Ordinary Time

With the passing of Trinity Sunday, we come to that long middle section of the Liturgical calendar called either the Season after Pentecost, or Ordinary Time. To my mind, Ordinary Time is a little like saying bland cookie – I’m sure they exist, but it’s not a phrase that has any real meaning. The word ordinary is not used here to mean normal (whatever that is) but comes from the ordinal or numbered. These next many weeks are numbered, the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost , etc. But between the name and the color that marks Ordinary time, green, it’s easy to get lulled into thinking that this is the easy season, where things slow down until All Saints and Advent roll back around. I think that does this time a disservice.
    Leonel L. Mitchell, Episcopal Priest and Professor of Liturgy says, “These Sundays, sometimes called ‘Green Sundays,’ are not simply filler or ‘ordinary time.’ They are an integral part of the  year. …The season after Pentecost continues the Paschal cycle from the commemoration of the first Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon the Apostles, to the  celebration of the final Advent or ’Second Coming,’ when Christ will come in glory.”
    Ordinary time is Green because it is the season where we work on growth. We have spent months recounting the story of God’s saving work in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and now it is time to see the good news take root in our community - both inside our walls and outside them.
    I went to wedding recently and was given a few packets of flower seeds. On the back they had the instructions: plant so deep, so many inches apart, flowers bloom in so many weeks. Ordinary time is like that. The seeds are planted. Now is working as the weeks tick by weeding and watering, waiting for God to give the growth.