Beginning the day after Pentecost, the church calendar begins it’s longest season of the year: Ordinary Time. After the past six months of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent and Easter; and given that it coincides with the beginning of summer; it can be easy to think of “Ordinary Time” as “vacation time,” or “back to our regularly scheduled lives time.” But that would actually miss the opportunity that Ordinary Time gives to us, a gift the Early Church recognized in making this the longest season of the year.

 

Philip Reinders writes, “With all the big holidays and celebrations over, Ordinary Time offers us the space to find our place in God’s story. We’ve celebrated and taken in the momentous life of Jesus; now we need a long stretch of days to absorb and assimilate it. In Ordinary Time, we fully take in the gospel, allowing it to take shape in our daily living, making connections between Jesus’ story and our lives.” (Seeking God’s Face, pg 431)

 

To that end, we begin this season with a brief look at the book of Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes is a masterful book that, at first glance, can seem like a pessimistic pile of skepticism and futility. But in reality, it provides an opportunity to wash us clean of our pretensions and false spiritualities that keep us from knowing Jesus as He really is and following Him as closely as He invites us to do. After a 3 week break, we’ll then take a deep dive into a book of the Bible to see how God’s word is as applicable to our lives today as it was when it was written, 2,000 years ago. Speaking of that 3 week break…

 

Due to an unusual and unexpected confluence of events, the Session has been kind enough to grant me 3 Sundays off in a row, June 24 – July 8. Over those three weeks, I’ll be heading to the EPC General Assembly meeting in Memphis, celebrating my parents 50th wedding anniversary with our extended family in North Carolina, and heading back to St. Louis to preside over the wedding of one of the youth from our time ministering there. I’m looking forward to each of these events, but know that I’ll miss worshipping and partnering with you all in mission and ministry over that time as well. While I’m gone, you will be blessed with the opportunity to hear the Word of God expounded by our own Michael Babcock and Bob Mills, as well as Lowell Sykes. With their excellent preaching, you’ll hardly have an opportunity to know that I was gone!

 

Blessings,
Rev. David Garrison