1 Samuel 1

How do you respond to the word "ordinary?" Does the idea of "ordinary" excite you? Probably not!

Just in case anyone is interested, this unexciting word "ordinary" comes from the Latin, suggesting something regular, something according to order. In the Catholic mass, the "ordinary" is the section of the liturgy that is fixed, unvarying, the same every Sunday. The adjective "ordinary" means customary, usual, normal, even unexceptional. Are we excited about "ordinary" yet?

Did you know that in the traditional church year, the Sunday after Pentecost begins what is sometimes called "ORDINARY TIME?"

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"Ordinary time" is thus the time after the fire has fallen and tongues have ceased, after the church's birthday party is over, after the series of festivals in the church year have been completed. And "Ordinary Time" continues till we begin these festivals again with the beginning of Advent in late November or early December.

Ordinary time is what one person calls "nonfestive time." And isn't it significant that this "ordinary time," this "nonfestive time" takes up about half a year of Sundays. But doesn't that sound about right to us? As someone has put it, "life is so daily."

And this dailiness of life can seem so mundane, so routine, so non-spectacular. We may pine for Christmas and Easter and Pentecost.

BUT WHAT IS GOD UP TO DURING "ORDINARY TIME?"

Is Jesus at work in us and in the church during "ordinary time?"

Is it only through exciting times and festive seasons that we see God at work? Writes Richard Foster in his wonderful book on prayer: "The discovery of God lies in the daily and the ordinary, not in the spectacular and the heroic. If we cannot find God in the routines of home and shop, then we will not find Him at all." (Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home, p.171)

There's a wonderful Old Testament story about what God was about during what seemed like terribly ordinary, non-festive times. This story comes during the era of the Judges, a time in Bible history that was neither good nor noble. Ordinariness turned into badness all too often during the period of the Judges.

But here's this man from the hill country of Ephraim. His name is Elkanah, son of Tohu, son of Zuph. We're only three verses into the story when we hear that: "Year after year, this man went up from his town to worship and sacrifice to the Lord Almighty at Shiloh." (I Samuel 1:3) "YEAR AFTER YEAR . . ." This was the regular routine. Elkanah and his two wives, Peninah and Hannah, went to Shiloh, where the tabernacle, the portable worship center was located. There, Eli and his sons offered sacrifice to the Lord on behalf of God's people. Now, this annual journey to Shiloh was designed as a kind of festival occasion. It should have been special. And it WAS special for Elkanah and for at least one of his two wives. At the time of this annual journey, Elkanah would give special gifts to his wife Peninah and to her sons and daughters. And Elkanah would give gifts also to Hannah, even some special gift. The story says "because he loved her and because the Lord had closed her womb." (I Samuel 1:5)