Proclaiming Good News: Week 2 of Ordinary Time
LOOK; High and Lifted Up, 2020, Phyllis Stephens - Source | HT
LISTEN: The Earth Shall Know, by The Porter’s Gate, feat. Casey J, Leslie Jordan & Urban Doxology - Lyrics | Spotify | YouTube
Here’s a playlist I made for us a few years ago! Ordinary Time, pt. 1: World and Church
READ: Hosea 5:15—6:6; Psalm 50; Romans 4:13-18; Matthew 9:9-13
Readings for the rest of the week from Living the Christian Year*: Psalm 96; Isaiah 52:7-10; Luke 9:1-6; Acts 3:1-4:22; Acts 17:16-33
(If you’d prefer to keep tracking with the Daily Office Lectionary from the 1979 BCP, you can find those references here.)
PRAY: Book of Common Prayer, Collect for the Second Week After Pentecost
Grant, O Lord, that the course of this world may be so peaceably ordered by your providence, that your Church may joyfully serve you in quiet confidence and godly peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
DO: For the next seven weeks, we’ll consider how we embody God’s love in the world and the church. Pray for awareness, courage, and joy in proclaiming the gospel! Who can you pray for this week, that God would bring them healing or open their heart to the gospel? With whom can you begin a spiritual conversation this week, where you might have a chance to listen to their experiences with faith and to share your own experience following Jesus?
An introduction to the season of Ordinary Time with an excerpt from The Spacious Path with (pp. 157-158)
Ordinary Time is the longest season in the church calendar. Some churches refer to these weeks as “weeks after Pentecost,” beginning with the first Sunday after Pentecost, also known as Trinity Sunday. Other churches refer to this time on the calendar as “weeks of Ordinary Time” (as in, “Today is Tuesday, the eleventh of September in the twenty-eighth week of Ordinary Time”). There are a few more variations, but I’ve found it more fruitful to worry less about what to call these weeks between Pentecost and Advent and instead to focus and become more deeply formed in the theology of the church’s intentions. What does it mean that half of our calendar is left open to the ordinary? What does it tell us about the God who created and gives purpose to our lives?
A helpful place to begin answering this question is by prayerfully considering the parts of Christ’s life that scriptures tell us almost nothing about. You could say that the years between his toddler days, which were spent migrating to various parts of the world as his parents sought refuge from Herod, to the beginning of his more formal ministry, marked by his baptism in the Jordan River, were the Ordinary Time of Jesus’ life, as they make up the majority of all of his days on earth.
What does it mean that half of our calendar is left open to the ordinary? What does it tell us about the God who created and gives purpose to our lives? If the historic liturgical calendar teaches us to number our days to gain a heart of wisdom, there must be a lot of wisdom to be gained in our regular working, resting, and worshiping lives. This is the model Christ seemed to have lived by, and the church invites us to embrace the same pathway.
During Ordinary Time this year, I’ll be curating the weekly themes, music, readings, and practices from four sources:
Sunday lectionary readings from Year A of the Book of Common Prayer 2019 (Anglican Church of North America).
Weekly themes and select lectionary readings from the excellent devotional guide, Living the Christain Year: Time to Inhabit the Story of God by Bobby Gross
Weekly song to meditate from the sacred ecumenical arts collective, The Porter’s Gate because it feels like they’ve curated their discography to coordinate with the themes of Ordinary Time in Living the Christian Year!
Weekly readings and suggested practices from my book The Spacious Path: Practicing the Restful Way of Jesus in a Fragmented World because I was definitely influenced by Living the Christian Year! While it’s not necessary to purchase the book to follow along with us, I’d be grateful if you did!