Description: We are beggars, this is true.....
Now that the Sundays of Pentecost and Holy Trinity have passed, our church enters a season which we call “the Sundays after Pentecost.” How’s that for an original name? It’s a long season – up to 24 weeks, give or take, stretching all the way until Christ the King Sunday in late November. Of course, “Sundays after Pentecost” isn’t a very inspiring name, is it? Unless boredom is your thing. Our Roman Catholic friends have an equally uninspiring name for this season, by calling it “Ordinary Time.”
Now actually, this doesn’t mean ordinary as in “basic”, but instead as in “numbered,” from the word “ordinal.” For example, we simply say, “Second Sunday after Pentecost”, “Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost”, or “Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost.” These days don’t have special names. We decorate our sanctuary with the color green, which symbolizes “growth”. And for these Sundays, many of our readings focus upon discipleship, or what it means to follow Jesus day-in and day-out, when there aren’t any spec
So, maybe “Ordinary Time” really does hit the mark for us. On that note, my favorite liturgical joke (at least for church nerds like me) goes – “It’s not ordinary time, but EXTRAORDINARY time!”