Heather Gorman 5-31-26

This is why I'm not up here every week. Good morning, Highland. It's really good to be with all of you. I. This is my second time preaching here and the last time I was like fresh off of the moving van.

We had just moved here from East Tennessee and I just wanted to take a second to thank all of you for the ways that you've welcomed our family and made us feel at home here. So thank you for that. If you couldn't tell. I'm not sure how the lights are working up here today, but I've got an ever growing number of gray hairs around my temple and I have enthusiastically embraced the re emergence of wide leg pants, which is to say I grew up in the 90s. Okay.

The 90s were not the prettiest days. I brought a few artifacts from the 90s to show you here we have. Oh, do we have them here? Yes. Jenko jeans.

You remember these? I did not know this. You know the JNCO stands for something. Judge None. Choose one.

I don't know what that means, but I think it's profound. So we had Jenko's, we had dial up Internet. You all can still hear that screeching sound, you know, years later. And then we had Austin Powers and the Macarena. I'm not technologically savvy enough.

That's actually a gif of him doing the Macarena. I was at the 5th grade talent show at Taylor a couple of weeks ago and I realized the Macarena lives on today. So it wasn't all pretty, but there were some redeeming parts of the 90s and so I brought some of those as well. We had NSync, the best boy band, obviously, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, the Goat, Michael Jordan, and my favorite of all, Shania Twain. Doot doot doot doot doot.

Uh huh. I see the heads bobbing. Okay, you know, you know, so as a Christian kid growing up in the 90s, there was one song that basically defined my youth. And that was the title track to the Christian rap album by DC Talk called Jesus Freak. Do you know this song?

If you don't, I actually would consider you blessed. I hope you don't feel left out if you've seen any headlines about D.C. talk members recently. No, I'm not endorsing the things that have gone on, but many of you may remember that this song impressed on an entire generation that it wasn't enough to be a follower of Jesus. You had to be a Jesus freak. Totally sold out for Jesus before the service Ryan and April and I were scheming to see if we could bring back another 90s thing, which was special music, and sneak in a performance of Jesus Freak today.

But Jeff in all of his ministerial wisdom said there would be nothing that said anything about wiggling like a marmalade jelly or however that lyric went. So you're welcome. You can thank Jeff after the service. But unlike dial up Internet, I'm not totally sure that the idea of being a Jesus freak stayed in the 90s. I think it still lives on today.

We don't use those words to describe it, but it might be in different manifestations, like the idea of being radical or countercultural or something like that. And I get it. That idea appeals to our sense of wanting to transcend ourselves, right? To have this higher calling to do great things for the kingdom. And let's be honest, many of Jesus teachings are quite radical, right?

He tells us to sell all of our possessions and give them to the poor. He tells us to take up our cross. There's a reason that Jesus tells us to count the cost before we follow him. And the New Testament has plenty of radicals. We've got John the Baptist out in the wilderness wearing camel hair and eating locusts and calling on the religious establishment, telling them they're a brood of vipers who need to flee God's coming wrath.

He actually gets an entire verse of Jesus Freak dedicated to him. He was so radical. And then you've got the Apostle Paul, right? Trans traveling thousands of miles for Jesus, thrown in prison for Jesus, bitten by snakes and shipwrecked for Jesus, proclaiming the gospel to high ranking officials for Jesus. He probably deserves the title Jesus freak, but I worry that the call to be a Jesus freak can be taken the wrong way.

I remember at one of the many commencements I've sat through, I'm a professor, so I do about three commencements a year. This was, this is not a story about acu. A long time ago I was at a commencement address and they were giving away one of those, like, service awards, you know, that they do, which, which is nice. And they were praising this person's commitment to the gospel in such radical ways. And the example that they gave to show how committed to ministry this man was, that was that he even missed Christmases with his family, neglecting family at the holidays was being extolled as the really big Christian thing that gets you an award for being an exemplary Christian.

Now I get we today in the US may have some problems idolizing the nuclear family. And I don't want to advocate for that. And yet that commencement address, which was almost 20 years ago, is something I haven't been able to forget. And it's because I think it's missing something which is the witness of countless Jesus followers in the New Testament living out the ways of Jesus in much more ordinary ways. Have you ever noticed just how ordinary most Jesus followers are?

I think about Tabitha in the Book of Acts. Had Peter not raised her from the dead, we'd probably not know about her very ordinary Christian life. Making clothes for widows. Or Joseph of Arimathea. He's the man that took care of Jesus burial arrangements.

