experience
Offended by the Ordinary
By Linda Rex
July 4, 2021, PROPER 9—We are currently going through “ordinary” days on the Christian calendar. During this particular time of year we reflect on the life and ministry of Christ and how God is at work in the ordinary things of our lives. We turn our attentions to the day-to-day experiences of God’s presence as we go about our jobs, caring for our loved ones and simply doing life.
When something is ordinary, we can take it for granted. When people get to know you well, they can easily dismiss anything you do as ordinary and unimportant. When we do the same things over and over every day, those things can lose our interest and attention. We can even begin to take for granted those we love when we get caught up in the routines and expectations and demands of our everyday life. Life in relationship can become ordinary and lose its attraction and appeal.
Unfortunately, this is also true of our relationship with Jesus. In the gospel reading for this Sunday, Mark 6:1–13, we find Jesus returning to his hometown. He went to synagogue on the Sabbath, as was his custom, and stood up to read. His reputation for miracles was impressive and his wisdom in explaining the scriptures was evident, but the people of his hometown couldn’t get past the ordinary. This was an ordinary man, a carpenter of questionable lineage, whose brothers and sisters and mother they knew well. How could he do the things he did?
Jesus was amazed at their inability to see beyond the ordinary. They were offended rather than amazed by the anointing of God which was evidently upon him. They could not reconcile his miracles and preaching with him being an ordinary man from an ordinary family in an ordinary town in Galilee. They were scandalized by the idea that he might be the Messiah, so could only attribute his gifts and signs to the evil one.
I wonder whether when such things happened Jesus was reminded of the ministry of Ezekiel. This prophet was told by God at the beginning of his ministry that he would speak the truth to God’s covenant people, but they would reject his message (Ez. 2:1–5). We can be inspired by God, empowered by God, but still be offensive to and rejected by those to whom we are sent. We can follow Christ, allow his Spirit to transform our lives, but still be considered profane and worthless by those who will not believe that God has redeemed and restored us.
We need to be careful not to fall prey to the lie that how well we live out the Christian life immediately determines peoples’ response to the message. Yes, our lives should reflect Christ—as image-bearers of the divine, we should be living expressions of God’s love and grace. But Christlike living does not guarantee us a welcome response. Nor is walking about with a façade of perfected holiness needed here. What is truly needed is a genuine expression of humble dependency upon God’s mercy and goodness, which reflects the reality of God at work within the ordinary.
The apostle Paul reminds us that God’s power is perfected in weakness (2 Cor. 12:2–10). God’s grace is sufficient in the midst of whatever we may be wrestling with. To touch other people’s lives effectively, we need to be genuine and real about the work God is doing in our own life. Being honest about our struggles, our failures and need for grace, and how God is redemptively at work in us, is a powerful witness to the gospel. Evidence of what God is doing by the Spirit is seen when we are pushed beyond our human ability and are struggling with issues we cannot handle, and God intervenes in unexpected ways.
What is ordinary becomes glorious when Christ is in it. We open ourselves up to the work of God’s Spirit and amazing things can happen. But if we are focused on the ordinary to the exclusion of the divine, we may find our outlook becomes much dimmer. We may not experience the real personal presence of God when we are focused merely on the everyday to the exclusion of our relationship with God through Christ in the Spirit.
Like the people in Jesus’ hometown, we can become so focused on the ordinary in situations and circumstances that we miss the reality that God is present and at work by his Spirit. We can become offended by evidence of Jesus’ power and grace because it doesn’t fit our preconceived ideas of what it should look like. We can be scandalized by the grace God shows to people we believe are worthy only of condemnation. We need to be careful not to get so in tune with the ordinary that we forget the miracle Jesus has done for each and every one of us, drawing us into his intimate relationship with the Father and enabling us to participate in it by the Spirit.
When God goes to work, things happen. Changes occur. Lives are transformed and healed. People who are spiritually asleep wake up. Those who have always been alone suddenly find they have to learn how to live happily in relationship. Those who are weak suddenly find the strength to do and say those things which in the past always seemed to escape them. Those who are hateful and resentful suddenly find they are compassionate and caring towards others.
What is our response? Do we mock these changes as mere flukes in our human experience? Are we offended that God might be doing something new or different which we don’t agree with? The ordinary days on the Christian calendar are a good time to evaluate how attentive we are to what God is doing in this world, in our lives and in the lives of those around us. Are we attending to, rejoicing in, and bearing witness to Jesus and his ministry by the Spirit in us, our community, and those around us? Or are we offended, scandalized by his goodness, mercy and love?
Thank you, Father, for never turning away from us, but rather embracing us in the midst of our rejection and rebellion and turning our face back to you, in and through Jesus and by your Spirit. Enable us to see clearly your presence and power at work in us and in this world, and to actively share this good news with those you have placed in our lives, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
“‘Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? Are not His sisters here with us?’ And they took offense at Him.” Mark 6:3 NASB
“And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Cor. 12:2–10 NASB
Sharing the Ups and Downs
by Linda Rex
It never fails to astonish me how I can go from one extreme to the other in less than a day. One minute I’m sharing a fun, laughter-filled conversation with a couple new friends, and the next I am talking on the phone with someone who is experiencing a life crisis, sharing their concern and tears. Whether we like it or not, life in the Trinity contains some elements from the entire spectrum of the human experience.
