Lent Midweek Series, Week Four

Last night was the fifth and final of this year's Lenten midweek series - where I sing a song that may well belong more on the radio than in church, and where I publish a link to the original artist performing the song plus a reflection for people to read. If you want more background, see this post.

However, since I've only published three so far on this blog, here's the fourth. I'll get around to putting the other one up in a day or two.

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The song for Week Four (March 14) was Someone To You (Words and Music by Michael Nelson, Sam Hollander, and Grant Michaels)

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[Jesus said] "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”

     - John 10:11-18

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One of our deepest longings, as human beings, is the longing for a place to belong. No matter who we are, we tend to want to find a place where we can belong; a place where we can know other people, and where we can be known by those we care about.

Middle school lunchrooms are the quintessential and stereotypical place where we see that longing to belong embodied. The popular kids at one table, the nerds at the table across the room, the theater cast and the football team and the marching band each with their own places. Then there’s that one kid, either the new kid or the one no one likes, sitting all alone.

We might roll our eyes at or make fun of any one of the groups, but I don’t think we tend to feel sorry for them - because each person in each group has a place to belong. The kid who’s alone, though, we do feel sorry for, because each one of us knows what it feels like to feel alone. Whether we have any legitimate reason to have ever felt like that, we know what it is to feel alone - and we know it’s a pretty terrible feeling.

So we can all relate to the yearning expressed in this song. Yeah, it’s a love song - a song of longing on the part of one person to know and be known by another person, which seems to be at the center of our being.

But it could also be sung by someone who simply longs for community, even if it is in the midst of a middle school lunchroom.

And it could be sung by someone who joins a gang because they were ignored by their parents growing up.

Or even by someone who has a great job, but doesn’t really like their coworkers and doesn’t have any friends … so goes to work in the morning, goes home in the evening, makes lots of money, and never really talks with anyone else.

Those of you who are old enough may remember the television show Cheers. If you do, you’ll remember that there was a cast of regulars, each of whom had their designated place to be - either at the bar, behind the bar, or moving between the bar and the tables at the edge of the show.

One beautiful thing about that show is that ever single person was accepted as they were. It’s not as if each of them didn’t have any faults - they certainly did, just like we do. But their faults didn’t keep them from having a place to belong. And the theme song, Where Everybody Knows Your Name, speaks to this longing (and was embodied in the show to the extent that whenever that one character walked in the door, everyone called out, “Norm”).

This is what we might find in the very best of Christian community - a place where we can be known, where we can be called by name, and where we are accepted as we are. We find this in the best of Christian community, because the best of Christian community mirrors God’s relationship with us. Because the Good Shepherd knows us, calls us by name, and accepts us exactly as we are.