Anyone who's lost a loved one knows the gift that it is to have someone help you with funeral arrangements. When you try to figure out what life is going to look like without your loved one, it's a very ordinary good thing. Or Rufus's mom, y'. All. We don't even know her name.

But Paul in his letter to the Romans tells them to greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord and also his mother, who has been a mother to me as well. I don't know, but I would bet that Rufus's mom made sure that Paul always had a warm meal and warm sheets, maybe told him to write home every now and again. We don't even know her name. Tabitha Joseph, Rufus's unnamed mom. They're ordinary people doing the ordinary stuff of faithfulness and that matters for all of its sell all your possessions and carry your crosses.

The New Testament is also full of teachings that instruct Jesus in how to follow Jesus in their Jesus followers and how to follow Jesus in their ordinary lives. And when I say ordinary, I don't mean that in a negative sense. I don't mean boring or something like that. I just mean the things of normal everyday life, the ways that discipleship happens in our day to day, in our commute to work, in our dealings with our classmates or our co workers, in our grocery shopping, our putting our kids to bed, our taking care of our elderly parents. Here at Highland, we talk sometimes about the Christian calendar as this means of ordering our lives around the important events in the story of Jesus.

Often we just see a slice of the pie and I find it kind of helpful to see all of the Christian calendar in like one spot. Basically if you start at, at 12 o' clock in the purple in Advent, that's where the Christian year actually begins in late November and then you follow it around clockwise and so it begins with Advent and Christmas tide there where we anticipate and then celebrate the Coming of the Jesus. And then after that, in purple, we've got Epiphany, which is celebrating the various ways that Christ reveals himself to us. After epiphany, I assume if you've been around here at all, you've heard of Lent and Holy Week. That is a season of repentance and preparation for Jesus, death and resurrection, which we celebrate on Good Friday and Easter.

And as the calendar shows in orange, Easter or Easter Tide is actually an entire season, not just one Sunday, which I think is good. Like, if you defeat death, you should get a whole season, not just a day.

And then after Easter is Pentecost, which is there in red. And that's where we remember God's gift of the Holy Spirit to the church. And last Sunday was actually Pentecost Sunday. I don't know if you knew that. I want to pause for a minute.

And if you look at it on basically the right half of the calendar, the first half of the Christian year is basically like holiday, holiday, holiday celebration, boom, boom, boom. That's the time of year when you should check in on your ministers and make sure that they're doing okay. It's just one big thing after another. And different churches emphasize different holidays differently. But then there's not another holy day or holiday where we get that word for the rest of the year.

And so the remainder of the year, that big green section on the left has a name, and it's called Ordinary Time. I find it deeply profound that the Christian calendar names and celebrates, if you will, the ordinary. After the birth of the church, Pentecost last week, the church's life in the world goes on without all of the twinkling lights of Christmas or the fancy dresses or lilies of. Of Easter. The empowered but ordinary church testifies to the work of God in their ordinary lives in ordinary time.

And that's where we are today, the first Sunday of ordinary time, living out the life of Christ through faithful attention in the day. Today, a biblical text that is often preached at the start of ordinary time is second Corinthians 13, 11, 13. And so that's where I want to spend our time this morning. These are the last three verses, except for there's one more. So almost the last three verses, except verse 14 of Paul's second letter to the church in Corinth.

And Paul writes this finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice, mend your ways, be comforted, be like minded, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints Greet you. I read these verses and was like, can I actually preach a sermon Just those three verses? The first part of verse 11, like, through the underlined portion there.

It's 16 words in English, but only nine in Greek. It's just like five little short commands. And then we've got, like, a promise that God will be with us. And then we have another really weird command, the one about kissing. And then Paul concludes like, and some friends say, hi.

And I read this. I'm like, where is the saving work of Jesus? Where is Jesus at all in this? These instructions are just so ordinary. Commands to rejoice or be unified, or to live peacefully outside of the greet one another with a holy kiss part.

There's not much like historical or literary work that needs done here for me to, like, come up and show the hidden meaning behind what Paul is saying here. There's not much of that. These instructions are quite ordinary. But ordinary doesn't mean unimportant or insignificant. Not at all.

I think that if we lived these teachings in our ordinary lives, we would see that ordinary time is actually the place where God does some of his deepest work. I want us to think about each of these five commands. Rejoice. Now, that's not a command to just, like, be happy all the time or to be an eternal optimist. If you happen to be married to an eternal optimist like I am, you know that one in a family is enough, right?

Paul is not saying we need more of those, though I have a great one.

