The God of the Mundane by Matthew B Redmond
"Is my faith radical enough?
You've heard the message, 'If you really loved God, you would be totally committed - do something big, sell your belongings, maybe become a missionary.' Matt Redmond has preached it himself. But here he simply asks: What about the rest of us? through stories of pastors, plumbers, dental hygienists and stay-at-home mums, and smiles from strangers. Matt finds grace and mercy in chicken fingers, classic films and smiles from strangers. Ultimately he convicts us of what he has learned himself.
There is a God of the mundane and our life is not about what he does for us."
So read the back cover of this book - I had seen it reviewed on the internet and was interested enough to purchase a copy. Straight away I realised this was going to be one of those books you could read very quickly and then read it again to be sure you caught everything. 130 pages in total, I was able to read it in one sitting and each page kept me gripped to hear what Matt had to say about our ordinary lives ...
The opening quote by Lilias Trotter (a missionary) is very fitting "Such a day of small things still, but on God's terms and that is enough. Size as well as time and space count nothing with him."
In the foreword Matt Redmond relates his experience of working in a job that was described as a "miserable experience". My ears pricked at this point because I have had jobs in the past that can only be described in the same way. During his time in that job Matt's father died and on his return to work he was called in to his manager's office to be told "sometimes this job seems very mundane". He had just written the first edition of this book and he asked himself 'did he say that on purpose?' Eventually Matt sought help from a counsellor on advice from his wife as she could see the toll it was taking on both him and his family. He knew this counselor and after the initial chit chat he discovered that when people came to this counselor looking for vocational advice he recommended - Matt's book!
Matt realised that he had lost perspective and now needed to claw back to a place where he could find it again. He needed to believe the message of his own book. This is the reason for a republication of this book "The God of the Mundane."
You see Matt Redman had to read the book again and admit that "having actually read it now, I think it's pretty good. Maybe even more importantly I, the author, have had to struggle with these issues and most likely always will."
In the introduction Matt relates who he wrote this book for initially - the stay at home mother and a man stuck in a job that feels small. While writing the book he realised that it was difficult to accept his own situation. Out of all the mundane there were opportunities to help him see that he was in the very experience he wanted to speak to others about - that there is a God of the mundane.
Fifteen chapters with unusual titles followed:
Chapter 1 - the question of the mundane
Chapter 2 - the answer of the mundane
Chapter 3 - the apostle Paul on the person in the pew?
Chapter 4 - it helps
Chapter 5 - the wrong story
Chapter 6 - Of pastors and plumbers
Chapter 7 - the sermon you've never heard
Chapter 8 - God's special moment
Chapter 9 - No-one wants to be George Bailey
Chapter 10 - the gospel of something else entirely
Chapter 11 - the myth of an easy life
Chapter 12 - as hard as it is
Chapter 13 - mundane kindness
Chapter 14 - the room must grow
Chapter 15 - be nobody special
In chapter 1 the basic question is asked 'Is there a God of the mundane'. As a pastor he has been part of the call to ask people to do something big with their lives. You know the sermon - God calls you to do something radical that involves risk but wait a moment - what about those living normal Christian lives. Is God sitting around waiting for every one of us to do something monumental? Is there a God for the situations we face on a daily basis? In chapter 2 Matt tries to show that there is a time when everyone at some point stops what they are doing and asks 'does all this really matter? Does my work and life and all its parts matter to God? To anyone?' Yes even as Christians we long to be noticed and celebrated but there is a God of the mundane too. "Ordinary is the divine order of the day for the vast majority of us."
Chapter 3 made the point that we need to stop and think about who Paul wrote to in his letters - ordinary Christians doing ordinary jobs. He wasn't writing to pastors, teachers, preachers or prophets - he was writing to people living in his day and age doing an ordinary job just like we are today. But those people have lived and died and we know nothing about how they put into practice what Paul taught them. What was different about these people who lived in Paul and Peter's day - they believed an extraordinary story. So it is all right for me to be ordinary. I can live a mundane existence and not feel guilty about it The call on our lives is to be faithful right where we are.
