This morning, we are continuing our summer sermon series “Questions of Faith.” We invited you to submit your faith questions, and we’ve been wrestling with your questions together ever since. The questions you have submitted are beautiful, profound, and difficult questions. Today’s question is no exception.

Today we will be exploring this question: Will we ever fit in? To whomever asked this question, thank you for your vulnerability. I have asked myself this question many times throughout my life, and I’ve walked with so many people who are asking it too. But, even though this question is common, I think most of us are too afraid to ask it out loud. If we ask it, we are admitting that we feel like an outsider sometimes–or all the time–and we are sharing the lonely feeling of being afraid we’ll never belong.

The experience of not belonging is so common in the United States, it has been described as an epidemic of loneliness. In an interview on PBS called “Why Americans Are Lonelier and Its Effects on Our Health, “ Laurie Santos, a cognitive scientist and psychology professor at Yale University, said that rates of loneliness in the United States have been increasing since the 1970s. She did not point to a single cause, but rather a storm of causes that have come together to lead to desperately lonely, disconnected people. 

This is alarming for many reasons. First, researchers have found a strong link between loneliness and poor physical health. People who live longer and who are healthier tend to have robust friendships and social connections. On the contrary, people who are lonely and isolated suffer mentally and emotionally, but also physically due to their lack of social connections. God created us to be in community, and when we are not in community, we suffer in more ways than one.

At a primal human level, we desperately want to belong. But we also read verses like this one in Romans 12: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” Some translations add “Do not conform to the pattern of this world.” Don’t do what everyone else is doing. Don’t just fall in line. How are we to reconcile our human need to belong with Scripture that tells us not to fit in with the patterns around us? Are we doomed to be lonely? Are we doomed never to fit in?

Before us this morning, we have an unlikely pairing of Scripture passages: a romantic song a young woman sings about her beloved, and a passage from the Gospel of Matthew about how neither John the Baptist nor Jesus pleased the people around them, even though they behaved in opposite ways. Taken together these passages paint a beautiful picture of what it means to belong–to truly belong–rather than simply to fit in.

Let’s begin with the Gospel of Matthew. At the beginning of chapter 11, Matthew writes that John the Baptist–who was in prison at this point–heard what Jesus was doing. He sent some of his disciples to Jesus and asked, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” This question might seem strange to us at first. After all, in other passages we see John the Baptist fully aware that God was uniquely present in Jesus. It may help us to remember that during this time in Jewish history, many people were claiming to be the messiah. Groups and movements followed people they believed to be the one promised by God, and John wanted confirmation that what he was hearing about Jesus was really true. Jesus understands what John is asking, and he responds with promises from Scripture: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”

John’s disciples leave to take the message back to their teacher, and Jesus turns to teach the crowds. He asks them what they had expected to see when they went out in the wilderness to listen to John the Baptist teach. Had they expected to see someone in soft robes, as though John lived in a palace? No. They had come seeking a prophet. But they were put off by John’s lifestyle. John didn’t drink wine, and he wore scratchy clothing. He lived a life of a wilderness survivalist–subsisting on locusts and wild honey. Rather than recognizing John as a prophet, they called him a demon. 

If they didn’t like John’s lifestyle, you’d think they’d love Jesus’s right? He went to weddings, and ate with common people. He spent time with those who were struggling. John lived in the wilderness, but Jesus lived in the thick of it with the people. Surely, they would approve of him, right? 

No. Jesus says it this way, “For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.” John was rejected for not eating and drinking.  Jesus was rejected for eating and drinking. When it comes to following God’s call, it seems they were both “darned if they did, and darned if they didn’t.” 

Jennifer Kaalund, assistant professor of religious studies, puts it this way: “How many times have we been misunderstood? Characterized in ways that do not truly describe who we are? …it is disappointing and disheartening when someone does not see you for who you really are. In order to know someone, you must spend time with them and learn who they are.” If the people wanted to misjudge and misrepresent John or Jesus, they could find a way to do it. If they wanted to criticize the way they followed God, they could find a way to do it…even if they had to contradict themselves along the way.

