You will probably recognise the quote. When Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was asked what was the greatest challenge for a politician, he replied: ‘Events, dear boy, events’. The same is true for most us.
During the last couple of years we have been afflicted by the well know Chinese curse of “living in interesting times”. We have all had to get used to making risk assessments as individuals and churches as we have tried to avoid getting ill ourselves or inadvertently making someone else ill. This need to risk assess every meeting and event along with the ups and downs of the pandemic have dominated our thinking. It has been a tiring and unsettling period. So I smiled to myself when I realised that this year the whole of February is in what the Methodist Church lectionary refers to as Ordinary time. Ordinary time is the period between the great events of the Church Year – Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. One of the hymns that I most treasure in Singing the Faith is hymn number 45 by Bernadette Farrell “Earth’s creator, everyday God” The term “everyday” like the term “ordinary” can seem a bit of put down. We could associate these words with other words like “drab”, “nondescript” and “unremarkable”. Yet the truth is that we need the security and constancy of a God who meets us not just in the incredible and the fantastic but even more in the everyday. So I really hope this February will turn out to be as ordinary and normal as the Methodist lectionary promises. A time with nothing disastrous or even spectacular happening for a little while because thankfully our God is also in the midst of the ordinariness and the unremarkable.
Loving God thank you for being with us in great events but thank you most of for being with us in ordinary times. Bless us in our everyday life and may we rejoice that you meet us in the reassurance of the familiar and mundane. This we pray through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen
