Ordinary and Extraordinary

Today, like last week, is a Sunday in ordinary time according to the church calendar. What does ordinary time mean? It is a designation for the Sundays, which fall outside of other seasons, like Advent or lent, or holidays, which have their own extended celebrations, like Christmas and Easter. So it is really a term, which is mostly used for contrast. If we are in ordinary time, it means we are not focused on one or another of the larger themes of our faith, which merit their own day or weeks. 

But ordinary time can be misleading, if we use it with our typical meaning for the word ordinary in mind that, is with the definition of mundane or routine. Then we might discount the importance of these days. This aspect of ordinary time is a mistake, I think, for when we reflect, we realize that no time in one’s life is really ordinary. In the flow of daily life we may treat the days we are given as nothing special or insignificant, forgetting their glory and meaning. But inevitably, something will happen to jar us awake again. We recognize our mortality, or we have a peak experience, which opens us to the miracle of it all. Then we realize how time is running, how the seasons change, how each moment passing is precious. And then we relearn that no time is ordinary. The failure to appreciate the time we are given is one of the subtle tragedies of living. To learn how to count and value our days is a sign of wisdom as much as it is a way to joy. 

Aside from these more philosophical musings, in summer especially, vacations, recreation and unscheduled time are more the norm than during the rest of the year.  It is no small irony, I think, that this period of ordinary time in the church calendar falls just at this special season with fewer regular routines.   Schedules go haywire, school is out, and we often have to scramble to figure out how to manage the day care, fit in baseball games, and accomplish our work load all at the same time. Or depending on your stage of life, how to entertain the grandkids while their parents go off for a well deserved break, but you are left with new challenges.  Those kinds of days are not ordinary. And so we live into these contradictions as we live into these days. 

Please pray with me: Gracious God, let us enter into the mystery of time, the time you have given us here to understand your word and to worship you. May it be a time of blessing.  And may it heighten our appreciation and deepen our faith in the One you have sent to bring us good news. Amen. 

In line with the reflection that the ordinary is nothing but extra ordinary, today’s scripture is one of the oddest and strangest in all the gospels. It is an unusual passage that is rarely read and many a commentator warns of its peculiar nature and challenges.  From the very beginning of Mark’s gospel, which we have been reading this lectionary year, the evangelist portrays Jesus as a person in a hurry. Mark is showing us that Jesus’ work is so important, and so necessary, that he needs to be in constant motion. Recall that Mark’s gospel has no infancy narrative, no story of birth, nor any of the stories of the childhood and youth of Jesus that are found in Luke and Matthew. One of the very first things that happens in Mark’s gospel is that Jesus is baptized by John, the heavens open, and it never lets up from there. There are healings and exorcisms and discussions and arguments and all through, motion and movement. Today’s reading follows this mode: It is a compilation of three different stories which all speak about this extraordinary situation as Jesus ministry becomes more prominent and those around him react to the healing, teaching and preaching the good news. 

Let’s look more closely to get a sense of what is going on and what Mark is trying to show us. 

The story opens with crowds following Jesus, so many people that he and his disciples could not even find a time or place to eat. A flash mob of sorts has gathered outside of the house, and his family is there, worried about what is happening. We can speculate on the family’s motives. Were they worried for his welfare or their own reputation? Were they afraid of what the authorities would say, or simply trying to protect him and get a word in edgewise? We cannot know, of course. But there seems to be some concern that Jesus has gone out of his mind, which is a pretty extraordinary term. Out of his mind….so caught up in the work to do and the needs of people that he comes across as abnormal.  Here is one who is so concerned with human suffering that he enters into the fray with little attention to his own well being.  Let us remember that as we look to Jesus we are given a portrait of the way God loves us as well, with an outpouring, healing love.  But for the human Jesus, this effort is hard to sustain, and his family is concerned. 

We also soon learn that the Judean authorities are challenging Jesus teachings and accusing him of being an agent of the devil. So we go from a description of possible mental illness to one of demonic possession. Again, an extraordinary description. Jesus retorts that he is not the agent of Satan but the opposite. The teachers of the law understand that Jesus has been casting out evil spirits and challenge his authority to do so. And he challenges them right back. And then Jesus talks about forgiveness, reminding that all will be forgiven except those who actively resist the love of God. 

Evil spirits, healing, hoards of people, no time to eat, announcements of grace, and pointed arguments. It’s quite a scene! 

Finally, the family comes back into the picture, as they are calling to him. And he responds with a telling phrase which in one short sentence turns on its head the traditional definition of family life: Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother! 

The tribal and family relations, which were the core identity of the people of that time, are seemingly tossed out the window by such a statement. And this is extraordinary. 

