Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life

by Tish Harrison Warren

Tish’s telling, and in any honest Christian’s experience, the sacred liturgy itself is as ordinary as can be much of the time. We say the same prayers, make the same gestures, arrive and leave in one sense much the same people we were the previous Sunday, and the Sunday to come. (And this is just as true, of course, of Christians who worship in nonliturgical churches!)

We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done, and there is no health in us.” We are baptized in plain water. We consume plain bread and wine. And it all is lifted up by plain people.

must be remembered that life consists not of a series of illustrious actions, or elegant enjoyments; the greater part of our time passes in compliance with necessities, in the performance of daily duties, in the removal of small inconveniences, in the procurement of petty pleasures. DR. JOHNSON

It is a quotidian mystery that dailiness can lead to such despair and yet also be at the core of our salvation. . . . We want life to have meaning, we want fulfillment, healing and even ecstasy, but the human paradox is that we find these things by starting where we are. . . . We must look for blessings to come from unlikely, everyday places. KATHLEEN NORRIS

That we ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed. That we should not wonder if, in the beginning, we often failed in our endeavors, but that at last we should gain a habit, which will naturally produce its acts in us, without our care, and to our exceeding great delight. BROTHER LAWRENCE

As if the incarnation itself is not mind-bending enough, the incarnate God spent his days quietly, a man who went to work, got sleepy, and lived a pedestrian life among average people.

Jesus emerges from water a commoner, wet and messy haired. And suddenly the Spirit of God shows up and the deep mystery of the universe reverberates through the air: this is the Son of God, the Son the Father loves, in whom he is pleased.

before you know it, before you doubt it, before you confess it, before you can sing it yourself, you are beloved by God, not by your effort but because of what Christ has done on your behalf. We are weak, but he is strong.

“For all Christians, baptism embodies release from yesterday’s sin and receipt of tomorrow’s promise: going under the water, the old self is buried in the death of Christ; rising from the water the self is new, joined to the resurrected Christ.”

We enter each new day as we enter the sanctuary, by remembering our baptism.

We are marked from our first waking moment by an identity that is given to us by grace: an identity that is deeper and more real than any other identity we will don that day.

As Christians, we wake each morning as those who are baptized. We are united with Christ and the approval of the Father is spoken over us. We are marked from our first waking moment by an identity that is given to us by grace: an identity that is deeper and more real than any other identity we will don that day.

My works and worship don’t earn a thing. Instead, they flow from God’s love, gift, and work on my behalf. I am not primarily defined by my abilities or marital status or how I vote or my successes or failures or fame or obscurity, but as one who is sealed in the Holy Spirit, hidden in Christ, and beloved by the Father.

The reality underlying every practice in our life is the triune God and his story, mercy, abundance, generosity, initiative, and pleasure.

The psalmist declares, “This is the day that the Lord has made.” This one. We wake not to a vague or general mercy from a far-off God. God, in delight and wisdom, has made, named, and blessed this average day. What I in my weakness see as another monotonous day in a string of days, God has given as a singular gift.

God is forming us into a new people. And the place of that formation is in the small moments of today.

The new life into which we are baptized is lived out in days, hours, and minutes. God is forming us into a new people. And the place of that formation is in the small moments of today.

What if days passed in ways that feel small and insignificant to us are weighty with meaning and part of the abundant life that God has for us?

If Christ was a carpenter, all of us who are in Christ find that our work is sanctified and made holy. If Christ spent time in obscurity, then there is infinite worth found in obscurity. If Christ spent most of his life in quotidian ways, then all of life is brought under his lordship. There is no task too small or too routine to reflect God’s glory and worth.

Whether you’re Mother Teresa or a stay-at-home mom, whether you’re a revolutionary, a student, or a tax attorney, life is lived in twenty-four-hour days. We have bodies; we lag in energy; we learn slowly; we wake daily and don’t know what lies ahead.

Annie Dillard famously writes, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

on this particular day, Jesus knows me and declares me his own. On this day he is redeeming the world, advancing his kingdom, calling us to repent and grow, teaching his church to worship, drawing near to us, and making a people all his own.

How I spend this ordinary day in Christ is how I will spend my Christian life.

The church is to be a radically alternative people, marked by the love of the triune God in each area of life. But often we are not sure how to become this sort of alternative people.

