Valuing the Ordinary.

One Sunday morning I had a realization: I could sleep in. My dad was a pastor, so growing up I never had the choice of whether or not to go. If church happened on Christmas day (one of many reasons pastor’s kids have angst) my brother and I would be there – even if every other kid in our community was at home opening presents.

I was in college now, and lying in bed I was fully aware of the choice before me – not fully aware of all the implications of sleeping in I’m sure, just simply that I had the freedom to do so. I am an American, after all.

I made a judgment call, and hit the snooze button – that way, if I wanted to go I would just be ten minutes late. That move really helped bypass the potential guilt of it. I wasn’t officially saying I wasn’t going – ya know?

When worshipping with a community is just an obligation, one more thing to check off a spiritual list, it practically begs people to hit snooze – or if you go to a night service, to stay a little long at a Sunday happy hour.

We want the Sunday service to be awesome – find me a mega church that doesn’t have an awesome band, an awesome speaker, or a faith healer who specializes in instant weight loss. The more uplifting, or challenging, or emotional, or evangelistic: the more likely we are to show up – if that’s all that a Christian might look for in a worship gathering.

Elijah has a moment towards the end of his career (as the most awesome prophet to ever live) where God tells him to stand on a mountain and wait for Him to pass by. This is a huge deal – God is going to show up, and he tells Elijah to be there. Here’s what happens:

““Go out and stand before me on the mountain,” the Lord told him. And as Elijah stood there, the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.”

Elijah was a man who had commanded the rain to stop, causing a drought for 3 years. He had called down fire from heaven, been fed by ravens for a year in the wilderness, and he had brought a person back to life. Here’s a dude who should expect a big show when he goes to meet with God. But when God shows up, he does so in a gentle whisper. Some theologians translate this phrase as the sound of silence.

Fire and windstorms don’t happen all that often, but silence is easy to come by. Many an industry is devoted to avoiding it. Try sitting in silence for 5 minutes without anything to listen to, think about, or stare at – it will be rough.

God showed up as silence to tell Elijah something: I am in the mundane and the ordinary. If you only come looking for me in windstorms, fire, and an awesome worship band, you will miss me.

Worshipping with a community on a Sunday morning is more often average than extraordinary. The message is rarely hand picked for you, and the worship leader’s guitar may go out of tune. But, something happens in us when we decide that, despite the lackluster, we are going to stay present in the mundane for the God we are looking for.

- Andrew