Dear friends,
This Sunday, the church begins the season it calls “ordinary.” Our disco ball is back in its storage box. I already miss seeing the way it throws light onto the walls early Sunday morning. Our Pentecost hanging, its ribbons fluttering in the breeze last Sunday as I elevated the bread and wine as if the spirit herself was joining us in our collective Amen, has come down. We return to our green vestments and our sanctuary – well, it looks ordinary. However, ordinary time does not mean routine, insignificant, or mundane. Rather, it refers to the order of Sundays in the church year that do not fall into the major liturgical seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent or Easter. For example, you will see in our bulletin that we call this time the “Season after Pentecost” and depending on the date of the preceding Easter (which fell fairly this year),the length of the season varies from 24-29 weeks. This season won’t end until the day before the first Sunday of Advent which is November 29.
In the Atrium, our children call this time, “the growing season,” which I find a really beautiful description. For this ordinary, growing time calls us to focus on growing in our faith, deepening our connections to God and one another, discovering what it truly means to be a follower of Jesus. Over the next few weeks as we return to the Gospel of Matthew, we will hear many stories of the way Jesus calls all of us to follow, to love, and to grow in faithfulness. This Sunday, we will be blessing our graduates, celebrating the end of the church school year with an ice cream social at 10 AM, and honoring those with June birthdays and anniversaries. It will be an extraordinary ordinary Sunday after which we will move into a more restful and relaxed summer rhythm.
I look forward to seeing you in church!
All my best,
Courtney+