"WE BELONG TO THE FAMILY OF GOD"
Mark 3:31-35

Everyone wants to have a sense of belonging. Everyone needs to be assured that he or she is an individual who is needed and wanted. It is, without a doubt, the most fundamental desire that any of us have in life because it is a need which flows out of our most essential human and spiritual requirement; namely, love. Feeling that we are needed, feeling that we belong, is how we translate the matter of love into concrete terms. If children feel that Mom or Dad are too busy to have them around, then those children may draw the conclusion and that their parents don't love them. If a spouse feels that he or she is being ignored or taken for granted, they translate those feelings into the message that their mate does not love them like they should. We need to know that we are needed. We need to be reassured that we belong.

And we will behave in some very peculiar ways if, in fact, we do begin to sense that we are unwanted. We might start an argument just so that we can get some attention, negative or otherwise. We might begin to resent the very people whose acceptance and friendship we are seeking. We will do our best to impress others by pointing them to our accomplishments, prestige, or power; hoping that that will make us more likeable people. We would be willing to do just about anything, if it would mean that people would be more accepting of us. We want to belong.

Adam and Eve wanted to belong. In our Old Testament lesson today, we heard the consequences of where that need to belong got them- cast out of the Garden of Eden. The tragic thing was that Adam and Eve already belonged as fully as they possibly could. For, they belonged to the family of God. God created them. He provided for them. He filled their lives with everything that they could ever need. They had it made. They were accepted by the only One from whom they would ever need acceptance. They couldn't want for anything more. But, they were fooled into believing otherwise.

The devil tempted Eve with the lie that when she ate of the fruit that God had commanded them not to eat, at that point, her eyes would be open and she would be like God knowing good from evil. Satan led them to believe that God had short- changed them; that God was keeping them at a distance by denying them membership in that exclusive club, the divine one, wherein Adam and Eve could be gods too. But, if they ate the fruit, all of that would change and then they would really belong. And so they made the choice, because the offer, as it was presented, was too good to pass up. More than anything, they wanted to belong.

But Adam and Eve wanted it all under their own terms, much as we do. The devil, the world, and our own sinful nature, often comes along and tells us that we're missing something. Forget the fact that we already have the greatest sense of belonging that anyone could ever possess- the fact that we are loved and accepted by God- who gave up His own Son to forever ensure that relationship... no, that's not enough. We also want those things which society deems are important. We want relationships which we believe will fulfill our needs. That is our new measure of belonging. It's not so much that we want to belong as it is that we want other people and other things to belong to us. And until that goal becomes a reality- as if our self- serving, insatiatiable desires ever could be fulfilled- we deem our lives as being incomplete. And so we will continue to believe that we really don't belong until we are able posess everything that we think should belong to us.

So, when do we finally arrive? When do we finally reach that point of being able to say, "This is it. All is now complete. I am satisified. I am truly loved and accepted. I belong"?

Listen to what St. Paul writes in First Corinthians: "All things are yours... and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God." Everything that we could possibly want out of life, including the sense of belonging, is here for us right now, today, because we do belong- we are of Christ and Christ is of God.

Here is a question to consider: What things does Jesus lack in His life; in what sense is He deprived of a sense of belonging? The answer is, of course, that Christ is lacking nothing! The entire world is subject to Him. He possesses the glory of the Father. His power is limitless and His love unending.

Can't the same be said of our own lives as well? For, by virtue of our Baptism, we are now in Christ. And all that He posesses is our very own. And if He lacks nothing, then it is certain that we are not lacking in anything either. To put it another way, our lives, at this moment, are as full and complete and blessed as they could possibly be. For we belong to God! Which means, by virtue of His Son Jesus, everything He has belongs to us.

Sometimes, however, our eyes deceive us, just as Eve was deceived by the beauty of the forbidden fruit. Our eyes tell us that, for people who are supposed to have it all, our pocketbooks look pretty empty. But what the eyes of faith tell us is that the wealth of God's riches, Who feeds the sparrows and clothes the flowers of the field, is not going to leave us to fend for ourselves. Could it be that we are overlooking what is ours right now and that that is where our focus should be- on what we presently have- instead of worrying about what we might not have tomorrow?

Likewise, our bodies may be suffering the pains and anxieties of a complexity of illnesses. How can it be said, therefore, that we belong to God if we must continue to bear so many discomforts? What we fail to recognize is that we still have the basic, precious gift of life. We are still alive to be able to savor the joys which our Lord has to offer in this world because He has safely brought us to the beginning of this day in order to live this day to His glory. The hardships do not render our lives worthless or meaningless. God's gift of life, even though it may be hampered by various handicaps and diseases, is still a great gift. In fact, Christ died in order that we might have life and have it to its fulness.

Which brings us to the most important assurance of belonging that any of us could ever have; and that is, by God's grace and His gift of faith, we can claim membership today in His own family. The sin which was passed down from Adam and Eve to generation after generation—that sin which expelled us from that sense of belonging to God—has been removed. The barrier is gone. Through Jesus Christ, we never have to worry that God is ignoring us, that He is insensitive to our needs, or that He doesn't care. For He tackled our greatest need of all- salvation- and provided for us as only a loving and Almighty God and Father can.

" So,” St. Paul writes in today's text, “we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.”

Who, in this world, is to say that 'this' or 'that' is what makes for a full and happy life; one in which we finally find complete and total acceptance and belonging? It is time we realize that only God knows what is best for us and what is best for His children. And it could very well mean that His loving will for us will exlude some things that other people have and may also includes alot of things of which other people have been spared, of both the pleasant and unpleasant kind.

The fact is, that best thing that Adam and Eve could have experienced after their Fall into sin was to be deprived of the Garden of Eden. Why? Because if God had allowed them to remain there, they might have eaten from that other fruit tree in the Garden, the one known as the Tree of Life; and had they done so, they would have lived forever as sinners. But God didn't want to see them have to endure that kind of living hell. And so He expelled them from the Garden, but not without a promise; not without the assurance of belonging. To Satan, God said, " I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel."

Adam and Even could live out their final days on earth with the assurance that they would not be grouped together with the offspring of Satan, anticipating only eternal death. Rather, God would make a clear cut between Satan's offspring and Eve's. And through one of her own descendant's- namely, Jesus Christ- they would have the promise of belonging. They would forever be a part of God's family. For Christ would be the one who would be disowned, as He hung upon the cross. He would be the One who would be cast out, unwanted and dispelled, as He bore the weight of our guilt upon Himself.

And through Him, Adam and Eve, and you and I would find a place of purpose; a place of belonging in the family of God.

It is a relationship which is not effected by status, or by social acceptance, or by personal achievements or self-made standards of worth and esteem. In our Gospel lesson today, Jesus by-passed the matter of blood-relatives in order to designate a group of common, everyday sinners, as his brothers and sisters and mother, and so on. They were all part of His family because they shared a relationship with the same heavenly Father, by grace.

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