Leaving Ordinary Time

A sermon preached at Faith Episcopal on November 25, 2007

Today we leave ordinary time. That is one way of identifying the Sundays between Pentecost, last spring, and the first Sunday of advent. The color has been green – green that takes us from planting through harvest – from the first sprigs of you life through blossom and ripening to maturity. We have not been in a season, we have been in ordinary time. Ordinary time gives us routines and consistency. But we are called now into extraordinary time.

Our church year gives us the gifts of Advent and Lent to provide times of preparation. Those seasons are set aside to make us ready for Christmas, when God becomes one of us, and Easter when we are resurrected with Christ. They are meant to be times of challenge and testing. In Advent and Lent we are invited into self-reflection. Extraordinary time invites us to, dare I say, change. Change gets you to a new place.

As odd as it seems from a calendar perspective, we have a story from Good Friday as our Gospel reading. Jesus’ short conversation with the man hanging on the cross next to him refers to an ultimate change – from death to extraordinary life. That gives us a clue about what is expected of us as we leave the safety of ordinary time.

Welcoming in a new time is one of the great human challenges. Even if we don’t like where we are, it’s better than the unknown. When the extermination camps were liberated at the end of WWII, American soldiers were stunned by those who would not leave. It was a place of hell on earth but some were incapable of moving into an uncertain world. The devil we know is better than the devil we don’t.

But isn’t it just like God to call us continually into uncertainty. We don’t like it there and find all kinds of ways to avoid it. The American culture has successfully avoided Advent by moving straight from Thanksgiving to Christmas. We would skip over the period set aside for the reflection needed for growth to get right to the party.

What is the change that Christmas need from us? Christmas assures us of the fundamental goodness of creation. As Christianity developed one of its greatest struggles was with the Gnostic belief that the world and all matter were evil and the goal was to transcend it – to find a way to escape. The idea of God coming to dwell on earth – in human form – was impossible for them to accept. They missed the point of the Nativity. They stayed in their ordinary time – unable to know themselves as a place of hospitality for the Divine. Christmas says that we are the place of miracles. But we must pass through extraordinary time to get there.

Saying goodbye to ordinary time takes practice and work. That is the gift of our yearly cycle of celebrations. We are given the recurring gift of preparing ourselves for something new. Making use of the gift is like the spiritual exercise of prayer and worship – we won’t be any good at it if we don’t practice it. The blessing of being a part of a community of faith, like Faith, is that you have the support and structure to do that.

Even our Anglican liturgy encourages us to practice consciously and intentionally the transitions, the letting go and embrace of the new. Baptism is the proclamation of a congregation that a person, whether an infant or an adult, is now an integral part of the community – to be supported and in whom we live out our promises to pass on traditions and the knowledge of being related and loved. Baptism is always new life for the whole community because you can’t help but be changed when you add something new. We are being made new all of the time around here by many new people who have been drawn to our little church. The Confession of Sins and the proclamation of forgiveness are followed by the passing of the Peace. We are taken from brokenness and separation through forgiveness and then turn to our neighbor and proclaim our restored relationships by making physical contact with another. It is so important to extend that touch to those who are not your family – it’s easy to embrace your spouse or parent – a little more challenging to break through the barriers of politeness and distance to feel the flesh of another – hand in hand and know that this is your neighbor – one given by God for you to love.

In her book Amazing Grace, A Vocabulary of Faith, Kathleen Norris identifies the Sanctus – Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might – as a moment in the liturgy of great importance and a good illustration of the movement from ordinary time to extraordinary time. She says “The Sanctus feels like a door to me, opening onto eternity, where the angels and all the saints sin “Holy, Holy, Holy.” These few simple words are used to break open our world and Christ becomes present, silent in the sacrament.” In the Eucharist we suddenly find ourselves included in the group gathered around the table with Jesus – joined in community and friendship and love with him and with one another. That moment transforms us from I and mine to we and ours.

All of these are examples of moving from ordinary time to extraordinary time. They are reminders of the constant work required of us as followers of Christ. It is called the Way which to me has a sense of movement to it. We are not allowed to stay where we are – but are always called into a deeper experience of knowing ourselves as part of the Body of Christ.

I used to study voice and was blessed with a number of wonderful teachers. One woman, in particular, Mary Hagopian, was the toughest. We would work and work on a particular technique or piece of music and a breakthrough would eventually happen – usually the result of my finally giving up the way I was used to doing something and actually trying what she suggested. As soon as she was satisfied that it wasn’t a fluke and that I had actually learned something, I was not allowed any amount of time to enjoy this accomplishment. We immediately launched into all of the other parts of my voice that would benefit from growth, improvement or exorcism. It was exhausting and I felt under-appreciated – not allowed to rest in that happy place of “Hey look at me, I did it!” Mary’s response was “so what, we’ve got work to do!”

Saying goodbye to ordinary time is to embrace the call to stay on the move. As soon as we have grasped a part of our lives as Christians, Advent comes along again and we are invited to go even deeper. So check your watches and look inside. What kind of ordinary time is God challenging you to release and what glimpse of eternity is being offered to you.