On Liturgy: One Conviction to Summon

Elizabeth H. Shannon

In life and in death we belong to God”¹—to be perfectly frank, it’s the only thing I’m sure I believe all the time. Certainly, there are days when the stories of Scripture, the great rituals of the church, and the extraordinariness of our faith all come easy to me. But there seem to be many more days, especially lately, when belief is next to impossible, when the weight of the world bears down on my chest. Days when the hurts are too great, the sorrows too overwhelming, the destruction too apparent, the mess simply too messy. Hope, joy, peace, and love all seem just too far outside my grasp. On those days, there is only one prayer, one breath, one deeply held conviction I can summon from the depths of my weary soul: In life and in death we belong to God. 

Over the years I’ve found myself standing in rooms aching with deep pain and grief and using these words to assure all of us that not only has God placed a claim on our broken hearts, but also God uses that claim to call us to care for each other in our brokenness. I’ve found myself taking teeny, fresh babies into my arms and whispering into the delicate curve of their ear that from the very beginning of time they have been named and claimed as God’s own beloved. I’ve found myself using these words to move from a posture of paralyzed overwhelm to a posture of action as cruelty, indifference, and ignorance impact very real lives. 

I used to believe the power of this statement hinged on the word belong, the promise and the hope in the claim that we are God’s own. To belong is to have a place at the table, to be called by name and welcomed with open arms and our beverage of choice. To belong is to see and be seen, to hear and be heard, not as others would like, but just as we are. The covenant of belonging is sacred and fundamental to who we are at our very core. 

But as the state of our world is increasingly pained and troubled, belonging feels even more elusive than it might have previously, not because God is less present or our call is diminished in any capacity, but because the cultural definition of belonging is so tied to individual belonging. It is not enough for me to belong. 

I have come to believe that the power in this statement hinges on the word we. In life and in death we belong to God. This isn’t a claim about my personal and private relationship with Jesus. Belonging to God is not my own exclusive treat for doing or saying the right things, showing up at the right time, or being born in the right place. We live in a culture and a church in which people like me of dominant culture and identities expect to belong. The claim of belonging to God is not just about me; it’s fundamentally about us, the biggest and widest us, the all of us. I can’t belong to God if you don’t belong to God. 

Beloved, we are in it together, for better or for worse. 

Yet in the face of Christian nationalism, white supremacy, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, racism, and erasure I’m finding the big “we” not nearly as comforting or aspirational as I once did. I feel less convinced by the call to unity or the call to community as I once did. My own brokenness and sin doesn’t want to be in a “we” with those people with whom I so vehemently disagree. I want to belong to God and I want the poor and the broken and the outcast and the ignored and the hushed up to belong to God, and I want them over there to get their act together.

And then I remember that over and over again Dorothy Day said that she could only love God as much as she loved the people she loved the least. I can’t belong to God in life or in death unless we belong to God in life and in death. 

And I find myself back where we started, clinging tightly to what I’m sure I believe: in life and in death we belong to God. This statement of faith brings me from callousness to empathy, carries me from merely existing in the world to living in it, and delivers me from apathetic individualism to bold, prophetic, and even messy covenant community. This statement of faith calls me to engage, to act, and to bear witness, not just to, but for and with the people I respect and the people with whom I share no discernable commonalities except that they too belong to God. 

By all measures our lives aren’t going to get any less messy or complex. It seems impossible that we will find our way out of the divisiveness keeping a stranglehold on our culture any time soon. I have little confidence I’ll stop being overwhelmed by the hurts and pains of our world. So, I’ll return to the fundamental claim that gives voice to deep pain and the statement of faith that gives hope to a more just and generous future. I’ll return to the fundamental claim that has been placed on my life and on your life and on the lives of those who frustrate me deeply. I’ll return to the fundamental claim that “with believers in every time and place, we rejoice that nothing in life or in death can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”² 

Notes

1. A Brief Statement of Faith, 11.1.

2. A Brief Statement of Faith, 11.5.