Special enough to be ordinary

In a past life, I taught English as a second language. One summer in LA, I had an Italian student who marveled that LA Lamborghini drivers would get out wearing t-shirts and flip flops. He said in Italy they always wore nice suits. My first thought was if they owned a Lamborghini, who cares what they wore?! It was a Lamborghini!

Likewise, I think about the apostle Paul, who said he'd learned the secret to being content whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want (Philippians 4:11-12). Or how after listing his exalted resume, he said it was garbage (Philippians 3:4-9). There was no need to dress up because of who Jesus was to him. T-shirts or suits, PB & J or filet mignon, Motel 6 or the Ritz Carlton, whatever! because he was in Christ.

That, however, is not the world we live in. Every message we receive is about the exceptional. Part of it is that our very nervous systems give more attention to the extraordinary and new. So we're more aware of and seek those sorts of things.

But then we add a layer to the exceptional--we try to tie our worth and value to experiencing or owning the exceptional. The logic might be something like this: "If I am noticeable, then I am valuable." And conversely, "If no one notices me, I'm not valuable."

And off we go to buy the right stuff, date the right person, earn the right degree, get the right job, so that we'll be noticed and valuable. Or we can buy the wrong stuff, date the wrong people, have the wrong degree, work the wrong job, and poof! We're nothing.

But the story of the Bible is one of intimate noticing. God talks to Adam and Eve in the garden and notices when they try to hide. He notices Hagar when she runs away from Abraham and Sarah's abuse. The people of Israel, not powerful or mighty, are the object of his noticing, pursuit, protection, and judgment throughout the stories of the Old Testament.

When we join with Paul in grasping our "In Christ" status, that we are the objects of God's loving care and noticing, I think we can become t-shirt and flip-flop wearing Lamborghini drivers. We can be graciously ordinary. We've got nothing to prove. We can have nothing worth posting to facebook, nothing worth writing a news story about, no star stickers or merit badges, no 26.2s on our cars, no designer clothing, no alumni rings. Instead, we can wear our raggedy t-shirts, and not-so-skinny jeans, make non-organic mac & cheese for our kids, take a modest car camping vacation on a muddy, used-to-be-a-lake, and sing off key on Sundays in our not-that-hip church.

In fact, I think that ordinary, not-crazy, everyday love is what Paul encourages the believers in Thessalonica toward. This he says is how to live out loving our neighbors as ourselves.

 Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. And in fact, you do love all of God’s family throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more, and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and 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. ~I Thessalonians 4:9-12

As children of the King, we're already special. There's no need to be more special, in fact, we can't make ourselves substantially more special. Sure we can gain notoriety, but only temporarily. So we're free to just live and love the people around us in the most everyday, unnoticeable, not-facebook-worthy ways.

Photo: PacificCoastNews.com