Chapter 4 tells the story of a dentist when asked the question - why did she choose her job. A good time for me to pause and ask myself that same question - think about it for yourself just now!
Chapter 5 reminds us that the first job in the bible was gardening. Perhaps Adam and Eve got bored with that and wanted more than the ordinary existence they had been given. So they fell headlong into the abyss of unbelief and hate and explicit, conscious rebellion. And we have been pulled in by the heel. But ... God showed mercy! "The story of what God has done, and is doing and will do, is the story of an extraordinary God creating, and then dying for, all the ordinary. There is spirituality for ordinary people who live ordinary lives. Jesus did not die to change this so much as make it more so. We are not saved from mediocrity and obscurity, the ordinary and the mundane. We are saved in the midst of it all. We are not redeemed from the mundane. We are redeemed from the slavery of thinking our mundane life is not enough."
Chapter 7 "There has to be some significance to Jesus spending most of his life as a carpenter. Why didn't he start his public ministry earlier? Why spend so much time doing something so mundane as carpentry, working in a rural town with materials like wood and stone? Materials he fashioned in the beginning. We pay lip service to the idea that being a pastor is not more spiritual than being something else. But we do not really believe that. The pastor is tempted to think the businessman should be more like him in his study. And the businessman is tempted to think his work in the boardroom is not spiritual at all. But every believing businessman, plumber and homemaker is given the Holy Spirit. And their work with the raw materials of this old world is intrinsically spiritual, though seemingly small compared with the pastors world. Pastors need to know this and plumbers need to know this. Pastors need to know so they can encourage plumbers to be faithful plumbers And plumbers need to know so they can grow as a plumber and not think they must be something else."
Chapter 7 deals with the words in 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 11 "to aspire to live quietly". "Quiet fits with this idea of being mundane. The mundane life is one where we quietly go about our business. No easy task. Which is why Paul commands it of us."
Matt Redmond shows in this chapter how "living quietly" is actually the opposite of what people expect of us. Just think for a moment - we love it when people know all about us and the church is no different. We believe we cannot just go about our business. We must broadcast it so people will look at us, our church, our denomination. Our works. This living quietly is not only ignored in the church, it is rarely if ever seen as faithfulness. We Christians need to reckon with the fact that our tendency to not see a quiet or mundane life as legitimately spiritual comes from pride, a pride betrayed when we cannot be quiet about what we have done, and suffered and seen. Secondly quiet is about tone and spirit. It's not only what we don't say. This is all of life - a life of contentment, of more thought than speech, more thought before speech. Living quietly is a life so happy with the attention of God that the attention of the world is not needed and rarely enjoyed. It is the resolve to be okay with not being heard, or seen, or noticed. it is grounded in the assurance that the Creator notices and sees and hears. The quiet life - just like the mundane life - is not weak. It is the strength of the Lamb who stood silent before his slaughterers.
Wow this chapter really got me thinking! All of this chapter spoke volumes to me about how much I personally want to be heard and seen by everyone around me and yet here in scripture I am being told to do the opposite - what a challenge!
In chapter 8 Matt Redmond describes a restaurant in his home town called the Kairos Kafe. The mission statement is "building relationships around food." This is the faithfulness of ordinary work. Which consequently has the air of being more than mundane when that air is full of the aroma of great food wafting through. This is faithfulness working itself out of a heart full of love for people (workers and customers) and homemade food. 2 everyday things God has given, coming together every day.
