There’s a bit of a lull here in the culminating hours of Choir School. So I thought I’d try to dash this off in preparation for the weekend. This Sunday morning is the conclusion of our Ordinary Time series, where we’ve been focusing on the need to make faith an every day experience, not just a high point, once a week, save it for the special times way of living.
The irony here is that this week has been a high point, special time. I have been chaplain for Choir School here on the campus of Anderson University, which is a choral music camp focused on singing sacred music in large choirs and living in community and engaging in worship from Sunday evening until Saturday morning. I preached 10 times this week (well, nine so far, I’ve got one more to go as of this writing). And I’ve known some of these people for twenty years or more. It has indeed been a highlight, as always.
But this year there was an added dimension. I created a Preaching Academy to go alongside Choir School. Seven Indiana preachers took me up on it. And we spent time reflecting on this thing called preaching, I would teach for three hours each morning and then we would either read and write or engage in conversation around the preaching process, both how sermons are crafted and what do we mean by a preaching ministry and even how do we give our hearers avenues for response to the Word they hear. It was an invigorating time. Deeply personal, as preaching comes from within; but also community based as the preachers mingled with the musicians and we shared some activities together, most notably worship. We grew together as a small group of colleagues and learned from one another all week.
So, what is ordinary about all of that? Nothing, or everything, depending on your point of view, I suppose. There is nothing ordinary about the Choir School community. Get this many musicians, even church musicians, together and there are bound to be sparks. There is inspired goofiness, bruised egos, passionate worship and honest attempts to care and connect. Extraordinary.
There is nothing ordinary about a gathering of preachers (a pulpit of preachers? A narthex of preachers? Hmmm). Inspired goofiness, check; bruised egos, check; passionate worship, check; and honest attempts to care and connect, check and check. Extraordinary.
Yet, none of us feel anything but ordinary. We are just who we are. We are who God made us, loved and redeemed, but nothing special. So, maybe the ordinary is overcome only in the gathering together. The goofiness increases as the crowd increases. The worship is more passionate when we worship together with enthusiasm and power. You get the drift. Maybe what seems ordinary to one, becomes transformative in community. Maybe it is time to set ordinary aside to embrace something beyond ordinary.
Colossians 2:1-10 For I want you to know how much I am struggling for you, and for those in Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me face to face. 2 I want their hearts to be encouraged and united in love, so that they may have all the riches of assured understanding and have the knowledge of God's mystery, that is, Christ himself, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 I am saying this so that no one may deceive you with plausible arguments. 5 For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, and I rejoice to see your morale and the firmness of your faith in Christ. 6 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. 8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. 9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority.
Paul writes (I know that some folks don’t think Paul wrote it, that some other scribe wrote this epistle. That may be, who knows, does it matter?) that the whole fullness of deity lives in Jesus. Which is not very ordinary. And Jesus wants us to receive that fullness too. Paul wants us to be like Jesus.
So, how does one go out and get such a thing? The whole fullness? It seems a pipe dream, it seems a vain hope. Yet Paul seems to think that not only is it possible, but it is the ordinary expectation of every Christian. It is how life is supposed to be lived, filled with the whole presence of God. It seems out of reach. So how do we reach it? Paul tells us that too.
To begin with we need hearts that are encouraged. That seems an ordinary thing. Everyone likes a little encouragement now and then. Everyone needs to be lifted now and then. There is so much that knocks us down, so much that makes us feel less than able, less than important, less than included. Maybe, come to think of it, hearts that are discouraged seem much more normal these days. Those who are lifted up seem few and far between. And the times in our lives when we are up seem fewer than the days that we are down. So, which is ordinary? What does ordinary even mean in this context?
I don’t know. I know that Paul says in order for us to have the fullness of Christ we need encouraged hearts. And united hearts. Now, surely that’s ordinary. United hearts. Isn’t that we are all seeking, hearts with which we can connect. We all want to be in relationship, we all want to love and be loved. But there seems to be more hinted at here than just somebody to love (nod to Freddie Mercury).
Hearts that are encouraged and united in love describes the church, the community of faith. Or at least the church as it could be, should be, might be and is at its best. Encouraging and united. Isn’t that the church you want to be a part of? Isn’t that what you’d like to see in your church? Encouragement and unity? A sense of belonging to something bigger than just yourself, just your own limited vision and understanding. But something larger, deeper, wider. Sure there is a one on one dimension to our work in the church, but there is also the wider community. Both for encouragement and for uniting.
As the week draws to a close on these two extraordinary events, Choir School and the Preaching Academy, I wonder how I will return to the ordinary life of the congregation in which I serve. How will I return to the daily life and rhythms without feeling like I’m missing something. That’s the problem with mountaintop experiences. As soon as you leave the mountain you miss it. Nothing here in the flatlands of Indiana comes close to being a mountain. Right?
Except that with hearts encouraged and united in love we receive Christ in all His fullness, the hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Which would seem to me to the very definition of extraordinary. Except that Paul goes on to say, having received Christ in this way, we “continue to live your lives in Him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”
Continue. Again. And again. And yet again. Day after day, hour after hour, choice after choice. We live this life, this every day, over repetitious life, this ordinary life, we live this life abounding in thanksgiving. We life this ordinary life with an extraordinary presence. We live this mundane same old same old kind of life forgetting that we have all the treasures, the ones in Him, in Christ, we have all the treasures. The treasures of wisdom and knowledge that come from Christ. All the treasures. There is no such thing as ordinary. Or rather, everything is ordinary, since God is present everywhere. Even in my ordinary life
If claiming all the treasures of Christ means being ordinary, then where do I sign up? Or where do I get my marching orders for living the ordinary life? Cause you can’t do much better than that!
Shalom,
Derek
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