Reflecting on "Ordinary"

“Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals. . .”

There’s an old saying among those who walk the Camino de Santiago, the ancient pilgrimage trail that stretches through northern Spain, that “whatever you need, the Camino will provide.” In Tobermory, I think that adage applies to the Tobermory Thrift Shop! Did I know that we needed a neon, heart-shaped light for our Pride service last week? I didn’t, but as soon as I saw that light at the Thrift Shop, I knew that it had to come to the sanctuary… The heart was just one aspect of a really beautiful Pride service where Gwen Chapman and M.E. Kish so lovingly shared their music and their views on “Why Pride Matters,” where Martha Aitkin also offered a selection of beautifully curated stories gathered from friends and family and where there was just a lot of love flowing!

After an unusually busy June with four really special services in a row, we can now observe “ordinary” time. “Ordinary time” refers to the Sundays that are outside of the major liturgical seasons. It’s not Easter, Christmas, Lent, Advent or the Season of Creation right now, so in ordinary time, the lectionary leads us to the scriptures that would have us contemplate Jesus’ teaching and ministry. “Ordinary” in its most common usage can equate with “run of the mill” or “nothing special,” but in this case, it is a reference to the Latin word ordinalis, or numbered, and so ordinary time refers more to rhythm and cycles. In ordinary time, especially the part of it that occurs over the summer months, we celebrate a time of maturation or coming into fruition. It’s a time when the stories of Jesus, the Gospels’ “greatest hits,” as I referred to the summer lectionary selections with the worship committee this week, can lead us to take a good long look at our own lives as Christian disciples.

So, this week, we look at how Jesus sent out his disciples in the Gospel of Luke. “Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals,” he told them, and I can only think of how vulnerable they must have felt. To head out on a mission without anything but what is in their hearts? Yikes. And yet they “returned with joy.” How does that happen?

To prepare, read Luke 10:1-11, 16-20 and ponder the following:

1. If you are going on a trip, are you able to pack light? Why or why not?

2. If they couldn’t take physical things, in your opinion, what are the three most important non-physical things for the seventy to proceed with?