Okay, little flock.
Have you ever felt like you just don’t fit in?
Like you’re just a little out of step with the group?
Maybe you laugh a little too loudly. Maybe you’re the first to dance, even when no one else is moving. Something about who you are or how you see the world is just different?

If you’ve never felt left out—good for you! That must be a lovely feeling.
But for some of us… not fitting in is a familiar ache. Growing up, I felt that way often. Still do, sometimes. But one thing that gave me comfort back then was a movie—Angus.

Angus is a 90s coming-of-age film about a shy, overweight teenager who’s brilliant at science, great at football, and bullied mercilessly. He’s unexpectedly chosen to dance with the popular girl at the Winter Ball—part of a cruel prank. With the help of his best friend and his grandfather, Angus faces his fears and, more importantly, accepts himself.

There’s a great metaphor in his honors chemistry experiment. There is a blue dish with a red dot in the middle. Angus says: “I’m hoping to prove that within every normal system, there exists an aberration—something different. When a small, abnormal element is forced into a larger, normal system, the element will either be rejected or destroyed. But if it can hold out long enough, look the system in the eye and say, ‘I’m still here!’—then the system will have to adapt. If that happens, then I will have proved my point… which is that there is no normal.” Spoiler alert for a 35 year old movie, the blue dish with the red dot is purple at the end of the film.

“There is no normal.” “Normal” is a myth, a trap, a measuring stick we walk around with, often comparing ourselves and coming up short. “Normal” is a word bullies use. It’s only used to shame. Normal is just a setting on a dryer.

Jesus didn’t fit the mold either. He broke every “normal” expectation just by being born. His mom is a virgin, but there’s the whole birds and bees thing that is supposed to happen with parents. His mom and stepdad are supposed to be married, but they’re not. He’s supposed to be born in a hospital… but those didn’t exist 2,000 years ago… so maybe born at home. But he’s born in a barn and laid in a manger. A feed trough and not a bassinet or a crib. He is supposed to be visited by family and friends, yet he gets smelly shepherds and some wise guys from who-knows-where.

At every step of the Christmas story, Jesus kicks “normal” to the curb. And that’s good news for us. Because followers of Jesus? We’re not meant to be normal. We’re meant to be free:

• Free from anxiety and inner policing around the concept of “normal.”
• Free from materialism.
• Free to give generously.
• Free to love without fear.

We know that life is more than the pursuit of things. We aren’t about building bigger barns to hoard our stuff—we’re about setting longer tables to welcome more friends.

We strive to love. To understand. To listen and grow. It’s hard work. Slow work. But it’s the work of the kingdom.

Hebrews tells us, “Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” And friends, I don’t see a lot of hope on the news. I don’t see many calls for compassion or understanding. What I do see: blame. Finger pointing. Division. Scapegoating—especially of our immigrant neighbors, our trans neighbors, and others pushed to the margins.

We are in a compassion recession. And strangely, that gives me hope—because this is the moment for faith.

Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” If your heart feels unsettled—aching for more compassion, more listening, more love—that’s good. That means your treasure is in the right place. If you were completely at ease with the hatred and scapegoating, I’d be worried.

Scapegoating was really big in college, back in the early 2000s.  I watched followers of the Prince of Peace call for war. I heard them demonize their Muslim neighbors. People wanted vengeance. “They took something from us, so we’ll bomb them back to the stone age,” was the vibe of the day. And then, I heard a song. “We were meant to live for so much more. But we lost ourselves.”

The band was Switchfoot—a name taken from surfing. To “switch your foot” means to change direction. To take a new stance. A new way of moving forward. That song was a lifeline for me. Later in the lyrics they sing:

“We want more than this world’s got to offer. We want more than the wars of our fathers. And everything inside screams for second life.”

Finally. Someone who got it. I felt seen. I felt I like found friends in the strangers singing on the radio. The author of Hebrews gets it too. They write a whole list of people—our people—who also felt out of step.

Abraham left everything he knew. Sarah journeyed with him into the unknown. They wandered, living in tents. Foreigners in a strange land. Why? Because they “longed for a better country—a heavenly one.” They knew we were meant to live for so much more.

They held out hope that there was a better way. They lived for compassion, for justice, for mercy. Their descendants later would pray, “Thy kingdom come… on earth as it is in heaven.” It may feel like we’ve taken a step away from that dream. It may seem like the loudest voices sound nothing like Jesus.

But Hebrews reminds us: “We are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.” People who endured in their time. And now it’s our turn to endure in ours. Our culture doesn’t really understand endurance. We’re sold the lie of instant results. Instant happiness. Instant belonging—if you just buy this thing or post that picture.

But that doesn’t work.

Materialism isn’t satisfying. There’s always a newer phone. A shinier car. A bigger house. A whole generation of young men were told that if you wear Axe body spray, you’d get the girl. But that didn’t happen, because it’s inner work that gets the girl. It’s loving, noticing, and serving that keeps the relationship. No wonder we have a lot of angry young men around. They believed what they were told. All this stuff… When it’s all said and done… whose will it be? We treasure people. We love people and use things—not the other way around.

We know we’re meant to live for so much more. We’re not alone in that longing. We are surrounded—by those who came before, those beside us now, and those yet to come—who carry that same hope. Out of step with the mythical normal.

So we endure. We keep the faith. We keep singing. Amen.