There are moments in the Christian life when one expects God to appear.
Christmas Eve, for example.
Easter morning.
A beautiful hymn sung particularly well.
A sunset over a quiet lake when the water is perfectly still and, for reasons nobody can quite explain, there are no mosquitoes.
These are moments when we are prepared for transcendence.
We become quiet. We pay attention. We suspect that heaven may be nearby.
But then there are Tuesdays.
Tuesdays are rarely accused of being transcendent.
Tuesday generally arrives carrying a grocery list, three emails requiring answers, a load of laundry, something mysterious happening beneath the kitchen sink, and the vague suspicion that there was something important we were supposed to remember.
This is why I have come to believe that one of the great spiritual disciplines of Ordinary Time may simply be this:
Put the kettle on.
Not metaphorically.
Actually put the kettle on.
The Theology of the Kettle
There is something wonderfully ordinary about making tea.
You fill the kettle.
You wait.
And this already makes tea-making slightly countercultural, because modern civilization has developed a deep suspicion of waiting.
We have instant messages, instant banking, instant news, instant coffee, and occasionally instant opinions about subjects we first encountered approximately forty-seven seconds ago.
But kettles remain stubbornly committed to the ancient spiritual discipline of taking as long as they take.
You cannot successfully shout a kettle into boiling faster.
I have never tried this personally, of course.
But I know people.
The kettle asks us to wait.
And waiting creates a small space in the day.
A pause.
A breath.
A moment in which nothing particularly productive is happening.
Which may be precisely why God can sometimes get our attention.
Jesus Seemed to Understand This
One of the remarkable things about the Gospels is how much of Jesus’ ministry happens around very ordinary things.
Bread.
Fish.
Tables.
Water.
Meals.
Walking down roads.
Sitting in houses.
Conversations that apparently began without an agenda.
Jesus certainly entered synagogues and the Temple, but he also spent an extraordinary amount of time in kitchens, boats, fields, homes, and dining rooms.
The Kingdom of God kept appearing in places where nobody had installed stained glass.
That should tell us something.
Christianity has sometimes trained us to look for God primarily in what we call “spiritual moments.”
But the Incarnation suggests something much more astonishing.
God entered ordinary human life.
Not an idealized version of it.
Not the carefully edited version suitable for Christmas cards.
Actual life.
Meals had to be prepared.
Feet became dirty.
People became tired.
Friends misunderstood one another.
Families worried.
Wine ran out.
And into this very ordinary world came the Word made flesh.
Perhaps holiness has always been much closer to the kitchen than we imagined.
The Ministry of the Mug
There is another reason I think making tea may be spiritually significant.
Tea is often something we make for somebody else.
“Would you like a cup?”
It is one of the simplest questions in the English language.
And yet sometimes it means:
Sit down.
Tell me what happened.
You do not need to hurry.
I am listening.
You are welcome here.
There are pastoral conversations that begin with prayer.
There are others that begin with a kettle clicking off in the kitchen.
I suspect God is equally capable of inhabiting both.
Hospitality rarely announces itself as a theological virtue.
Usually it looks like finding another mug.
Clearing some papers off the table.
Opening the biscuit tin.
Discovering that somebody has eaten the last biscuit and briefly reconsidering one’s commitment to Christian forgiveness.
Then sitting down.
And listening.
This is how grace often enters the room.
Quietly.
Without credentials.
Carrying tea.
Ordinary Time Is Full of Sacraments We Never Named
We Anglicans understand sacramental life.
We know that ordinary things can become bearers of extraordinary grace.
Water.
Bread.
Wine.
Oil.
Hands laid gently upon another person.
Physical things through which God communicates something deeper.
But perhaps sacramental imagination should not stop at the church door.
Perhaps there are little sacramental moments scattered everywhere through our days.
A meal prepared for someone we love.
A telephone call we finally make.
A neighbour whose driveway we shovel.
A chair pulled closer to someone who is grieving.
A casserole delivered without requiring a committee meeting.
A cup of tea placed quietly beside someone who has had a difficult day.
None of these things will appear particularly impressive on a résumé.
Heaven seems remarkably unconcerned about résumés.
Jesus once suggested that even a cup of cold water given in love mattered to God.
Which means the Kingdom may be advancing through countless small kindnesses nobody thought important enough to photograph.
The Problem With Looking for Spectacular Grace
Sometimes we imagine that a meaningful Christian life must involve dramatic things.
Great missions.
Great sacrifices.
Great spiritual experiences.
Great accomplishments.
But most discipleship happens somewhere between breakfast and bedtime.
It happens while we are deciding whether to be patient.
Whether to forgive.
Whether to listen.
Whether to notice someone.
Whether to interrupt our carefully organized day because another human being needs us.
Most saints probably became saints this way.
Not through one magnificent act of holiness, but through ten thousand small acts of faithfulness.
One prayer.
One kindness.
One apology.
One meal.
One visit.
One cup of tea.
Repeated over a lifetime.
God Is Already in the Kitchen
These October days between Thanksgiving and All Saints are wonderfully ordinary.
The great feast has passed.
The next great feast has not yet arrived.
The leaves are falling.
The mornings are darker.
The calendar continues filling itself despite repeated requests that it show some restraint.
And perhaps this little stretch of Ordinary Time offers us a gift.
It reminds us that we do not have to wait for Christmas or Easter or some dramatic spiritual breakthrough to encounter God.
God is already here.
At the table.
Beside the sink.
Walking with us through the grocery store.
Sitting beside the hospital bed.
Standing in the doorway when someone needs to talk.
Waiting in that quiet little space between filling the kettle and hearing it boil.
The saints whose feast we will soon celebrate understood something about this.
Holiness is rarely glamorous.
It is simply love becoming habitual.
Faithfulness becoming ordinary.
Grace becoming something we practise almost without noticing.
And perhaps that is one of the deepest invitations of Ordinary Time:
Do not spend your life waiting for extraordinary moments in which to become holy.
Become holy in the ordinary ones.
Put the kettle on.
Find another mug.
Pull up a chair.
Someone may need to talk.
And God may already be sitting at the table.
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Companion Prayer
Gracious God,
thank you for meeting us
in kitchens and conversations,
in waiting and wondering,
in the simple gift of a warm cup
and a listening heart.
Teach us to recognize holiness
in the ordinary moments of our days.
Make us generous with our time,
patient with one another,
and ready to make room at the table.
When we go searching for you
in extraordinary places,
remind us that you are already here.
Give us grace to put the kettle on,
pull up another chair,
and welcome whoever you send our way.
Amen.