Gina Barreca wrote my Bible study this morning. Actually, she didn’t write a Bible study, but an editorial in this morning’s Journal Gazette. There is no Bible quote in it, no reference to much of what I intended to say, but still, it is as if she was writing what I had wanted to write. The title of her editorial is “Ordinary days’ bliss not to be missed.” Go read it if you haven’t. Pick up a paper if you can. Or I’ll bring a copy to church tomorrow and you can see it there (those who worship with us at Aldersgate in Fort Wayne). If you aren’t in town, go online, maybe you can get it there. I don’t know. I haven’t checked. But I’m trying to save myself some writing!
OK, not really. Because as good as the article is, there are some things missing. Two things in particular. One is the Bible passage I wanted to use to launch this whole conversation. The other is a little bit of magic. I know, I know, as soon as you start talking about magic then you’ve moved away from ordinary. Either into fantasy or illusion or something darker. But trust me, this is ordinary magic. But that’s later.
First, Bible. This is a Bible study after all. That is my supposed purpose is writing this. Preparing for a sermon tomorrow that will help us grab hold some deeper truth that is right in front of us all the time, but until we use the lens of the living Word, we never even see it.
Ms Barreca says that she realizes that she often doesn’t pay attention to her own life. “The idea of being in the middle of happiness and not knowing it unnerves me because it happened a lot when I was younger. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t know how good I had it, but that I wasn’t able to offer myself permission to enjoy what I couldn’t prove was somehow worthwhile.”
What I couldn’t prove was somehow worthwhile. That is profound. How do you celebrate the ordinary when it is so ... ordinary? It doesn’t mean anything, it just is, we think. It doesn’t make a difference, it just is our life. Or a small insignificant part of it. Nothing special. Nothing profound. Nothing transformative. After all, we are “making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world!” Get to work, slacker! We’ve got to be doing big stuff, changing the world stuff. Not just living. Right?
Well, yes but. How does the world change? Incrementally. Most of the time. We grow into it. The world as we have it now didn’t happen over night. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Or Constantinople. Or Versailles. Or Washington. Or Beijing. Or ... well you get the idea. Sure, dramatic things sometimes happened, wars and revolutions, discoveries and inventions, stuff that seemingly changed the world instantly. But even those had to be lived into. Day by day. Step by step. “More than the days of magnificent accomplishment or great passion, I suspect that most of us would hug the everyday most tightly if someone tried to pry it away from us,” Barreca writes.
The every day. Ordinary. Why is the ordinary not so ordinary? Paul had an idea.
Colossians 1:15-20 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16 for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers-- all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.
While not giving Charles Wesley a run for his title, Paul was something of a hymn writer. Or a hymn quoter, as some scholars think these doxologies were already being used and Paul just wove them into his writing, like I might quote a popular song or newspaper article. But whether he wrote these words or chose them to make his point, Paul is giving us a hymn of praise to Christ here in the early part of the letter to the Colossians. Jesus is the “He” referred to in verse fifteen, if that was not already obvious. Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. Perhaps these words inspired John to open his Gospel with a similar tune, a similar chorus. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him. That’s John’s version of this song of praise, this doxology. It sounds similar.
It goes on from this declaration at the beginning to describe the place, the status, the power of Christ. And the beginnings of Trinitarian theology. “For in him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell.” All the fulness. True God of true God, begotten not made, of one being with the Father....” It makes your head spin to try to comprehend it. And maybe that is part of the purpose, to make our heads spin. A little head spinning is good for us. Not for confusion’s sake. But to open us up to the wonder of Christ. To the power of God. What an incredible, certainly not ordinary, thing God chose to do. To put on flesh and walk among us. To enter into our reality, our brokenness so that we would know God understands. We would know God feels our pain, knows our weakness. We would know that God is not just some distant force out there, but is also some intimate presence right here. Lo, I am with you always, to the end of the age. Head spinning, indeed.
But, wait. I mean, good for him and all. But this was about the ordinary. The everyday. The moments that pass by almost unnoticed until we with a great act of will force ourselves to wake up, to pay attention to each breath, each encounter. How do we open our eyes to those passing moments, so that they don’t pass unheeded? How do we stop and acknowledge those we love in front of us, the ones who make our hearts pound even if we forget to pay attention to the pounding from time to time? How do we grab hold of the ones who are slipping out of our grasp before we even see it? How do we hang on this moment long enough to let those around us know that we are who we are because they are in our lives, they came to bless us, they came to shape us, they came to love us even in our most unlovable? We’ve missed too many moments, they disappear way too quickly and by the time we pay attention to them, they are gone and the chance was missed. How do we wake up to the ordinary?
With magic. Ordinary magic. When I was a kid there was a presence that still resides in my memory who told us to remember the magic. Every morning Captain Kangaroo would gently open our eyes to the world around us and would conclude every program with the admonition to remember the magic words, please and thank you. The ordinary magic is gratitude. Gratitude reminds us of our connection, our reliance on those around us to make our lives meaningful. Thank you, for loving me. Thank you for feeding me, for clothing me, for making me laugh and holding me while I cry. Thank you for being there for me. And, wonder of wonders, thank you for wanting to.
I’m amazed at Paul’s hymn here in Colossians. Amazed at the wonder of who Christ is, yes. But really amazed at the end. After all this about God in Christ, it ends with the words that this whole thing, this whole wonderful, amazing, head-spinning thing, was so that you, and so that I could find our way home to the arms of God. “Through him, God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things.” All things, you and me. To Himself, to God, himself. Brought back into relationship. And, and! This is the best part. He was pleased to do it. He was pleased to bring me home. God was pleased to bend down and lift me up. God was pleased to hold the door, to stand watch at the end of the lane so that He could run to greet you when you came to yourself and stumbled home. This wasn’t just a duty born out of the nature of God. This wasn’t just in the job description. No, we are made right, brought home, welcomed into the loving arms of our Father, nurtured by our Mother in heaven because God was pleased to do so. Pleased by us. By you. By me. God was pleased.
Magic. Thank you. Thank you God. Thank you who stand in for God from time to time. Who carry the ordinary moments of our lives and make them rich and deep and full. “Our ordinary days need cultivation and attention: They are what we harvest in our lifetimes,” Barreca concludes. Amen I say, amen. And that cultivation and attention is the ordinary magic of gratitude. First to God and from there into everywhere. Thank for who you are.
Shalom,
Derek
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