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Experiencing God in the Very Ordinary

By Juli Nelson

In Matthew 25, Jesus paints a picture of a judgment where a king commends people for doing very ordinary, good things like giving food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothing to the naked, hospitality to a stranger, or a visit to the imprisoned. In Jesus’ story, the king says to these people: “When you did these good, ordinary things, you did them to me.” Jesus indicates that He is the king/judge in the story.

Esther de Waal writes, “The Celtic approach to God opens up a world in which nothing is too common to be exalted and nothing is so exalted that it cannot be made common.” In telling the Matthew 25 story, Jesus sounds Celtic. He turns the glorious and the ordinary upside down.

We expect to find God in the glorious: in a Scripture passage like Psalm 148 with cascading proclamations of God’s praiseworthiness or Revelation 4:8-11, in which we hear heavenly creatures sing praises “day and night without ceasing.” We expect to find God in a powerful sermon or in congregational praise that lifts the rafters. But in Matthew 25, Jesus names God in the ordinary—in a cup of cold water, in a welcome to a stranger, in food or clothing given to someone in need, in a visit to the sick or imprisoned. Those are oddly ordinary places to find God.

Now we might as well name a challenge right up front. Jesus describes a judgment, a final judgment. And there is an emphasis on good works. Whoa! Wait a minute. Is this earning your way into the Kingdom? Jesus often said things that make us say “Whoa! What?” Most of us are going to see good works emanating from belief in Jesus as Savior. But this is Jesus’ story, and maybe we should let Him tell it. What I’m saying is that the story has potential to cause consternation. But it also has potential to comfort.

In its emphasis on the ordinary places where we meet Jesus and the ordinary ways in which we serve Jesus, we are given hope. After all, how many of us are going to pastor a mega church or sing before hundreds or design a cathedral or administer a feeding program for a whole nation? Probably not many of us will ever do these things. Like most individuals, we live in the ordinary, with ordinary strength and ordinary opportunities.

The late Mother Teresa had a wonderful thing to say about that: “We can’t do great things,” she said, “but we can do small things with great love.” She did just that, and the world ended up calling it great. But her acts were very Matthew 25-like—giving a cup of cold water to a dying man, putting a cool hand on a feverish brow, asking for money to spend on the poor.

Theologian Douglas John Hall notes that the universal and the grand often elude us until we can glimpse their meaning in the particular and ordinary. So love, for instance, is not a principle we apply, but an action in which we are involved, person with person. We think about principles or beliefs, but we live them out in events and actions.

Occasionally we live at the level of grandeur, but most of the time, we live in the ordinary. I find it not only comforting, but also exciting, to think the ordinary is where we meet and serve Jesus. “Meet Him unawares,” Jesus said.

We won’t know that we’ve just served Jesus.

We’ll just see the stranger who needed to be welcomed.

We won’t know that we’ve just served Jesus.

We’ll just see the child who needed a hug and a story read to her.

We won’t know that we’ve just served Jesus.

We’ll just see the neighbor who needed help mowing his grass.

We won’t know that we’ve just served Jesus.

We’ll just see the kid in prison who needed a visit.

And then Jesus will say, “You did it to Me.” “It was nothing,” we might mutter. “Not true,” Jesus says. “It is a sign of the in-breaking of the Kingdom.”

The Quakers have a statement: “A great amount of light is produced by a thousand small candles.” In the context of Matthew 25, that statement suggests a lot of good, ordinary, small acts of service may have an extraordinary impact.

I’ll probably always love experiencing God in the glorious, whether that’s a stirring sermon, prayer or concert. But I sure don’t want to miss Jesus’ perspective—that He is often found and served in the very, very ordinary—right where you and I live.

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