It's Just Ordinary

“O God, from whom all good proceeds: Grant that by your inspiration we may think those things that are right, and by your merciful guiding may do them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”

-Collect of the Day, Proper 5

Dear Friends,

Trinity Sunday is behind us and it’s officially Ordinary Time! A lot of good work has been written to recapture the extraordinariness of Ordinary Time. Eugene Peterson, Julie Canlis, and Frederick Buechner are just a few who’ve written books with titles ranging from The Great Ordinary to The Remarkable Ordinary. Ordinary, it would seem, is all the rage. But I think it’s also okay—and healthy—to allow Ordinary Time to also be just what it sounds like. 

The Collect of the Day for this Sunday captures the ordinary ordinariness of the Christian life. We pray for the “inspiration to think those things that are right,” and that by God’s “merciful guiding may do them.” The basic belief is that ideas matter—that belief informs decision. What’s more ordinary than that?

That said, this emphasis happens to be a bit counter-cultural in our age. We tend to think that habit informs belief, and for good reason. Many of us who are trying to be happier have been advised by our therapist to keep a thanksgiving journal. Having jotted down little things we’re thankful for every day for a month, we found ourselves more grateful. 

I’m not trying to come down against this—and I don’t think the authors of our Collect were either—but in this prayer, there is a correction to an emphasis on “deeds over creeds” that was so popular in the Late Medieval period and is so today. 

Those who originally wrote this Collect believed that ideas aren’t neutral. They knew that ideas have consequences. That’s why in this prayer they doubled down on the fact that belief shapes behavior. 

In his great book The Cruelty of Heresy, Bishop Fitzsimons Allison wrote that bad ideas about God and humanity are not only not neutral, they’re cruel, and lead to all kinds of trauma. And I don’t know about you, but this sounds a whole lot like what the same shrink who told me to keep a thanksgiving journal said about toxic beliefs I had about myself.

So what do we make of the disparity of emphasis regarding belief and practice? We hold ideas and praxis together. Each informs the other. But what was needed in the late Medieval Age (and what I think is needed today) was an emphasis on the fact that ideas matter. That belief informs behavior. That good ideas about humanity and God help lead to flourishing. That the good news of the gospel births goodness.

At the end of the day, it’s not rocket science. It’s actually all pretty ordinary.

Grace and Peace,

Ben