We may think the divine Godhead only experiences transcendent bliss all the time. But in reality, the Father, Son, and Spirit have opened up their life to include ours. And ours is filled with experiences which are positive and negative, and every nuance in between.
As God in Christ by the Spirit shares all of life with us as he lives in us, and as God in Christ through the Spirit experienced in his life here on earth human experiences just like ours, we have a God who shares the wide measure of experiences and emotions we do as human beings. And he does not avoid our painful situations or struggles.
The testimony of the Old Testament shows us a God who wrestled with his chosen people. The psalmists and prophets write about a God who experienced and expressed love, compassion, anger, sorrow, pain, and many other emotions. This God we worship is the same One who created our human capacity to experience this wide variety of thoughts, feelings and responses to our experiences in life. They reflect the very nature of God himself.
It is possible as a human being to be ruled by our emotions to the point we do not control ourselves or our responses appropriately. Obviously, this is not what God intended for us, since it really isn’t a good reflection of who we are as God’s children.
But neither did God intend for us to bury our genuine human response to those things we experience in our lives. Sometimes we do this without realizing this is what we are doing. This may be because of past experiences in our life which have left us wounded. Or it may be because we were taught expressing our emotions verbally or in other ways is inappropriate or unacceptable.
In any case, it is good to reflect on the wide variety of emotional expression which is attributed to God in the Scripture, and to examine whether we ourselves express emotion in healthy ways. It is obvious being a healthy person includes healthy emotional expression. And there is much we can learn about ourselves from the example of Jesus Christ.
If we go through life thinking if we just do things the way God wants us to, everything in our life will be marvelous and wonderful—we need to reconsider. God doesn’t give us those types of guarantees.
Yes, life is better when we live in the truth of who we are as God’s children. When that perfected humanity which is in Christ is the humanity we are doing our best to live out day by day in the Spirit—life is indeed much better. Relationships are healthier and happier. Things seem to run much smoother in our lives—especially when we are part of a healthy, happy spiritual community.
But we do live in a broken world, with broken people, who do silly, stupid, hurtful things. We get caught unawares sometimes and say and do things we never mean to say or do. Catastrophic events occur. Our bodies give out, get sick, and betray us. Life just happens—and it’s not always pretty.
And so we respond to all these experiences in our life. And our responses cover a very wide spectrum of emotions, actions, words and deeds. Whatever our response may be—let it be genuine and real—from the heart. Let it be what is really down there deep inside.
If you are grieving, then I say—grieve. Travel that road of grief which takes you through that valley of sadness, anger, depression, and resolution to the other side where you begin your new life without whatever or whoever you have lost. Feel your pain and express it in healthy ways. Don’t hang on to the past—grieve it and move on, as and when you are able to.
If you are angry, then I say, as the Scripture does—be angry and don’t sin. Anger is an expression of our response to us, or someone else, being violated in some way. The purpose of anger is to help us have the ability to respond to this so we can make the situation right. But what does that look like? If we bury our anger inside or turn it against ourselves, that isn’t healthy. If we take in out on others—that’s not healthy either. But anger can be a good thing when it is used the way God uses it—to make things right in the end.
Do you feel joy? Share it with God and with others! Sing those praise songs. Tell those who will rejoice with you about how wonderful life is right now. How do you like to express joy? If it’s healthy and blesses you and others—then share that joy! I love it when someone is just bubbling over with joy and it drips all over me, and I end up grinning from ear to ear.
Too often we allow those around us and their opinions of us determine our response to our experiences in life. Yes, no doubt, there are times to be self-controlled and discrete about our responses to things. Occasionally one has to wait for the appropriate time to express oneself. I’ve caught myself giggling in the midst of an important business meeting—very bad timing to be expressing joy when the boss is laying down the law. But for the most part, can we not learn to be genuine and real?
Part of our sharing in the Triune life is the feeling and expressing of genuine human emotion. This includes such a wide variety of human experiences and our responses to them—taking us through deep dark valleys, and up sun-lit mountain sides as well. Who knows what a day may bring to us? Whatever we face, we go through it held in, surrounded by, filled with the very Presence of God in Christ by the Spirit, sharing every human expression of life with the Trinity.
Thank you, Abba, we never go through life alone. You feel what we feel—you experience with us all of life, knowing how painful things are, how wonderful some things are, and how crazy life is sometimes. Thank you, God, for sharing all of life with us. May we always be genuine and real in our response to what life brings our way, through Jesus our Lord and by your Spirit. Amen.
“In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety.” Hebrews 5:7 NASB
“You have taken account of my wanderings; put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your book?” Psalm 56:8 NASB
Our Life in the Trinity 