In 2007, Joshua Bell, a world-renowned violinist, dressed in ordinary street clothes and played his 3.5 million dollar violin at the metro station in Washington D.C.
Watch the reaction…
That’s right. There was no reaction.
Then, he went back. This time announced.
Every time I watch these videos I wonder how often we think of God and how we miss him in our very midst; how often we expect Jesus to just drop down from heaven and announce himself:
Just to be disappointed.
Do we realize he has been here all along?
John Phillip Newell tells us that “at the heart of the physical is the spiritual. Hidden within the mundane is the Divine.”
It is in the ordinary that God reveals himself most profoundly: In our ordinary-everyday-get-up-go-to-work-feed-the-kids-walk-the-dog-clean-the-toilets-go-to-bed life.
We can miss the magnificence of God in a beautiful sunrise – blocked by a computer screen. We miss the profound in the lonely widow sitting next to us in church, or the tears of a neighbor estranged from his family.
We miss it because we are either waiting for more or hoping for less. Less would be easier because the thought of an “almighty, glorious, brilliant, magnificent” God – right here where “we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28)” is just too much for us to believe.
But why?
It’s not like Jesus made some kind of grand entrance the first time. Right? I mean – come on – he showed up in a diaper and smelled a bit like a stable.
If we are even willing to consider an encounter with God we’re certain it must be in a beyond super-human, out-of-body event. I actually think we prefer to believe that is the only time he exists. We want God to be predictable and keep his distance.
We want to dress up in our finest attitudes and go somewhere else, far away from our messiness, to experience him: Church, Wednesday night prayer meetings from 7:00 – 8:15, annual retreats in the mountains, revivals, and far away mission trips.
But, please God, don’t be snooping around my house when my husband comes home drunk at 1:00 am.
Don’t “show up” right in the middle of my nastiness; my jealous rants against my neighbor, or arguments with my teenage son. Also, you really shouldn’t sneak up on me when I’m watching my R-rated T.V. show!
So, we move through our ordinary life – constantly on guard – expending all our time and energy to keep God at a comfortable distance. And what do we get in return? An ordinary, mundane, routine, humdrum, tedious life.
I’ll just hang out here, thanks, waiting to die and get to heaven after barely surviving my ordinary, mundane, routine, humdrum, tedious life.
Delightful.
STOP IT!
We can spend a great deal of energy doing “things” in an effort to “get to” heaven where we will finally find happiness; finally, meet that ever-elusive God. And in the meantime? What about the ‘meantime” that we are wasting; time we will never get back, a time we could, as Martin Buber so beautifully said, “be stringing pearls for heaven”?
What do you think about when you read this scripture verse? Genesis 28:16-17, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it.”
And how about Luke 17:20-21, “Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, ‘The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.’” (My emphasis)
Ewwww…that’s terrifying, huh?
But, when you refuse to open your heart to that reality, you have no idea what you are missing! For example, I volunteer for a charitable organization. We have a hotline and people call in with many needs: some are homeless, some are so desperate that when you talk to them it’s like looking at a 1,000-piece puzzle with 800 pieces missing. Which is what happened to me last week.
For obvious reasons I can’t give you any details, but I can tell you this, his situation was that 1,000-piece puzzle. When I gathered all the information I could from him and stepped back to review it, I was literally overwhelmed with what he was dealing with, and, of course, he was too. But, I prayed that the Holy Spirit would guide us and bring the people into his life who could help him.
Within three days, all – got that? – ALL the necessary resources he needed were in place! When I told him – we both cried. We were both overwhelmed by the majesty and beauty and tender care of a mighty God who is right in our midst, right in our messiness, right in our suffering, and yes, in the ordinary.
Later that night I sat in prayer and felt God telling me, like Moses, “Remove your sandals, Sister, you are standing on Holy ground!” How often do you think you have stood on Holy ground and didn’t realize it because you were too busy looking up or looking away?
PASSION, PURPOSE & POOPYHEADS 