DAY 139: Ordinary Time

DAY 139

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Twenty – Friday 31 July 2020

Ordinary Time

What time is it in the church year? Depending on our church tradition we are familiar with certain blocks of time that we mark and celebrate:

+The First Sunday of Advent – the ‘new year’s day’ of the church through Epiphany 6 January, the coming of the wise men;

+Ordinary Time from the Sunday after Epiphany to the Sunday before Lent, not counting Transfiguration Sunday;

+Ash Wednesday to Palm Sunday to Holy Week to Easter;

+Easter Season from the Sunday after Easter to Ascension Sunday and Pentecost Sunday;

+Ordinary Time: The Sunday after Pentecost to the last Sunday before the first Sunday of                 

Advent, when the Gospel readings on Sundays focus on the teaching and ministry of Jesus. Just

as Jews in antiquity structured their year around the Old Testament feasts, so the early Christian church followed that pattern but marked time with the life of Christ.

The season is called ordinary from the Latin ‘ordinare’ to put in order by numbering. An ‘ordinal’ is a number used to place something in order, as first, second, third, etc. Thus this coming Sunday will be the Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time. In a non-church way we use the word ‘ordinary’ to convey something familiar, in the usual order or the way things normally are.

However, there is nothing ordinary about Ordinary Time this year, with a global pandemic, increased famine, high unemployment, racial tension and a severely broken political system. looming ever larger before us. In this context we rest secure in the knowledge that its ordinariness has to do with its numbering by God, who keeps track of everything and loses sight of nothing. Ordinary time is always extraordinary time with the God of it all at the center of it all.

So in the midst of Ordinary Time we go about our ordinary tasks that help give us an awareness that ordinary things continue as they have been. Most of all God’s extraordinary love, grace, strength, comfort and hope are ‘ordinary’ each day as we walk through the pandemic.

Reflective question: For what ‘ordinary’ things during this season of Ordinary Time can you give thanks?

Reflective Scripture: 1 Timothy 6:6 – “But godliness with contentment is great gain.”

Reflective hymn:

“For the Beauty of the Earth” – Folliot Pierpont (1835-1917

For the beauty of the earth, for the glory of the skies,

For the love which from our birth, over and around us lies:

Lord of all, to Thee we raise this our hymn of grateful praise.