To belong is a subversive act. And it is indeed an act. Belonging is a resolution, a practice that stands in stark contrast to the prescribed detachment of the kingdom of unimaginative individualism. We live in a culture of divorce. Not simply the easy dissolution of marriages, but the divorce of people from place, humans from nature, neighbor from neighbor, Christian from Church, government from citizen, productivity from creativity, information from education, wisdom from activism, body from mind, power from courage, authority from integrity. The reconciliation of these alienated elements of life to one another will take a different kind of action, a different kind of intention than the kinds of actions and intentions that led to their divorce. At the very least, reconciliation will demand that we acknowledge that we are members of one another.

This anti-member standpoint is nothing new. Contrary to the words of many, it isn't limited to the modern American economic empire. It was alive and well in the first century colonies of Rome. Jesus' story about a shepherd leaving a flock of 99 perfectly safe sheep to look for a single lost lamb seemed just as foolish then as it does now. Just like the tale of the woman who turned her house upside-down to find a solitary coin of little relative value. Or how about the father whose son told him that he wished his old man were dead? The father stood on the front porch every morning looking toward the horizon where he last saw his son's impatiently disappearing back, eagerly hoping each day to catch a glimpse of his returning face. Waiting without anger, without resentment, without animus. Waiting instead with grace, with kindness, with a ready benediction.

The story of the sheep is a hard one to take seriously in a culture of cost-benefit analysis, efficiency, and rationality. The accountant says that the potential risk of leaving the secure 99 outweighs the unlikely reward of finding the one. Besides, the cost of losing a sheep or two was part of the final figures from the outset. But Jesus challenges this sort of balance sheet mentality. He says that in the kingdom of the heavens, the many are not more important than the one. The one is a member of the many. Searching for one who is lost is as important as searching for 99 who are lost. The one belongs to the many.

And what of this woman who spends her entire night tearing apart her home for the sake of a quarter? From dusk to dawn she lights candles, moves furniture, makes noise. She cheers and dances when she finally recovers the object of her search. In the kingdom of divorce, her neighbors would complain to her throughout the night that she was keeping them up. Their frustration would only worsen when they found out that the commotion was due entirely to a pittance. If you needed money so badly we could have lent it to you and got a good night's sleep! In the kingdom of divorce, when we measure our time and energy in terms of wages, the hours and effort used to find the coin would have been judged a waste. But in the kingdom of the heavens, her achievement is honored by her neighbors. Her coin belonged to her, and that was the source of its value.

As for the father and his imprudent son, I must defer to those who are themselves privileged to be parents. His love of his child did not die with his son's affection. He did not abandon welcome when his son abandoned wisdom. Instead, with patience and kindness, he waited for his opportunity to revel in his son's homecoming. I have no children of my own, but I see the faces of my brother and his wife when they look at their baby girl, and I have no trouble believing that she would be welcome in their home no matter what. She belongs there.

Belonging is the antithesis to the world's thesis of divorce. In the kingdom of the heavens, belonging is everything. It motivates circumcision in the old covenant. It excites and explains our baptism in the new covenant. It is a sign. Our hunger to belong opens our eyes to see how we have become divorced from all that is around us - as well as the ways we justify the divorces - and urges us to reconcile ourselves to the world. Jesus' stories about the sheep, the coin, and the son were not meant to be fairy tales about life in a distant Heaven, but were meant to describe what life on the earth would be like if Abba God reigned and Caesar didn't. There would still be wandering sheep. There would still be lost coins. There would still be foolish children. But because each of these wandering, lost, and foolish things belonged to place or to someone, we would search without considering the risk, we would celebrate the small successes, and we would always be prepared with a robe and a ring for even the most reckless among us.