“So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom” (Psalm 90:12)

It is not quite summer, according to the Gregorian calendar, but the forecast for the coming weekend (the first in June) is fully worthy of August, with heat in the high 80’s and soaring humidity. Thus we begin summertime, what the church’s calendar calls “Ordinary time.”

The term is not a commentary on the quality of the Sundays, but derives from the term ordinal or “numbered.” The weeks in Ordinary time, absent any distinct liturgical focus such as Lent or Advent, are numbered, albeit with several Sundays named for a special commemoration.

Our numbers change a bit in Ordinary time - vacation time, summer camp, summer homes, all these result in a smaller worshiping contingent. But the Ordinary experience of the body of Christ here at St. John-St. Matthew-Emanuel is actually rather extraordinary.

Our journey begins earlier - worship is at 10:00 from June 24th through September 2nd.

We travel to our own “summer home,” downstairs in the (air-conditioned) Social Hall, and we gather much more closely - literally- around the gospel as we worship together.

We worship in an arrangement that echoes cathedrals and churches of a millennia ago, with chairs arrayed in two “choirs,” facing each other. As we read and sing across a narrow open space, the sound blends with an immediacy and intimacy that is very different from what we experience in the sanctuary upstairs.

But the most extraordinary aspect of our worship is the ground of all our worship, whenever, wherever it takes place: where two or more gather in Christ’s name, he is there, God with us.

May this wisdom be a treasure for each of us as we continue our journey together.

Pr. Parsons