We do not usually think about our beliefs or worldview as we brush our teeth, go grocery shopping, and drive our cars. Most of what shapes our life and culture works “below the mind”—in our gut, in our loves.5

While these approaches may form us as alternative consumers, they do not necessarily form us as worshipers.

Whoever we are, whatever we believe, wherever we live, and whatever our consumer preferences may be, we spend our days doing things—we live in routines formed by habits and practices.

to be an alternative people is to be formed differently—to take up practices and habits that aim ou...

The question is, “What kind of people is our liturgy forming us to be?”

There is nothing magic about any particular church tradition. Liturgy is never a silver bullet for sinfulness. These “formative practices” have no value outside of the gospel and God’s own initiative and power.

We have everyday habits—formative practices—that constitute daily liturgies.

Examining my daily liturgy as a liturgy—as something that both revealed and shaped what I love and worship—allowed me to realize that my daily practices were malforming me, making me less alive, less human, less able to give and receive love throughout my day.

So the question is, are there habits and practices that we acquire without knowing it? Are there ritual forces in our culture that we perhaps naively immerse ourselves in—and are thus formed by—that, when we consider them more closely, are pointed at some ultimate end? Are there mundane routines that we participate in that, if we are attentive, function as thick practices aimed at a particular vision of the good life?

Examining our daily life through the lens of liturgy allows us to see who these habits are shaping us to be, and the ways we can live as people who have been loved and transformed by God.

these small bits of our day are profoundly meaningful because they are the site of our worship. The crucible of our formation is in the monotony of our daily routines.

The crucible of our formation is in the anonymous monotony of our daily routines.

Our worship together as a church forms us in a particular way. We must be shaped into people who value that which gives life, not just what’s trendy or loud or exciting.

We need to learn the slow habits of loving God and those around us. Our addiction to stimulation, input, and entertainment empties us out and makes us boring—unable to embrace the ordinary wonders of life in Christ.

The work of repentance and faith is daily and repetitive. Again and again, we repent and believe.

The kind of spiritual life and disciplines needed to sustain the Christian life are quiet, repetitive, and ordinary. I often want to skip the boring, daily stuff to get to the thrill of an edgy faith. But it’s in the dailiness of the Christian faith—the making the bed, the doing the dishes, the praying for our enemies, the reading the Bible, the quiet, the small—that God’s transformation takes root and grows.

Making my bed and sitting in silence for just a few minutes reminded me that what is most real and significant in my day is not what is loudest, flashiest, or most entertaining. It is in the repetitive and the mundane that I begin to learn to love, to listen, to pay attention to God and to those around me.

Being surrounded by such great minds was a gift, but I began to feel like the sort of Christianity that I gravitated toward only required my brain.

In his book Earthen Vessels, Matthew Lee Anderson argues that just as basketball players train their bodies through practice drills, “practicing the presentation of our bodies as living sacrifices in a corporate context through raising hands, lifting our eyes to the heavens, kneeling, and reciting prayers simply trains us in our whole person, body and soul, to be oriented around the throne of grace.”

We are told that our bodies are meant to be used and abused or, on the other hand, that our bodies are meant to be worshiped.

If we don’t learn to live the Christian life as embodied beings, worshiping God and stewarding the good gift of our bodies, we will learn a false gospel, an alternative liturgy of the body.

If the church does not teach us what our bodies are for, our culture certainly will.

When we use our bodies to rebel against God or to worship the false gods of sex, youth, or personal autonomy, we are not simply breaking an archaic and arbitrary commandment. We are using a sacred object—in fact, the most sacred object on earth—in a way that denigrates its beautiful and high purpose.

when we denigrate our bodies—whether through neglect or staring at our faces and counting up our flaws—we are belittling a sacred site, a worship space more wondrous than the most glorious, ancient cathedral.

But when we use our bodies for their intended purpose—in gathered worship, raising our hands or singing or kneeling, or, in our average day, sleeping or savoring a meal or jumping or hiking or running or having sex with our spouse or kneeling in prayer or nursing a baby or digging a garden—it is glorious, as glorious as a great cathedral being used just as its architect had dreamt it would be.

He anoints the bathroom mirror with oil and prays that when people look into it, they would see themselves as beloved images of God. He prays that they would not relate to their bodies with the categories the world gives them, but instead according to the truth of who they are in Christ.