Christchurch Parish News, August 2018
A reflection on the calendars we follow to structure our lives and why there is nothing ‘ordinary’ about this time of the church year.
Every day of our lives, from our first breath until our last, we are faced with the demands of being human. As we confront these challenges, almost without our being aware, the days turn into weeks, the weeks into months and the months into years. Amidst this flux and flow, an important question surfaces: what is it that gives order to our experience and understanding of the passage of time?
If you or your children are in full-time education or you are involved in teaching, it’s likely to be primarily the academic year that does this. So dominant is this in our culture that for many the time of year that most feels ‘new’ is not the New Year in January but September, when the school year begins. It’s the time of year when you either start or change school, when you move up or enter your final year. In turn, the academic year itself is divided into three terms with the dates of each—autumn, spring and summer—being carefully noted in the diary and around which are arranged family holidays and visits.
Similarly, the commercial year can exert a big influence over us. In Britain today, over 80% of people of working age are employed in the service industries, including hospitality and retail. When I worked as a banqueting porter at the Randolph Hotel in Oxford many years ago, summer meant preparing for large wedding receptions, and from late November onwards, it was all about setting up for Christmas parties (and clearing them up—ugh!). With my present design work, I’m always living months in advance—for example, deciding on Christmas promotions in March and preparing artwork for the festive marketing materials in July. Not to mention the more basic economic realities of having to prepare next year’s budget or last year’s accounts.
But both of these ways of ordering time are relatively recent for most of the population. Mandatory education for all children of primary school age has only been in existence in our country since the late 1800s. Meanwhile, whilst the business of buying and selling has been with us for much longer, in its current form with its global influences—be it Black Friday in November, or the increasing impact of China’s calendar on many UK export industries—it is all very recent, dating back only a few decades.
Prior to these, there have been two primary cyclical ways of ordering time in our culture. Firstly, the seasons, which are closely linked to the basics of survival—be it the need to produce enough food to eat now and put aside for the depths of winter, or the simple requirement of staying sufficiently warm when the temperatures plunge. Even now, with the needs of food and shelter securely met for most—but not all—we still find ourselves looking ahead. For example, in late winter, we eagerly await the first signs of spring when the snowdrops start peeking through; in the middle of a hot summer, we long for the cooler weather of autumn. Obviously for those who work in agriculture, the temperate seasons are even more keenly felt. But even there, much is done to wrestle free of the limitations that these seasons impose. Just think of the hydroponically grown tomatoes that you enjoy in February, a move which in itself has provoked a counter reaction with the desire to eat food only produced ‘in season’.
With all these cyclical ways of ordering time, there is an ambivalent relationship to its passing. The educational year is cyclical but the child being educated progresses through the years with the intention of gaining knowledge and passing exams, which in turn open doors to opportunities in the adult world of work. For a number of years there’s a cyclical rhythm but eventually (for the child) or suddenly (for the parent) it comes to an end. At this point the question that’s accompanied the passing of time comes into stark relief: what was the purpose of all that time spent pursuing various academic activities? If it was to get a job and have a successful career, how is that success to be judged in a way that doesn’t simply pitch us into another cyclical ordering of time, where its true meaning remains forever elusive?
This brings us back to the rhythm of the commercial year, which, whilst cyclical, is increasingly frenetic. Amidst the busy-ness of business, there’s a deep tension between the creative desire to build and grow a business and become successful, which is achieved in part by meeting or exceeding the cyclical demands of the financial year’s forecasts, and the underpinning question of quite what the purpose of all that time spent in such intense activity is. Again, the possible answers to that question, those that have the necessary depth to sustain the hard endeavour required over many years, are not to be found within the annual, cyclical rhythm of buying and selling, budgets and forecasts.
To answer such deeper questions, traditionally society has looked to other ways of ordering time. Over the millennia, all around the world and across cultures, these ways have normally had their foundation in religion. We don’t cease to be affected by the other ways, of course. There’s often a close relationship, especially between the religious way of ordering time and the one shaped by the temperate seasons, with the former often incorporating the latter and its associated festivals. However, in the Christian tradition, there is a profound difference.
As Christians, the passage of time is shaped by a story—the one of Jesus and the sending of the Spirit. In early December, during Advent, we both remember the coming of Christ born to Mary in Bethlehem and prepare for his return. At Christmas, we celebrate his birth. At Epiphany, we recall his revelation to the gentiles. Then, after a brief period, we enter the 40 days of Lent, a time of spiritual preparation and reflection before we begin Passiontide. This culminates in Good Friday, when we remember Jesus’ execution, and Easter Day, when we celebrate his resurrection and the beginning of the new creation. After the 40 days of Easter, we celebrate Christ’s Ascension. Ten days later, it’s Pentecost, when we celebrate the sending of the Holy Spirit to the first disciples and pray to Our Father that he in turn will pour out the Spirit afresh on us today.
