Ironic
Ordinary Meditation #1: Ordinary Time Again
Yesterday we began ordinary time again.
Ordinary
time again. That has a kind of ring to it. A very dull ring. OK,
maybe not so much a ring. Let’s say it has a kind of thud to it. Ordinary time again. THUD!
“What the heck are you talking about Ben Camino?” I
hear several readers say, most of them as usual named Jennifer. Except my
friend Jennifer who is an Episcopal priest. She knows what I’m talking about.
Also, being Episcopalian, she wouldn’t say heck. She'd go straight to hell.
For folks who either aren’t part of a liturgical
tradition or who are but like to spend their sunny summer Sundays at the lake
house or at farmer’s markets or just sleeping in and binge watching whatever people binge watch these days, I’ll first clear up what the
heck I’m talking about and then, if I get rolling as I am wont to do, talk a LOT about it.
Yesterday was sort of the reboot
of what the traditional church (sometimes known as the Roman Catholic Church or
the One True Church or Pope Francis' Neighborhood) calls “Ordinary
Time.” Even the most liturgically deprived of my readers, whether named
Jennifer or Zsa Zsa or Fred, I assume
have heard of Christmas and Easter. The great feasts sometimes we call them. Or . . . bank holidays if you are from that island where people refer to HOLY DAYS as bank holidays.
Some of you,
a smaller but still substantial group, have at least some notion of what is
meant by Advent and Lent, the two great fasts. You might not know that they are
thought of as “fasts,” but you at least know about the universal practice
throughout church history of giving up chewing gum and high-fructose corn syrup
(which is in everything) for Lent. I sometimes
changed that up a little as a kid and gave up Brussel sprouts instead.
So, the easy way to think of this is that if you are
in the Advent, Christmas, Epiphany (which follows Christmas), Lent (which
precedes Easter), or Easter seasons, then you are NOT in Ordinary Time, no matter
how boring your Christmases might have been. Jennifers, I'm talking to y'all. This is one of those circumstances when the
liturgy, representing something higher and loftier than dates on a calendar or
even your self-esteem, says to you, “I will tell you what that day meant,
regardless of how underwhelming the scene was around the table at Granny’s.”
More recently, since Easter that is, we have still been in the Easter season, until Sunday that is. That was Pentecost. Fifty days, more or less, from Easter. Followed by . . . THUD! Ordinary Time.
So after the seven Sundays of Easter (yes, Easter is longer than you
think, dear reader), we celebrated Pentecost. And now we are in day two of Week Eight of Ordinary Time. What? Week Eight? How did that happen. Don't worry, we were already ordinary back in the winter, after Christmas and Epiphany and before Lent. I know, I know. So confusing. That chunk happened. Then came Lent, then came Easter (50 days, more or less), then came Pentecost. And now comes Ordinary Time. And more Ordinary Time.
The BIG DEAL TIME is now over. It’s a little more complicated than I’m
making it, but I’m trying to give you a break and get to the good stuff.
Assuming I come up with some good stuff.
Anyway. Or anyways as Jennifer Lynne Ricke would say, thud! It’s
ordinary time again. Everybody’s like looking around, waiting for something
cool to happen, maybe an angel of the Lord talking to Mary, maybe dead people
walking around alive again. Something wild or outstanding or extraordinary or worth a present or at least a fast.
Well no. Not really. Or yes, but not that way.
Yes, there is still bread and wine. And maybe, some ancient
witnesses suggest, more that bread and wine, even when all you've got is bread and wine. And if you listen carefully to the gospel readings
during Ordinary Time, you will get a big dose (maybe bigger than you want) of
the teachings of Jesus, especially the ones that tell us how to live, how to
love, how to be human, how to be good. Sometimes they are parables, but, with a few exceptions,
they aren’t nearly as hard to figure out as, say, the Book of Revelation (or
that extra season of X-Files for that matter).
One cool thing I always liked about Ordinary Time was
that the liturgical color, to the degree we use a liturgical color, is green.
Bright summery lively . . . green. Ordinary, everyday, natural, look-around-you
(unless you live in Arizona, in which case don’t)
green. The ordinary, yes. But maybe the beautiful ordinary which we lost sight of even
though it was right under our noses. Maybe nothing golden, but then, as we
know, nothing gold can stay.
Ordinary Time, like the teachings of Jesus, which
were, for the most part, less other-worldly than that of the other-worldly
preachers who have followed Him. Don’t resent your broken brother; welcome him
back. Take care of that guy who fell among thieves, even though the religious
leaders don’t. Take it easy Martha; come out and sit and relax and talk with
us. We’re talking about forgiveness and stuff. Quit praying so loud in public.
Quit giving so . . . loud in public. And so on.
Ordinary time sounds easy. But it isn’t really. For example, the local
church, even the one in New York or Paris, isn’t renting a camel for a big
pageant on the Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time. The choir may even take a
few weeks off (you guessed it, to go to their lake houses). There may be babies
but they won’t be Jesus AND they won’t be nearly as tender and mild as the one
in the songs of Christmas. There will be wise men, but unfortunately for you, they will all be called Ben
Camino.
The “strong liturgy” of the feasts and fasts grabs us
and makes it difficult (though not impossible, obviously) for us to wander too
far off from the message. We know where we are (Third Sunday of Advent--check, The
Baptism of Our Lord--check, Holy Thursday--check, etc.). And, if you're like me, you hope (and maybe worry) that it’s
all really making some difference in what we like to call “reality."
But the softer liturgy (my phrase, like it?) of Ordinary
Time calls us to attention, calls us to
attend, in another way, a more subtle way. Instead of placing
us in the larger story quite so specifically, perhaps Ordinary Time asks us to
find the story in our specific situations. Child-rearing, friendship, working in
the garden or on the assembly line, toast, making love, breaking up, relating across economic and racial divisons, arguing, settling
(or not) a dispute, cleaning house, driving down the road from Jerusalem to
Jericho, a relationship with a brother, fishing, swimming, dealing with
depression (ours or someone else’s), welcoming (or not) a refugee—these and
many other actions make up the gospel story of Ordinary Time. It’s one that may
become extra-ordinary, perhaps. Or not
Or maybe it’s not so important whether ordinary time
becomes extra-ordinary. Perhaps that is the point. The ordinary is not necessarily less worthy, less valuable just because it's ordinary. Maybe it's just less interesting or less spectacular. Less “extra.” And it would be a
shame for us to mix up those categories (though we often do).
Don’t neglect
your babies, even though they aren’t born in Bethlehem and laid in a manger.
Don’t neglect repentance even though nobody is putting ashes on your head. Take care of that person you wronged, although nobody else is watching, nobody else will know.
Bless the ordinary. Bless the weeds you just pulled.
The water you just poured. The prose you just wrote. The lips you just kissed.
The tears you just cried. The emptiness you just felt. The meal you just ate. The moon and stars you looked
up to see while walking the dog. Oh, and don’t forget the dog. The life you
just lived. The child you just burped. The neighbor you just passed by and stopped and said hello, how are you. The candle you just lit. Or blew out.
The flowers on your table, in your garden, pressed in your book, or in a vase on your grandmother's grave.
The ironic church of an ironic God says, come, let us
celebrate ordinary time. It’s no big deal. It’s just everything. Everything.
It’s ordinary time again.
Thud!
Glory be to the Lord of the ordinary. The everyday.
The good old green. The under-our-noses everything which, altared (my word, like it?),
becomes the sweet stuff of the kingdom of heaven.
Feel free to share your ordinary time with the rest of us in the comments section.
Peace, friends.