Rejoicing is a deliberate and ongoing choice to choose joy over despair. If you pay attention, it seems like we have a lot of reasons to despair in our world. And yet Paul commands us to rejoice. Mend your ways. That command assumes, I think rightly, that none of us are living perfectly.

Repentance and repair are the ongoing work of God's people. Be comforted. I like how this command acknowledges our pain and our hurt. It assumes that we need comfort. But Paul doesn't tell us to just white knuckle our way through the pain and get there on our own.

He tells us to be comforted. I think part of that comes from the Holy Spirit, who is often referred to as our comforter in Scripture. But I think we are also comforted by the community that God has given us. The church. Right.

And so to be comforted is to let ourselves be tended to by others when we are weary. Be like minded. This one prioritizes community over self. Paul isn't just telling us to be A bunch of, like, clones of one another. Instead, I think he's wanting us to ground our collective identity as the church in something bigger than our own personal preferences or.

Or desires to be right. It's kind of hard, isn't it? And then the last one is live in peace. This one is probably, I think, where the rubber meets the road. It's how we talk to our partners or our parents or our kids.

It's how we respond to difficult co workers or classmates. It's how we handle disagreements in this building, in our workplaces. Living in peace is the ongoing commitment to the hard work of reconciliation rather than walking away when things get messy or hard. Most of these, I think, are a bunch of small, daily repeated choices that form us into Christlikeness. Teachings like this push back on our society's obsession with measuring value by the big things.

Man, this critique of metrics keeps coming up, doesn't it? Right, we look all at the big fancy wedding day rather than the hard daily work that goes into a healthy marriage. Or we're obsessed with the next promotion, but don't always rejoice in or reflect on the hard work that goes into warranting that promotion. Right? We like achieving the next income threshold or going viral.

Those are metrics. But these teachings of Paul, especially when we see that they are set in ordinary time, can also, I think, push back against some of the church's narratives that value the great seasons. And whether that's literally or metaphorically, I think both apply, right? The notions that a church is somehow successful or valuable, or when they get the label the mega church, right? Or when they complete the next building project, or when the individual goes on a mission trip or dedicates their life to ministry.

None of those are bad things in and of themselves. But I think that 2nd Corinthians 13 makes me wonder how we both, as collectively as the church and as individuals, can see value not just in the Jesus freak moments, but in the long green stretch of ordinary time where the actual work of becoming like Jesus takes place in the ordinary rhythms of our ordinary lives. It's in showing up week to week to teach the kids or to sit in the prayer room and pray for those who need it to welcome our neighbors into the food pantry. It's sitting with that kid that doesn't have anybody to sit with at lunch, right? Those are the ordinary things that I think 2nd Corinthians 13 is inviting us into, because it sees those ordinary choices as both formative and sacred.

I was struck of the positioning of these verses in Second Corinthians. So outside of Second Corinthians 13:14, the very last verse of the letter, these are the last instructions that Paul gives the church in Corinth. That's how he ends his letter. And so it got me flipping through the other New Testament letters and I realized that the end of letters are actually quite a minefield for how to make sacred choices in ordinary lives, and so I want to read some of those today. Following Jesus in the ordinary everyday looks like Galatians 6:2 bear one another's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

It's helping to carry somebody else's load, not just doing what's best for me and mine. Following Jesus in the ordinary everyday looks like Hebrews 13:2 do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers. It's deliberately welcoming those who are different from us, showing them love, not fearing or demonizing strangers like the pundits tell us to.

Following Jesus in the ordinary everyday looks like Ephesians 4:29 Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up. This is, I think, the exact opposite of every single political mailer I've received in the last month.

But these verses tell us that we have to refuse to demonize or mischaracterize someone on social media just for the sake of winning the argument. Following Jesus in the ordinary every day looks like Philippians 2:14 do all things without complaining or arguing. It's sucking it up and doing the dishes again. Without pointing out to all of your family members that you're doing the dishes again. Not that I would ever do that.

Following Jesus in the ordinary everyday looks like Hebrews 13:5 keep your free. Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have. It's not always having to be up to date on the latest gadgets, or maybe not having a home that looks like Joanna Gaines designed it. Following Jesus in the ordinary everyday looks like Ephesians 4.32Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you. It's giving someone the benefit of the doubt and not holding mistakes over their head as leverage to get what you want.

Following Jesus in the ordinary everyday looks like Philippians 4. 5. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. It's not using harsh words in the name of speaking truth. These exhortations at the end of our New Testament letters are quite ordinary, and my guess is that few awards at graduation are given to the person who is known for being content with what they have.

