Where do you Belong?

Have you noticed how our American cousins tend to ‘complete the address’ when they refer to a place?  I confess I find it irritating to hear ‘Pittsburg, Pennsylvania’, or ‘Dallas, Texas’.  I mean, who doesn’t know where these places are?

Sometimes, of course, this suffix is often useful.  I questioned the need for ‘Paris, France’, until I learned that the USA has its own Parises in Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee and Texas; and even ‘London, England’ has a purpose, for it distinguishes our own capital from the Canadian city in Ontario.

Many years ago, when I started researching my family history, I wasn’t surprised to discover that in each register index there were pages and pages of Evanses, a large proportion of whom were Welsh.  I was reminded of apocryphal stories about Welsh communities where the majority of the population were either Jones or Evans.  Distinction was provided by the addition of their trade, such as ‘Jones the Milk’ or ‘Evans the Post’.

And this brings us to the question of what distinction is necessary - or appropriate - for us, whether in our own country, or even in our own town.  There is an obvious distinction to be drawn if we have cousins with the same name; we might refer to ‘Peter in Tunbridge’, for example, to avoid confusion with ‘Peter in Harrogate’.  Are you ever referred to as ‘Eileen the Christian’, or ‘William from St Paul’s’?  How would you feel if you were?

We are taught that we should be in the world but not of the world.  This is important, because our faith shouldn’t be something we keep to ourselves, like the light hidden under a bowl (Matthew 5:15).  Instead, we should put our faith to some form of practical use, for ‘faith without works is dead’ (James. 2:17).  Not that good works are necessary to create faith, but they ought to be a natural product of an effervescent faith that cannot rest without outward expression.

Consider the last week.  Can you think of something you did to help others or to bring comfort to someone, a public-spirited gesture or contribution to the life of your church?  Is your faith bubbling over to be expressed?  Does your ‘trade’ as a Christian merit the identifying tag?  Next time you hear someone from ‘across the pond’ speaking, just wait for the ‘full address’ construction, and remember its significance in your own life.