you as Whitaker House develop a new House identity, where all feel like they belong, this could be an image that you might strive for. Perhaps in our own lives and our own communities, this may be the image of belonging that we can try to create.
But what role do we each play in these communities of belonging? Well the reading from Romans gives us an insight into how we might each play our part in a community. See belonging to a community doesn’t mean having to be the same, we don’t all need to emulate one another and become robotic copies. Rather a community is enriched by the diversity of gifts that we offer to that community.
The reading from Romans talks about the different and unique gifts that each person is given and uses the analogy of a body with many members. Each having a different role that contributes to the building up of the whole. The Apostle Paul, who wrote Romans, is encouraging his followers to acknowledge the unique talents that each of them possess, to own them and claim them. But then to utilise them so that the collective group may be enriched and supported.
In a House community or school community, in a workplace community or even a family community we’re each encouraged to utilise our individual talents and gifts for the building up of the whole. By sharing what we have we make these communities richer and better places to be. And by being encouraged to share our gifts with our communities we then find a deeper sense of individual belonging to place.
Creating a place of belonging for all is vital to our individual flourishing but also the flourishing of the community. As you as Whitaker House seek to develop this place of belonging may you be guided by this image we have from the Early Church of mutual respect and sharing, of care and support of one another, of a place where individual gifts and talents are used and valued for the building up of the whole community.
And whatever communities we are a part of in our lives, be it workplace or school, sporting or cultural, this sense of belonging is what we should all strive for. What we should seek to create in others but also create for ourselves, so that we each may find that place where we truly belong.
