Rejoicing in the routine

Make it your ambition to live a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12

Here’s a little bit of good news: the Christian life is very often extremely ordinary, indeed quite dull. My hope is that that news might lift the pressure we sometimes mistakenly place upon ourselves.

Or so it should be, anyway, according to Paul here. “Live a quiet life... mind your own business... work with your hands... win the respect of outsiders.” Pretty commonplace, no?

But I thought it was all to do with really exciting things! Big meetings... miracles... tongues... healings... vibrant worship... conversions every week...  Are you really telling me, Paul, that I’ve got it wrong? 

Well, I’m sure Paul would be the last person to deny that, yes, exciting things do sometimes happen as we follow Jesus. Shipwrecks, floggings, lynchings, imprisonments, for a start... He certainly knew about such things, if Acts can be trusted. (Plus many other truly wonderful things, of course.)

But it seems that, when he wrote to the church in Thessalonica, it was the sheer daily routine, the mundaneness, of the Christian life that he wanted to get across to them - what the old hymn called “the trivial round, the common task”. Why was this?

Well, reading between the lines in the two letters that he wrote to this church, it seems that there was an unhealthy outbreak of excitability going on. In 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4 he writes about people becoming “unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report or letter supposed to have come from us, saying that the day of the Lord has already come.”

Strange rumours were spreading. That great day of Jesus’ return in glory - well, it’s happened already! All right, we haven’t actually noticed it yet, but don’t you be fooled - just you wait a little longer. The end is at hand! 

And people in the Thessalonian church were believing this nonsense. And one result was that some of them were giving up work and living lives of idleness as they waited for the big End-of-the-World show: “Well, if Jesus really is coming back in the next few weeks, what’s the point of going to work? Surely we just need to focus on getting ourselves prepared. (Thanks, all the same, for that fifty pounds you put through the letter-box last week, and the food-parcel you left the other day.)”

You see why Paul is concerned? What sort of witness is this?

And so he issues strong words: “...warn those who are idle...” (1 Thess 5:14); “...keep away from every brother who is idle...” (2 Thess 3:6); “We hear that some among you are idle. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down (there’s that ordinariness again) and earn the bread they eat” (2 Thess 3:11-12).

History shows that every so often the church is subject to these bouts of excitability. It may be to do with the second coming, as in Thessalonica. It may be to do with strange and dramatic manifestations of the Holy Spirit, as in certain aspects (not all!) of the fifty-year-old charismatic movement.

And, yes, as I said earlier, exciting and wonderful things do sometimes happen - indeed, oh for more of them! But we need to be very careful and discerning. If we get sucked into this kind of give-me-non-stop-excitement mentality there is a danger that we blow a fuse and end up in the psychiatric unit. The devil is a great deceiver...

The fact is that for most of us, for most of the time, being a follower of Jesus means getting up in the morning, praying to God for blessing on the day, having our breakfast, brushing our teeth, and then getting on with whatever our daily routine calls for - whether that’s sitting all day in front of a computer, chairing a high-powered meeting, toiling on the factory-floor, or wiping the baby’s bum.

Being a cheerful neighbour to the people in the same block or down the street... being a good colleague to the people at work... driving our cars sensibly, considerately and responsibly... paying our taxes and other dues... being courteous and pleasant to everyone we meet, including the woman at the supermarket till and the man in the petrol-station... minding our language... being scrupulously honest... playing fairly when we are enjoying ourselves... 

And, of course, in the midst of this humdrum activity, looking for opportunities to speak explicitly, but always appropriately, about our faith in Christ.

Will exciting moments come? Well, why not? There will be lovely answers to prayer. There may be significant outpourings of the Spirit. And one day, yes, Jesus will return. 

But until such times come, the message to all of us is very simple: Christian, roll up your sleeves, look life right in the eye - and just get on with it!

Father God, help me to see you in the everyday business of life, and to grasp every opportunity to make Jesus known, whether by deed or by word. Amen.