06 Jun Ordinary Time

Dear Westwood Church family,

This Sunday, in the Church calendar, we begin “Ordinary Time.” I’ve always found the name of this season, which stretches all the way from Trinity Sunday to past Thanksgiving at the first Sunday of Advent, amusing. It amuses me because of the temptation to read “ordinary” as bland, or not worthy of attention, which is a funny way of talking about five months of the year.

There are, of course, plenty of extraordinary things that happen during these weeks. Just this Sunday, we’ll celebrate graduates, pray blessing on our Sierra Service Project team, welcome a Confirmand into church membership, and give Bibles to our new fourth graders as we promote our students from one grade to the next.

“Ordinary Time” makes me think of one of my favorite pieces of Covid-era humor, from when we were exhausted and anxious from constantly adapting and adjusting our plans: Do you know what I’m looking forward to? Precedented times.

Although I have been inspired by moments when I’ve been startled by unexpected, extravagant grace, I treasure ordinary grace as one of the greatest gifts of communities of faith. We practice love regularly, so that our everyday patterns are set by holy values, like love, grace, justice, and compassion.

This is the beautiful invitation of “Ordinary Time.” Like ordinal directions on a compass, Christ-like living calibrates and gives direction to our ways of living. We pattern ourselves after divine mercy, boundless grace, persistent generosity, and expansive love. These qualities become ordinary to us as we get good at them, when we live them out consistently. They are, of course, not without precedent: we are simply echoing back a living message of love and blessing that we’ve heard sung by God and our holy ancestors through the ages.

For all this ordinary, extraordinary grace, and for how it shapes us in this generation, I give thanks to God.

grace and peace,
Pastor Molly