Lynne Baab

Praying about the flow of time: Why I like the idea of “Ordinary Time”

Lynne Baab • Thursday August 15 2024

When I was 9 through 11, my dad was stationed at the Air Force base in Wiesbaden, Germany. We attended a charming 1865 Anglican church in downtown Wiesbaden. The kids stayed in church for about half the service.

We usually arrived five to ten minutes before the service started, and I enjoyed listening to the organ prelude. The reader board at the front of the church always drew my attention. It listed the three hymns we would sing in the service. At the top of the board was the name of that particular Sunday of the church year: Advent 3 (third Sunday in Advent), or Lent 4 (fourth Sunday in Lent), or Trinity 19 (the 19^th Sunday after Trinity Sunday).

I was a bit of a mystic at that age. I adored the mystery of the Trinity. Three in one, one in three, a union that humans can’t describe with any precision. I thought it was entirely appropriate that for half of the year, the word “Trinity” appeared on the reader board. So many Sundays stretched from Trinity Sunday (sometime between May 17 and June 20, depending on the date for Easter) to Advent in late November or early December.

In my early 20s, God led me to a specific Presbyterian church in Seattle — a blessing since I got to know my husband, Dave, in the young adult group there. I was shocked when that long season between Trinity Sunday and Advent was called “Ordinary Time.” What an incredibly boring name to replace the season of Trinity! However, as the years passed, and God kept calling me to Presbyterian churches, I came to love the name “Ordinary Time.” It captures something significant about the challenge and joy of being a Christian. We are called to walk with Jesus, showing his love through the power of the Holy Spirit, in our ordinary days. We experience God’s gifts and blessings in our ordinary hours, days, weeks, and years.

Oddly, in Presbyterian circles today, that long half year has yet another name, “Season after Pentecost.” Pentecost Sunday comes right before Trinity Sunday, and of course, Pentecost is important, too. But I miss those old names, the season of Trinity and Ordinary Time. 

I learned recently that the name “Ordinary Time” has nothing to do with ordinary days of life. According to a Methodist Church website:

“The word ‘ordinary’ here does not mean ‘routine’ or ‘not special.’ Instead, it refers to the ‘ordinal numbers’ (first, second, third, etc.) used to name and count the Sundays (such as the Third Sunday after Epiphany). This term comes from the Latin ordinalis, meaning ‘numbered’ or ‘ordered’ and tempus ordinarium, ‘measured time.’”

I love the parallel with Psalm 90:12:  “Teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.” We count all those Sundays between Trinity Sunday and Advent. The psalmist believes that as we learn to count our days, and perhaps our Sundays, we will gain wisdom. Counting days and Sundays gives us a sense of perspective. Time flows whether we want it to or not. As we count the days, weeks, and seasons, our call is to love and serve God in that unstoppable flow of time.

In the church year, between Advent and Trinity Sunday, we focus on so many events of Jesus’s life—his birth, baptism, life on earth, death, resurrection, ascension, sending of the Holy Spirit, and his life in heaven as a part of the Trinity. Traditionally, in Ordinary Time, we figure out how to respond to all that in our daily lives, how to be a disciple amid our days that flow, one after another.

The Methodist website I cited above describes the focus of Ordinary Time:

“For some congregations, this will mean a focus on evangelism, as found in the Old Testament and Gospel reading for each week. For others, the focus will be preparing to help others grow in their discipleship. The epistle reading each week emphasizes this.”

This is the third post in a series on praying about the flow of time. I wanted to start it during Ordinary Time because I love pondering how to draw near to Jesus and follow him in day-to-day life. We have 15 more weeks of Ordinary Time. I’ll write about Christian, Jewish, national, and international holidays, hopefully helping each of us count our days, gain a heart of wisdom, and pray about the flow of time.

God in Three Persons, we cannot grasp all that you are, but we do desire to gain as much wisdom as you can give us. Help us to count our days in a way that enables us to see and hear you. We want to love you and follow you. Empower us to be your disciples in everyday life.

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Next week: being witnesses in ordinary time. Illustration by Dave Baab: an ordinary day walking to work through the Botanic Garden in Dunedin, New Zealand.

Previous posts on the Trinity:

• Praise to the Trinity in Four Movements
• Celtic Christianity: The Trinity
• The Relational Trinity and Human Relationships (a section of a chapter I wrote for an edited book; scroll down to the second section title)

Lynne M. Baab, Ph.D., is a teacher and writer. She has written numerous books, Bible study guides, and articles for magazines and journals. Lynne is passionate about prayer and other ways to draw near to God, and her writing conveys encouragement for readers to be their authentic selves before God. She encourages experimentation and lightness in Christians spiritual practices. Read more »

Lynne is pleased to announce the release of her 2024 book, Friendship, Listening and Empathy: A Prayer Guide, illustrated with her husband Dave's beautiful watercolors. She is thrilled at how good the watercolors look in the printed book. Another recent book is Two Hands: Grief and Gratitude in the Christian  Life,  available in paperback, audiobook, and for kindle. Lynne's 2018 book is Nurturing Hope: Christian Pastoral Care for the Twenty-First Century, and her best-selling book is Sabbath-Keeping: Finding Freedom in the Rhythms of Rest (now available as an audiobook as well as paperback and kindle). You can see her many other book titles here, along with her Bible study guides.

You can listen to Lynne talk about these topics: empathy, bringing spiritual practices to life. Sabbath keeping for recent grads., and Sabbath keeping for families and children.

Lynne was interviewed for the podcast "As the Crow Flies". The first episode focuses on why listening matters and the second one on listening skills. 

Here are two talks Lynne gave on listening (recorded in audio form on YouTube): Listening for Mission and Ministry and Why Listening Matters for Mission and Ministry.

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"Dear Dr. Baab, You changed my life. It is only through God’s gift of the sabbath that I feel in my heart and soul that God loves me apart from anything I do."
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