In chapter 9 Matt Redmond refers to the movie "It's a wonderful Life". He continues with the idea that we all want to leave our mark on the world. "We don't dream of being cashiers and clerks, toiling away in obscurity, invisible to the wider world. A quiet and peaceful life producing nothing of apparent significance tends to be disdained, inside and outside the church. If we believe there's no place in the halls of heroic Christian faith for unknown housewives and clerks, then we are believing wrongly. Every Christian wants to do something wonderful in the name of Jesus and to come to the end of our life and think that we've done nothing of actual significance can be devastating. Of course, that thought is a lie. For one thing, it's a lie because living out the 2 greatest commands, which Jesus gave us personally is generally going to look very mundane. Loving God and loving our neighbour will typically go unnoticed by the wider world. Who could know the eventual impact of living daily, year after year, out of a deep-end-of-the-pool belief in Jesus, the God-Man, killed and risen for those who rebelled against him."
Matt goes on to say that for many who think they need to do something significant, it may mean going into the ministry or doing something that seems to promise quick feedback, the satisfaction of here-and-now, measurable impact. Then they judge others by the standard they impose on themselves. A huge part of all this is the belief that nothing so mundane as wanting to live quietly can be significant. The idea that God can take our seemingly small, mundane tasks and responsibilities and turn them into something significant, although a strange way of thinking for us, is a common thread divinely woven throughout the scriptures. What we have done is this - "we have taken the hope and assurance of the grace given to us by God and traded it in, relying instead on our own 'significant' works and in doing so we have forgotten the story of grace itself.
I think this is the most significant chapter in the entire book. It is all about realising what God can do with our mundane lives. That they are meaningful, maybe not to us but God himself. He needs people like us to do those simple everyday tasks, to show God to others.
Let's be honest - in any job you will always hear that infamous line "it's Friday, the weekend starts here." So many live for the weekend. Somehow there is this belief that the job is made easier by the promise of a break from it. In chapter 10 Matt Redmond says that we can see our spirituality in the same light. "We eagerly await doing spiritual things and being involved with spiritual enterprises. We look to the future. We look away to something outside of what we are doing. Regardless of where we are and what we happen to be doing, we must wait for something else or be somewhere else to have a spiritually significant moment. That moment is here, always right here, but we miss it. We miss it by believing the gospel of something-else-entirely."
He goes on to say that we need to see the significance of here and now continually, moment by moment, day by day. He takes the example of buying the bread for communion - what is different between this and hearing the sermon on a Sunday morning? Or paying bills and cutting grass? "Everything is now part of this life in the kingdom, it is no longer necessary to live on the fumes of a spiritual high that was, or look forward to some future hit. We have now the fellowship of the King. every act is now of kingdom consequence. Not just the big ones."
In chapter 11 Matthew Redmond recounts a serious car crash in which he nearly lost not only his sight but his life. Even years later he would find glass in his forehead. He asks the question - do we really understand how sinful our sin is? We are practically ignorant of the extent of our sin and its moment-by-moment effects. To some degree, this is part of the grace we enjoy. Our ignorance of sin and the particular way this truth manifests itself in our own lives is why we cannot see the God of the mundane.
"The prevailing view of spirituality leaves us with ten thousand moments void of the glorious God. He is present when we do things like pray, read our bible, sing worship songs, give away our stuff, and go overseas. But he is strikingly absent when we are doing mundane paper work.
Not only are we having to deal with sin, but even the most plain life is interrupted by disease, hardship, loneliness, fear, anxiety, nerves, instability, cancer, diabetes, glaucoma, poverty, broken bones, chronic migraines, bad backs, tornadoes, e-coli, croup, heart disease and the deaths of those we love.
If we knew how difficult the Christian life was - is - we would certainly not suppose that another life, one with more "spiritual" parts to it, would be, well more spiritual. We would see the gravity of living out our belief on our streets, in the stores, among our friends, before our servers at restaurants and wherever we play. We think there are places where faith, and spirituality and Christianity are easy. Some places may be harder. Maybe. But easy? We do not know ourselves, or the world around us very well if we think so."
