Ordinary People

The word “ordinary,” if it is used at all, usually seems to be used in the pejorative, implying something negative. I bring this up because in our Godspeed series this word seems to resurface often. We referred to “Three miles an hour” as the speed at which God works, and it would seem to be a little below average. “Ordinary means of grace”—isn’t that a little pedestrian? And now, “Ordinary people”. It might seem to some that we are trying to set the bar exceedingly low. Who wants anything that is ordinary! Not when we can go viral, not when we all seem to be infected with “main character syndrome,” where the majority of our social media posts portray us or our family in only our most glorious moments. It is almost like we are scared of the ordinary, the mundane, and the humdrum moments of life, as if they are something to be shunned or hurried through to get to the really good stuff.

            

We find ourselves resenting the ordinary stuff like raising kids, cooking meals, or going to our ordinary jobs. Heaven knows, our nosy neighbors are such an interruption because they need help with this or that or need us to watch their child for a bit. We are anxious to get past the mundane stuff to get on to the really exciting stuff, the novel stuff, the stuff we see influencers and our friends posting about, or what we see glamorized on TV. 

            

Yet, what if this view of life is perhaps the bleakest myth to ever capture the imagination of the human mind? What if the ordinary stuff is really where God meets us? What if the most hallowed space we inhabit is in the mundane and commonplace? What if the stuff we rush through mindlessly is the very place that both veils and reveals the holy and sacred to us? I tell you, I would want some of that because, try as I might, most of my life is ordinary. 

            

We need look no further than Jesus who, in his resurrected body with serious upgrades, has every chance to throw off the mundane, dazzle us with novelty, and tantalize us with the spectacular; and yet, he meets his witless, cowering disciples in a familiar room and calms their fears. In doing so, he reinforces the notion that the eternal kingdom he is inaugurating is going to move forward with ordinary people doing ordinary things, things not reserved for the gifted but that really turn on the necessities of life. They are the kind of things we often rush through to get to “real life,” whatever that is. We will talk about it on Sunday. I hope you will join us!