What are the ordinary things in your life that give you hope today? At this moment, I am enjoying blue sky and sunshine. I shared laughter and conversation with people I love over lunch today. I just finished a bike ride on a quiet road on a cool afternoon. These are among the things that give me joy, keep me grounded, and bring me peace. There are countless ordinary moments like these that fill and bless our lives, keep us grounded in the love and faithfulness of God, and remind us that there is reason to hope each day.
In this week’s gospel reading, Jesus tells the crowd that he is the bread of life, come from heaven and the religious leaders are aghast. They ask each other, “How can this guy possibly be from heaven? We know his family. He is one of us. What is he saying?” They scoff. They don’t understand. Jesus is one of them – Jesus is too familiar, too ordinary, too common to be from God.
Perhaps they expect God to arrive with a huge intervention, bursting forth with something powerful and marvelous, fixing everything that is hard for us or hurts us. It doesn’t quite make sense that God would bother to use the everyday, the ordinary, the common. After all, God created the whole universe, the heavens and the earth, the seas and the lands, you and me and everything in our lives.
It seems absurd to think God could be willing to be human with us, to suffer the pains and problems, the inconveniences and embarrassments of human life. Of course, the religious leaders grumble against Jesus. The assertion that Jesus is the bread of life is entirely out of line with God’s majesty and distance from the struggles and difficulties of life, right?
Yet, God has closed the distance. God has come to fill our hungers and tend our thirsts. God is present in the everyday connections of family and friends, in the beauty of laughter and music, in the gifts of rain and sun, and in countless other ordinary experiences. Jesus transforms ordinary bread and wine into nourishment for both body and spirit. He makes ordinary water into new life for the world.
God comes to us in the gifts of forgiveness and love. In the possibilities of peace and justice.
These are the very things that change our lives, fill us with hope and give us a vision for what God makes possible. God continually uses ordinary things to bring love and life and healing and new beginnings. God uses ordinary circumstances to be part of extraordinary transformation. God uses ordinary people to bring new life.
Peace,
Alicia