Chapter 12 describes the every day routines of a stay at home mum, the joys and frustrations. "The homemaker may be the prototype of the mundane life. Every day is full of what the next day holds. And every day is filigreed with wondering if any of what is done is helping or hurting. Yet there are moments of happiness and the joy is real. But the temptation to doubt if they are doing anything of significance is real."
In chapter 13 Matthew Redmond describes an event when a smile made a difference to his day. "Maybe we could call it "even a cup of cold water" for those thirsty for some kind, any kind of kindness. Any kindness at all will do. Deep down, we do not really think this kind of kindness is important. As far as we are concerned, it will get no press before God or men. No one notices the smile - it disappears in a wisp. The cup of cold water is no sooner enjoyed than forgotten in the desire for another. So we forgo these kinds of things altogether. They lack significance in a world we are always being told we can change. Kindness has no cataclysmic effect on the forces of evil in the name of justice. So we leave it off on our way to end injustice. In other words, we want to end war, hunger and poverty in our lifetime. In 'a dry and weary land' a cup of cold water is the picture of kindness. Though small, the refreshment is needed, appreciated, and not easily forgotten by the one who needs it most. This is hard because we are prone to define kindness by the largest possible measure. The plumb line for what is kind is far removed from the stuff of smiles and cups of cold water. It exists in the form of checks and gifts, voluminous and weighty. And all the while as we plan on newsworthy acts of good works, there are moments of opportunity."
Just think the next time - what act of kindness can I show today? What a challenging chapter.
Remember when you were small and everything seemed so big? Matt Redmond recounts how as a child his grandparents house seemed so big in chapter 14. "The exact opposite of what happened with my memory of my grandparents home is happening with my understanding of God and what it means to live by faith. The room is growing larger, not smaller. And with the growth of the room, the magic of it all extends out into places unseen before. I would agree with Matt on this one - as I get older I begin to see how believing in God affects so much more of my life than when I first trusted him as my Lord and Saviour. There are so many 'rooms' now - the room of the impoverished, the room of disabilities and exceptional abilities, the room of weariness and wonder, the room of sexuality and suffering, the room of grace and mercy and failure and falling. Matt goes on to say "I want to believe my faith in the gospel of grace is not limited to the 'spiritual' things but is exploding onto every single mundane moment in my life. I want the shrapnel of this explosion to embed itself in every enjoyment and failure, and celebration and tragedy coming my way." Matt talks about the effect of age on our lives "even though we must age for us to grow in our faith, the growth is taking us back to the wonder of small bodies in cavernous spaces. This must be the childlike faith Jesus spoke of. My hope is to sit one day with aching bones, skin no longer taut and senses failing and say 'this is the greatest house ever.'"
In the last chapter Matt talks about his love of books and how he reads each very quickly but can still retain and find new meanings on and second and third reading. He goes on to show that the mantra in some books is "you are special" - "the idea is everyone is really, really special. And to a point, I suppose it is true. we all have different hues of character. All are marked by varied memories peculiar to our lives. Physical and emotional buoys signal deep waters of places only we have explored. And so we buy in. But if everyone is speical, then no one is special. So then, of course the goal is to be more special by doing special, specialized things. Distinguishing ourselves." What do evangelical churches say about this? "There are 2 kinds of pastors in the main: those who speak at conferences and those who want to do so." Matt goes on to ask the question "who would want to be a person no one has ever heard of? What pastor or pew-sitter wants to remain nameless, living in year-in and year-out obscurity - especially when fame and reputation and notoriety are ripe for the picking?" He explores the theme in stating to be something 'different' you have to 'lose your life so you can save it' for a reason. "This little book is not a call to do nothing. It is a call to be faithful right where you are, regardless of how mundane that place is." This is the heart of this book and it has taken to the last chapter for it to be emphasised. "You can now just love God, love others and be nobody. And as long as you know this - that 'you're nobody special' - then 'you'll be a very decent sort of Horse, on the whole and taking one thing with another.'"
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