Our families, and how we relate to our family of origin are among the most fundamental givens of our lives, just as are our nationality, language and geographical placement in the world. The love we receive from our parents and extended family teaches us about love, the care we receive shows us how to care for others, and the constant vigilance of parents for children is the prototype of God’s constant love for us. We are fundamentally affected by these experiences. We will find ourselves time and time again living them out into adulthood. So it is no small thing to learn from these words of Jesus, that family relationships are superceded by other commitments for we are called out of our families to a new type of relationship with God and with each other. 

Its not that the family will go away entirely, or that the influence of the family will be erased, for how could it?  It is knit into our bones, into our DNA, into the neurons of our brain from the time of our conception. But Jesus is stating that these givens are not enough for Christian identity. 

From a psychological perspective, this news that one’s family is not limited to the genetic and tribal, is both scary and enticing. For one of great tasks of human beings is to figure out how to become separate human beings from those who brought us to life, our parents and relatives, at the same time that we honor them.  

Parsing these out, figuring out how it works, is a lifelong process. Some of the work is done as we leave home and go off to new adventures, schooling, travel and military or civil service. A great step is taken if and when we choose a life partner, and leave the parental home to form a new family. But even then we take with us the template that we have been given, as is described by the psychologist Harville Hendrix in a number of best selling books on love and marriage. It seems according to Hendrix, that we are determined to repeat the very relationships, which we are leaving, finding in our mates the good and difficult traits of our primary caretakers. This is why marriage and partnership of many kinds are so difficult –we are not alone in there but carry our basic formation forward, for better or for worse. 

It is difficult to truly separate, to become oneself and not simply be repeating the past. And to do this in a way that does not blame or stay stuck is the work of a lifetime. 

This is why I find these words of Jesus to be extraordinary. They acknowledge that the family relationship is superceded by the relationship with God in Christ, and they give an opening to this work of personal growth and maturation and separation, which was hardly evident in the surrounding culture of his time.  And for our time. For these are still challenging concepts.  How much more so must they have been for the first hearers, who would have be astounded by such a radical redefinition of family. For Jesus first hearers, one owed everything to the family unit and one’s entire identity was lived within the boundary of the extended family and tribe. 

For these first disciples, the family ties did bind in particular and limiting ways and it was necessary to state that, to announce the freedom of the gospel to reorder relationships and to prioritize a relationship with God above all. You may have remembered that in Luke, Jesus’ statements about family go even further, for we are told that we have to hate, yes, hate our families in order to be true to the call of the gospel. We stand in shock at such strong words, and they are meant to unnerve us to reorder priorities and put things into a new perspective. 

But what is that perspective? It is that our relationship with God is our primary one. And from this connection will flow a new definition of family. 

In a sense, this statement on family is an early definition of the church, of the ties that bind us to each other in holy community.  As Jesus tells it, the family of God is the people that gather, irrespective of genetic links, cultural agreements and mutual admiration. Our connections are based on our common faith in the one who has called us together and who calls us to be brother and sister to each other. 

Just like the family of origin which we do not choose, we are called into a faith community where we don’t necessarily like everyone or agree with everything that is done, but we are called to love and support and be together in Christ. 

We are blessed to learn such things, through our faith community. We are blessed because all too often in our culture, we don’t have to learn about others and how to get along with people who are different from ourselves. According to the Pew Research Center based in WashingtonD.C., our society is becoming more polarized. We are more segmented by income and political persuasion and we tend not to socialize with folks who are different from ourselves.  We go bowling alone, as the sociologist Robert Putnam has said, documenting the rampant individuality of American society today. 

The church is one great antidote to such tendencies, giving us all a way to connect with each other in the name of the one who has called us his sister and brother.

Extraordinary, isn’t it that God in Christ would call us this way, and right here and right now, we are the family of God. 

We extend this love to each other in mutual concern, covenanting to be family of faith to all who want to join, to help raise our baptized children, and as we have seen this morning, giving a loving good bye to our graduating seniors in a way that tells them that they are always part of us, even as they leave for that important work of becoming more fully themselves. 

Ordinary…extraordinary.. We have been circling around these words this morning to tease out how our faith can help us in the ordinary day to day with a sense of how extraordinary it is to be alive, alive to our own experience, alive to the call to know God, and alive to the relationships we have with each other in this holy family.  

During this summer time, when the ordinary days become extraordinary in their heat, or humidity, or playfulness or relaxation, may we look to the one who lived among us in his extraordinary way.  These words he gave us free us, and yet connect us, to a wise way of living as brothers and sisters together in the family of God. For this extraordinary gift, let us thank God.  Amen.