That would be not quite glorious enough, right? It's too mundane. But Paul and the other New Testament writers are quite concerned with the ordinary, with the everyday, with how we speak, with who we welcome into our homes, with how we spend our money, and how we treat others. All of these moments are opportunities to treat the ordinary as sacred. And of course, even if these instructions are easy to understand, it doesn't mean that they're easy to do.

I'll be the first to tell you that contentedness is not easy for me when Instagram bombards me with ads luring me into the belief that the right clothes or the right skincare routine will make me younger and trendier and thus happier. And yet contentedness is sacred because it reveals a posture that trusts God for his provision, and it doesn't buy into the scarcity mindset that says there's never enough or that says that I am never enough. Contentedness is sacredness in the midst of the ordinary. And gentleness is not easy for me when someone cuts me off in traffic or criticizes someone I love. And yet gentleness is sacred because when I'm gentle with someone, especially when I think they don't deserve it, I honor the image of God in that person.

And I respond in a way, however imperfectly, that imitates the gentleness that God has shown me. Gentleness is sacredness in the midst of the ordinary. Some of you may be familiar with the prayer book called Every Moment Holy. It's one of my favorites, and it gets its title because it's full of prayers or liturgies designed to help us recognize the holy, the sacred, in every possible moment or opportunity before us. Last I checked, you can get a copy at 7 in 1, so go support your local bookstore.

I wanted to read you the titles of some of these prayers. There's a prayer for the paying of bills.

No, thank you. There's a prayer for those who cannot sleep. Can we see something sacred and not sleeping? There's a prayer before beginning a book and before the ritual of morning coffee. There's a prayer for the changing of diapers number one and a prayer for the changing of diapers number two.

Because any of you in the diaper season know that one prayer is not enough.

There's a prayer for the sound of sirens. These are all moments of ordinary life that are sacred if we have the eyes to see them as such, even sleepless nights and dirty diapers. It reminds me of the words of Jacob in Genesis. Surely God is in this place and I did not know it. Ultimately, I think that one of the reasons I'm so convinced of the importance of ordinary, of following Jesus in these kind of small, ordinary things and of seeing ordinary moments as sacred is that it's a way of viewing discipleship and time and life that I think is universally applicable.

It's not specific to professions you can rejoice. That applies to you. Whether you are a barista or a business person, or a stay at home parent or anything else. Whether you're retired or a realtor. All of those have the opportunity to rejoice instead of despair.

It's not specific to a stage of life. Single, married, divorced, widowed, kids, no kids, young, old, you will have many, many times when you need to be comforted. It doesn't require any special degrees or training. Living in peace applies to the person with the highest degree in any given field. And it applies to children who haven't even started school.

It doesn't require a certain amount of money, it doesn't require residents in a certain neighborhood, and it doesn't require possession of the latest version of the iPhone. We all need to mend our ways and be like minded. There are no excuses. We can all participate. These ordinary things might not seem like much, but I actually think they're quite significant.

Annie Dillard has a quote that I kept posted on my computer screen for many years. She writes, how we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives. How we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives. These ordinary, everyday actions of peacemaking, unity, rejoicing, they're not unimportant because they're small. I would argue it's the exact opposite.

They're exceedingly important because they are small. Just as there are no months without days, or days without hours, or hours without minutes. There's no following God, no spiritual formation or whatever else you want to call it that accounts for the destination or the arrival or the big thing. The majority of life is a series of mundane, ordinary moments that are sacred opportunities for formation if we see them as such. Barbara Brown Taylor says it like this.

I have no argument with greatness. I'm all for greatness, but I think to be focused on greatness may be a way of avoiding living the life that you are presently being given to live. It's why I resist the journey metaphor. If I'm on a journey, it's all about the destination. I'm not there yet, I'll be there one day.

The train will pull into the station, but I'm really interested in the walking, I'm really interested in the companion on the road, and I'm really interested in where I'm standing right now. So I have no argument with greatness. But if that becomes an excuse for dismissing my life right now because I haven't found that great purpose yet, that's a waste of a day, if not a life.

Second Corinthians 13 isn't radical and it's probably not going to make anybody call you a Jesus freak. But I've come to believe that an embrace of ordinary time, a day to day commitment to joy and repentance and peacemaking and repair, has the power to change the world, even if it's just our small corner of the world. So, so, Highland, would you please stand and receive these words today as our benediction. Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice, mend your ways, be comforted, be like minded, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss.

All the saints greet you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Go in peace.