The Gift of Ordinary Time

When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”

                                    --Luke 2:22-24

There is something so ordinarily routine about the paragraph following Luke's Nativity. Jesus' parents did what all Jewish parents did in 1st Century Palestine--they went to the Temple with their infant son to comply with all the religious codes governing their lives. It was nothing unusual. It was nothing especially spiritual, It was just what you did.

We also have a lot of things we do just because. 

The IRS always blesses the New Year with the tax packet that we will dutifully return by April. Most of us do the same thing with oil changes for our car--the odometer rolls over, and off we go with ritualistic purity to keep our car running. A lot of us do the same with doctor appointments, routinely getting ourselves screened, checked, poked, and prodded--it begins to sound like the oil change, no?

One thing that used to be part of the routine was going to church. When my dad began his ministry back in 1962, going to church was part of most folks' lives. It was what you did. There was a social obligation to it--young business people would seek a church to make contacts. There was social opportunity, as well--people chose churches to find friends and other families to be with beyond Sundays. It was just part of the fabric of our communities.

But then when the great questioning of all institutions began in earnest in the late 60s and onward, these conventions began to break down. Skepticism about the church and its presence in the community flourished. The necessity of church began to erode. Routine became denounced as rote. Meaninglessness began to be the charge levied at religion. 

And the pews emptied.

Interestingly, many of these same issues met Jesus as he began his walk with us. He confronted a people for whom faith was not so much belief as it was routine. He saw a religious hierarchy enamored with its power over people by enforcing a religion of rules and order. He denounced it. Note that--he denounced such religious practice. He offered instead a direct encounter with God that could come without temple or synagogue--recall he spent most of his ministry in the streets, and the few times he entered a synagogue, things didn't go so well (his first congregation almost threw him off a cliff!). He spent time in prayer alone in the wilderness. He offered a practice of engaged compassion--to truly worship, to truly enter the full heart of faith, one lives by love, meeting others in grace, gratitude, and generosity. His solitary prayer led directly engaged, communal action. 

So would the empty pews bother him?

Here is where the paragraph from Luke becomes relevant. As Luke understood Jesus, yes, Jesus offered a reform of faith and practice, but, no, Jesus was not God's rejection of religious practice like going to church. Jesus' parents are the key. Without saying it, Luke lets us know they go to do what they do because they saw it as important and essential to their lives, not just a rote act. They cannot afford the more normal lamb for the thank offering for a firstborn son, so they bring the birds as a substitute. They want to thank God as they can, almost foreshadowing the widow's mite as they come. They offer what they have. They offer what they have in full awareness of God.

It is that "full awareness"  that often trips us up. We sometimes blunder about, doing and saying things without really paying attention. And, at times, that leads to trouble. Awareness protects us. Awareness keeps us present as we practice. Presence keeps us focused. Focus awakens us to the potential of what we are doing--realizing the promise of Christmas that God is with us, always and forever, in whatever we are doing, wherever we are, and however we find ourselves. 

And that miracle of grace comes in the every day, the ordinary, and, yes, in the routine. That is the wondrous sermon contained in three simple verses, the quiet continuation of the joyous explosion of Christmas Eve. It is that quiet continuation that really and truly is where we live. 

God is there, so there is hope, peace, comfort, and joy.

Take those gifts. They are yours.