Will we ever fit in? From this passage, it seems like the answer is a resounding “No.” Will we ever be what all people want us to be? Will we fit in with the expectations of others? Will the day ever come when there is no one out there who criticizes us or makes us feel excluded? Sadly, the answer to that is “No.” 

Will we ever fit in? Not in the way we think we might want. But, there’s good and beautiful news here anyway. I see this good news in two places: first, Jesus knows all about what it’s like not to fit in. And second, we may not fit in with the world around us, but God has something better for us: belonging. 

First, Jesus knows what it’s like not to fit in. We see that in the passage from Matthew, and we see it in other places throughout the New Testament. Jesus spent the bulk of his ministry having his authority questioned. When he healed people, he was criticized for doing so at the wrong time, or for choosing to heal the wrong people. When he taught, he was accused of blasphemy. People didn’t like the kinds of people he called to be his disciples. One of them was even a tax collector! He was criticized for where he grew up. Philip ran to tell Nathanael about Jesus–that he was the one they had been waiting for–and Nathanael’s initial reaction was, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” When Jesus called himself the bread from heaven, people scoffed and said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?”

When we find ourselves feeling isolated, like we just don’t belong, or like no one will ever understand us, we can look to Jesus and see someone who has been through all that too. He understands what we are going through. He’s been through it too. That does not erase the pain we feel when we are ignored or ostracized, but it reminds us that we are in really good company. 

But that’s not the only good news we have. The answer to “Will we ever fit in?” is not some consolation prize behind door number 3, the consolation that, “Well, at least you aren’t the only one who doesn’t fit in.” The truth is, we will never fit in with all people. Sometimes we don’t fit because we’re quirky and just haven’t found our people yet. And sometimes we don’t fit because the way we believe might make us stand out to others. But, we are promised something so much better than fitting in. We are promised belonging.

When I first started thinking about this question of faith, I started trying to think of examples of fitting in. The first image that came to my mind was that of a jigsaw puzzle. I don’t know if you are a puzzle fan, but I have always loved puzzles. And some of my fondest memories are of working on puzzles late into the afternoon with my great aunt and my cousins after a big Thanksgiving meal. 

You know the joy of finding a peace that fits in exactly the right place? Oh, it’s such a good feeling. In fact, Jeff and I have a puzzle in our office right now, and we thought one of the edge pieces was missing. When I found it on the floor under the couch, I had to rush out and let everyone know that what once was lost had been found. As I was growing up, I always imagined fitting in to be just like that. I imagined finding a group of people who had a missing piece in their group, a gap that desperately needed to be filled. And imagine the delight to find that I was just the piece that was needed! 

The problem with this kind of fitting in is twofold: 1) once the puzzle is complete, there isn’t room for anyone else. It’s full. 2) Having to fit into an exact puzzle piece space is limiting. What about when we grow, change, and develop as people? Will we no longer fit? Will we no longer be welcomed?

As we grow, we want to fit in. We want to be the piece that completes the picture. We want to fit in, but what we need is to belong. We see this belonging in the passage from Song of Solomon 2. This passage is about romantic love. It’s about finding your person, about finding someone who really sees you and knows you. Historically, this passage has also been viewed as a metaphor for the relationship between God and the church. God sees us, rejoices over us, and says, “Arise, and come away with me.” 

As God’s children, we first and foremost find this belonging with God. The kind of belonging we have with God doesn’t go away as we change and grow. It doesn’t tell us, “Fit into this spot and never change.” The belonging we have with God is an unconditional belonging. We belong because God chose us. God saw our flaws, our quirks, the way we snort when we laugh, and God still said yes to us. We may never conform, but we will and do belong. Go forth and offer this belonging to others.