This way of ordering time, the liturgical year, has a powerful rhythm for those who have entered into it and for whom it has become a familiar way of shaping their understanding and experience of the passing of time. At least it does from Advent to Pentecost. There’s always something just around the corner to look forward to which is embedded in and reminds us of the core narrative of the Christian faith. And at key moments, most notably Christmas, it has a close relationship with other ways that we order time—notably, the commercial way, even if that connection is weakening for most. To be clear, the rhythm of the liturgical year is cyclical like the others we have examined but the narrative which gives it its shape is linear. It tells a story with a beginning, a middle and an end.
Or does it? The final phase of the liturgical year can be a bit tricky. From Advent to Pentecost, there’s a narrative drive to the story from the sending of the Son to the sending of the Spirit. But then we enter what’s called ‘Ordinary Time’. This is the period—in which we find ourselves this month—from Pentecost all the way up to Advent. It’s the longest liturgical season and at times it feels like it’s never going to end.
This feeling isn’t helped by the fact that the use of the word ‘Ordinary’ sounds slightly dismissive, as if we’re saying that the previous weeks with all their various key moments in the story are special but this period is now a bit run of the mill by comparison. But that’s not what’s meant. Instead, the word ordinary is derived from the word meaning to order, as in to give something sequential structure: first, second, third, fourth, fifth etc.. This is why we call any given week during ‘Ordinary Time’ the x week after Trinity.
(The Church of England has traditionally used Trinity Sunday rather than Pentecost as the reference point, which is a little unhelpful as it obscures the fact that Ordinary Time follows the momentous sending of the Spirit, not the Trinity Sunday sermon, which can be notoriously difficult to understand!)
Over the summer and into autumn, across these two temperate seasons, we order time differently in the church, as one long period of time. But for many of us, Ordinary Time is the liturgical season that has the least traction in our lives. For starters, it’s not entirely clear what gives it its shape, other than it’s the period between Pentecost and Advent. Accordingly we’re not sure what we’re meant to be looking ahead to and what we’re meant to be doing in the meantime. As such, it struggles to hold its own in shaping how we understand and experience time, losing out to the more immediate cyclical rhythms of the end of the summer term, the summer holidays, the new academic year and, slightly later, the ever earlier start of the Christmas shopping season.
It’s almost with a sense of relief, disorientated for so long like Israel in the wilderness, that we see Advent come into view, even if it is a season itself which has all but disappeared under the weight of the shopping to be done in the run-up to Christmas. At last, we know where we are—we’re back at the beginning!
More fundamentally, however, the reason why we don’t experience Ordinary Time as having a great impact is because it marks the stage in the Christian narrative in which we are called to take part. From Advent to Pentecost, we’re always remembering events that have happened in the past. Jesus is risen. The Spirit has been sent. It’s all very exciting and dynamic. But then, and for more or less 2000 years, people like you and I have been getting on with meeting the demands of daily life as followers of Christ, empowered, however discreetly, by the Spirit. And that, for the most part, isn’t nearly as dramatic. But this is what Ordinary Time is about—it’s when we focus on gently growing in our faith. Hence the liturgical colour worn by the priests and adorning the altar table is green, to symbolise growth.
At this time, various questions might arise such as how do I fit into this story and how am I to live? Such questions arise throughout all of life, from young adulthood to old age. For many of us, the experience of Ordinary Time can echo the sense of indeterminacy and drift we feel at certain periods of our lives.
As created beings, however, it is not for us to have the definitive God’s eye perspective on how things are exactly going to turn out and how we as individuals precisely fit into it all. Nor is it for us to know when any of this is to be brought to its fulfilment. It is simply for us patiently to spend our time in a way that is in keeping with God’s passion for all of creation as revealed in Jesus Christ. As we do, we can more deeply allow our understanding and experience of the passage of time to be gradually shaped with that aim in mind.
Therefore, during this season of Ordinary Time, we listen in church especially to stories about the identity of Jesus and his teachings, originally addressed to those who, like us, found themselves living in the midst of it—‘it’ being the world in which the kingdom of God, or the reign of God, is at hand but not yet fully realised. And by doing so, the Spirit draws us closer and we grow.
Every ordering of time assumes an underpinning worldview that shapes our experience and understanding of the passage of time. The Christian liturgical calendar is different in that it is underpinned by the worldview rooted in the Christian story, a story that has a past, is continuing now (that’s our bit!), and one day will reach its conclusion when Jesus Christ returns and there is the resurrection of all creation.
It is with all this in mind that throughout the liturgical year, including the many weeks of Ordinary Time, we summarise in the Eucharist our experience and understanding of the passage of time when we confidently proclaim: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again!