belonging on Brothers and Sisters

Ancient lens What’s the historical context? Packed with Singular Meaning, A Pilgrim Song We have three verses packed with singular meaning⸺unity. “How good and pleasant it is when brothers and si...

Brothers and sisters, you are no longer strangers to God, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ ...

Hear the good news: You are God’s holy, precious, and beloved children. Your sins are forgiven. But more than that: through his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus has opened the way for us to dwell ...

Preaching Commentary Summary of the Text Songs of Ascent Psalm 133 is part of the Psalter’s collection of the Songs of Ascent, Psalms 120-134. The Songs of Ascent were sung by the throng of pilgri...

Hear these words from the Letter to the Hebrews: This is the covenant I will establish . . . declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, a...

Preaching Commentary Leaving Home I moved away from my hometown for graduate school when I was just shy of 30. I never went back. When I struck out from home, I lived in cities larger and more dive...

Summary of the Text Songs of Ascent Psalm 133 is part of the Psalter’s collection of the Songs of Ascent, Psalms 120-134. The Songs of Ascent were sung by the throng of pilgrims making their way to ...

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who who creates families for our belonging: We ask for your continual care for the homes in which your people live. Keep them from all bitterness, arrogance, and the...

We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond.

When it comes to describing belonging in Scripture, family is the metaphor of choice.

Preaching Commentary A Highly Practical Text Often we come to scripture passages that require a bit of interpretive twists and turns to find ways of connecting the text to our modern-day lives in t...

There can be more genuine fellowship among those who share the same disposition than among those who share the same beliefs, especially if that disposition is toward kindness and generosity

There’s a brilliant family of people in Africa, called the Himba. When a Himba woman is expecting a child, she goes out into the wilderness with a few of her sisters, and together they wait till they ...

Jesus, you are our peace You proclaim it You create it You bring us near Without you there is No safety No belonging No nurturing No identity rooted beyond this dust Without you we are Anchorless St...

A Highly Practical Text Often we come to scripture passages that require a bit of interpretive twists and turns to find ways of connecting the text to our modern-day lives in the 21st century. But oc...

Break our hearts, Jesus That we may weep as You weep Love as You love Break our hearts Jesus and raise our voices that we may speak and act so all may be safe so all may have opportunity so all may k...

Church is not an organization you join; it is a family where you belong, a home where you are loved and a hospital where you find healing.

The vision that Jesus gives us is this: That I am unconditionally loved, that I belong to God, and that I am a person who can really trust that. When I meet another person who also is rooted in the he...

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.

Children are God’s gifts to immature people to help them grow up. They are also God’s gifts to help parents go deep with God. . . . Parenting is not for anything. It is not a contract with God in whic...

I bless you with the sure knowledge that you belong to the Alpha and the Omega You are children of the one who is, and who was, and who is to come. He has called you to be his nation, and his royal pr...

Preaching Commentary What is the meaning of life? Why is it that we exist? Or to put it in the immortal words of Douglas Adams, “what is the meaning of life?” If you ask Google, which I did, vario...

O most high, Almighty, good Lord God, to you belong praise, glory, honor, and all blessing. Praised be my Lord God for all his creatures, and especially for our brother the sun, who brings us the day ...

Have you ever noticed how closely the words longing and belonging are connected? I’m not sure of their exact etymology, but I do believe that our deepest longing in life is to be-...

Lord of Hosts, We come before you today in a tone of solemnity. We recognize that while it was Judas who betrayed you for 30 pieces of silver, that we often betray you as well. We know what is right,...

Welcoming One, we welcome you and we welcome another school year. Thank you for the blessings of learning and growing, thinking and creating, reasoning and discovering. Fulfill these blessings in ever...

For Christians, to share in the Eucharist, the Holy Communion, means to live as people who know that they are always guests – that they have been welcomed and that they are wanted. It is, perhaps, the...

Jesus taught us a prayer of community and reconciliation, belonging to a new people who have left the land of 'me'.

Lord God, You have called us to yourself and made us into a people. We belong to you, and we belong to one another. But in our self-focused lives, we have forgotten that. We have lived for ourselves. ...

Ever console or scold people hurt in human relationships that satisfaction comes from God alone? Stop. Adam's fellowship with God was perfect, and God Himself declared Adam needed other humans.