When they ask if I attended any of the Mardi Gras parades this year, I just say ‘no.’ They never ask why not and I never tell. The simple reason is that I’d be out of place.

I don’t like feeling out of place. I’ve been there enough to know it’s no fun.

George Gobel used to say, “Have you ever felt like all the world was a tuxedo and you were a pair of brown shoes?”

The lady from the chamber of commerce called to apologize. That night they were honoring a member of my church, one of our leading deacons who was an uppity-up in the finance world, at a lavish banquet in the hotel down the street. I was supposed to have gotten an invitation, she said, but someone failed to send it, and would I please try to come. I knew what had happened, that someone had just thought at the last minute, “We ought to invite his pastor.”

I said, “Thank you. If I can, I’ll be there.” The cocktail hour was scheduled before the banquet, so I figured it would give me time to say my hello to the deacon, then slip out. I walked into the banquet area and was stunned by the scene: a crowd of the city’s elite, all decked out in tuxedos and evening dresses, was milling around, cocktails in hand. These were the beautiful people of our city, the ones who run the largest corporations and foundations and whose images adorn the society pages.

Meanwhile, I was wearing the clothes I had left home in that morning, a tan sport-coat and grey slacks, which after eight hours were beginning to look like I had slept in them.

I walked around the room, feeling like that dream we all have had where you are in a crowd with no clothes on. I kept searching for a familiar face, anyone at all whom I knew. I never did see the guest-of-honor, but after five minutes of torture from feeling so out of place, I decided to go home and enjoy a quiet evening with the family.

Home. My place.

Today was “presidential primary preference” election day in Louisiana. I voted early. Mike Huckabee, in case you wonder. My son Neil called late in the afternoon to say his voting precinct rejected him. Turns out that in 1992, when he registered to vote in this state and was asked to declare his party, he left the box blank. And since today only Democrats and Republicans were casting ballots, he was out of luck.

And, momentarily at least, out of place.

Tomorrow–Sunday–all over the land, millions of people will be gathering in churches. Among the throngs will be thousands who are searching for a new church home. They’ve moved to this town or city, or they’ve grown discontented in their old church, or they’re searching for more of God, and so they have taken on the quest for a church home. It’s an exciting, daunting task.

Line them up in front of us and query them one by one on what they’re searching for in a church and you’ll get more answers than you can ever catalog. But the common denominator on every one of them, I’ll wager, is a certain undefinable quality expressed like this: “I’ll know it when I get there” or “We want a church where we can feel at home.”

I’m not critical of that sentiment; I share it completely. If you are out of place in your church, there’s something wrong with you or it.

As the director of missions for the hundred or so Southern Baptist churches of metro New Orleans, I’m in most of them at one time or another. They’re all different in too many ways to count, but, to me, they all have one big thing in common: I feel at home in every one of them.

I’ve been in traffic court; I left as soon as I could get out. I’ve ministered in the jails and state penitentiaries; I was woefully out of place. I used to sit on the board of directors for a huge medical center, but when my term expired, I asked to be replaced. I was a misfit; that was not my place. As a college student, a friend asked me to attend a party at his fraternity house. They were looking for prospective members and I was a nice guy. What he failed to say and I didn’t think to ask was about the drinking. I walked in, met a few people, saw what was going on, and didn’t stay long. Now, find me a fraternity where their idea of partying is eating ice cream and telling funny stories and I’ll join in a heartbeat.

My Dad went to Heaven last November. I can’t wait to see for myself, but I’m confident he’s enjoying it. He loved the singing of God’s people, he grew teary-eyed from reading God’s Word, and he carried deep feelings about the Lord. He knew he had been forgiven and underlined many texts in his Bible that make that point. He loved to tell a good story and enjoyed hearing one. He was opinionated and stubborn in many ways, yes, but generous and loving, a man of integrity and compassion, and held a righteous sense of justice.

He’s right at home in Heaven. I doubt if he has sat down since arriving.

I worry about some people who say they’re going to Heaven. They don’t care for the Lord, and even use His name as profanity. They scoff at the people of God and rarely darken the door of His house. They don’t pray or worship or sing to God. They don’t serve God, and have not “laid up treasure in Heaven,” as Jesus advised. I wonder why they would want to go to Heaven in the first place. They’d be miserable there, and completely out of place.

It turns out that idea is scriptural.

Jesus told of a future day when the nations of the world would stand before Him at judgment. He saw Himself speaking to the faithful, those who served God in their lifetimes. “Come, you blessed of the Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” (This is found in Matthew 25.)

Did you get that? The faithful will receive a kingdom prepared just for them from the very beginning. Whatever that means, it surely indicates that as they enter their eternal abode, believers will find themselves more at home than they’ve ever been in their earthly lifetimes.

Then, Jesus said He would turn to the other group, the unfaithful, those who served only themselves throughout their lives. “Depart from me, you workers of iniquity, into a place prepared for the devil and his angels.” And He called it “eternal fire.”

Whatever hell is–and no one knows the full scope of it–Jesus identified it as a place not made for people, but prepared with the devil and his gang of cutthroats in mind.

Anyone who goes to hell will be forever out of place.

Mark Twain used to say he would choose Heaven for the climate and hell for the company. As an entertainer, Twain never let on when he was teasing and when he was serious. He died in 1910, almost a century ago. I’m confident by now he knows all too well the foolishness of that remark, even if it was spoken in jest.

The old folks used to sing a gospel song we never hear any more.

“This world is not my home; I’m just a-passin’ through.

My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue.

The angels beckon me from Heaven’s open door,

And I can’t feel at home in this world any more.”

“O Lord, you know, I have no friend like you.

If Heaven’s not my home, then Lord what will I do?

The angels beckon me from Heaven’s open door,

And I can’t feel at home in this world any more.”

I worry about people who can’t wait to get to a party where the liquor is flowing and the morals are checked at the door, and who feel at home. I worry about those who rush from work into the casino and spend the next hours handing their hard-earned money to the dealers and croupiers and who feel at home doing it. I grieve over those who make stardom and celebrityhood in this life, then instead of turning around and helping the unfortunate and needy, squander their riches on drugs and suicidal living and call it living the good life.

Nothing tells the story on us as where we feel most at home.

“Here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come.” (Hebrews 13:14)