Editor’s note: This is the third of many scheduled Lectionary Living columns to be written by clergy in the Diocese of Central Florida.

Lectionary Musings: Second Sunday after Pentecost (Year B) 1 Samuel 3:1-20; Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17; 2 Corinthians 4:5-12; Mark 2:23-3:6

“The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.”  – I Samuel 3:1b

In the kingdom of God, there is an ebb and flow to what we might deem the spectacular. For example, miraculous healings do not occur at the same rate of frequency year by year. There are times then when it seems like God isn’t very active in the world, or even in the Church. And this is not a new phenomenon: In the second century, Christians had to grapple with the “decline, both in intensity and in frequency, of the charismata that had been so prominent in the earlier stages of the Christian movement” (Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: Vol. 1, 99). Thus, in the spiritual life (both corporately and individually), there are rainy seasons and dry seasons. And it is in the midst of the latter that God calls Samuel.

But even when the spectacular is rare, even when we don’t hear an audible voice (and most of us don’t), God is still very much at work. There are miracles in the midst of the mundane. Or to put it another way, the mundane is miraculous. Psalm 139 reminds us of this. The woman with child is a vessel of the extraordinary. For in her womb God is knitting, making – creating.  So, as we long for an increase in charismata, may we also long for an increase in faith so that we can see the millions of miracles that occur all around us … and in us.

As we just celebrated on Pentecost (on Sunday, May 20), we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. And as Christians, the light of Christ shines in our hearts “to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4). We are jars of clay, as Paul writes. We are fraught with weakness, yet full of the power of God at work in us and through us.

In Mark 2, the disciples are engaged in the everyday, the normal, the ordinary – they’re just eating. But Jesus takes a Sabbath day snack and turns it into an announcement of His Lordship. He teaches the Church and the world about sabbath, kingship, and the Kingdom of God.  He takes the ordinary and makes it extraordinary.

The Great Fifty Days have passed. The pomp and circumstance of Easter and Pentecost are over. The crowds have waned. We are now in Ordinary Time. But as it’s often said, “There’s nothing ordinary about Ordinary Time.” And while that adage, ironically, may be as banal as the season it seeks to bolster, it is nonetheless true. And though we tire of wearing green, may it serve as a reminder that this is a season of life, and growth, and deeper union with God. And may we pray to God, as in Eucharistic Prayer C, “Open our eyes to see your hand at work in the world about us.”

No matter what season we find ourselves in, liturgically or otherwise, we must remind ourselves that God is always at work, and that He is speaking and has spoken definitively in these last days through His Son, Jesus Christ. And He is calling us to new life in Him. So, let us like Samuel respond with surrender saying, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

– Father Matthew Ainsley is assistant to the rector at Church of the Ascension in Orlando.