Category Archives: lectionary

An embarrassment of riches

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There are times when the lectionary seems not to provide anything on which to preach; none of the readings have any meat, or seem to speak to the current situation. Other times, I can imagine numerous sermons, all of them quite different, emerging from the readings. Sometimes, there are profound connections among the texts. The latter was true in the Book of Common Prayer lectionary, which selected texts from the Hebrew Bible based on their connection with the Gospel.

The lessons for the Third Sunday after Epiphany in Year C offer an embarrassment of riches. Here are the texts. The text from Nehemia tells the story of Ezra reading the book of the Law to the assembled congregation in Jerusalem. It is set after the exile, and most scholars see this as evidence that the Torah (the Pentateuch) was compiled in exile in Babylon and brought back to Jerusalem after the exile ended.

The lesson from I Corinthians continues Paul’s discussion from chapter 12 of the body of Christ and that marvelous imagery of “we are all members of one body.” It’s important to note that he doesn’t assert that Jesus Christ is the head and we are the members. Rather, we are all members of the same body, none of us having priority. But he goes further. When discussing order in community, Paul asserts that it is gifts of the spirit that need to be ordered, not offices in the church. The editors leave out the end of verse 31: “but let me show you a better way.” That is Paul’s transition to chapter 13, in which he extols love as the greatest of all gifts, binding the community together across its diversity of gifts.

The gospel is Luke’s version of the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. I know that will be the focus of my sermon, but the question is how, and if , I will be able to weave the other texts into this. We’ll see. Check back on Sunday.

These are marvelous texts for the beginning of a new year, and the (relative) beginning of a new ministry. They challenge us to think about our mission, our call, and our responsibility.

Some final thoughts on the Letter to the Hebrews

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I did little more than make an occasional mention of the readings from the Letter to the Hebrews as we read from it these past weeks. That’s a shame because it is a rich homiletical resource, full of theological and ethical material. In fact, it’s not a letter at all. The epistolary material is tacked on at the end. Instead, it is exhortation, a sermon. It is anonymous, although the tradition attributed to Paul from a very early point, but careful readers throughout history knew Paul didn’t write it. It’s very different in style, language, and viewpoint. And it was probably written in the latter part of the first century; couldn’t have been later than that, because second century Christian texts seem to reflect its ideas.

The Letter to the Hebrews is important to both the theological and liturgical traditions of the Church, with its emphasis on Christ as High Priest, offering himself as sacrifice. One thing that has interested me as I read and listened this fall is the question of the connection between the letter and the destruction of the temple. It’s easy to interpret Hebrews as supersessionist; that is to say, that Christianity replaces (supercedes Judaism). But if the temple sacrifice to which Hebrews refers has ended with the destruction of the temple, then it could be read as an attempt to make sense of the lack of sacrifice in a new historical context. No doubt biblical scholars have lavished hundreds of pages on this question, which I’ve obviously not read, but I do think one can construe the discussion of temple sacrifice as something that has taken place in the past and takes place no longer; thus it requires some sort of symbolic meaning.

Even though I’m an Episcopalian and a priest, I’m not particularly comfortable with the use of language of “sacrifice” in the liturgy, even if it is muted, and often reinterpreted (“we offer you our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving”). I’ve mentioned before that the Latin roots of the word literally “to make holy” which carries a very different sense than our contemporary meaning of sacrifice. Well, perhaps I will have the opportunity to preach on Hebrews in the three years, if not before.

The Book of Ruth

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It’s a pity that last Sunday was All Saints’ because we missed the chance to hear the first reading in the lectionary cycle from the Bok of Ruth. This week’s proper (27) provides a brief synopsis of the denouement, of Ruth’s marriage to Boaz and of their son Obed, who would become King David’s grandfather.

Ruth is a wonderful piece of literature, a short story, or novella, full of drama and written with great skill. Scholars debate when it was written. There are those who argue for the monarchic period because it provides David with a genealogy and because it bears considerable similarity to the Book of Judges, which is when the story takes place. Other scholars argue for a post-exilic origin. Their rationale is that it seems to challenge the post-exilic opposition to intermarriage. And it does spectacularly by giving David a foreign great-grandmother.

It seems to me the provenance is unimportant. What is important is what it tells us about the author’s values. Yes, marriage between Jews (Israelites) and non-Jews is acceptable, but more important still is the treatment of those foreigners, and of widows, the marginalized. Naomi and Ruth are left homeless, without a safety net, but Jewish law provides them with one–the opportunity to glean what hasn’t been harvested from the fields, and the obligation of male relatives to take care of widows.

There is a strong patriarchal bent to the story. Levirate marriage (the requirement that a brother must marry his brother’s childless widow, in order that the family name might be preserved) is predicated on the priority of males, and the notion that a wife is in some sense property. But perhaps in the ancient near east, the alternative was even worse. A widow, who was brought into her husband’s family, could be turned out of that family if she had no sons, and might not be welcomed back by her parents and siblings.

Levirate marriage is alluded to in the gospels as well, in fact in Mark 12:18-27, the Sadducees pose a question of Jesus that presupposes Levirate marriage although it in fact is challenging Jesus about the resurrection of the dead.

The Revised Common Lectionary

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If you are a lector (read the lessons at the services), you’ve probably noticed that we have switched this year from the lectionary in the Book of Common Prayer to the Revised Common Lectionary. Several people have asked me about this change recently.

In the first place, the lectionary lays out what scripture texts we use each Sunday. It consists of a three year cycle. We are currently in Year C, and on the first Sunday of Advent this December, we will begin Year A. The most important differences among the three years is that Year A focuses on the Gospel of Matthew, Year B on Mark, and Year C on Luke. The Gospel of John is read intermittently, especially during Lent and Easter.

The Revised Common Lectionary which is used by most Protestant Churches that follow the lectionary is different in some important ways from the lectionary in the Book of Common Prayer. Most importantly, it allows for the continuous reading of sections of the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) on the Sundays following Pentecost. For example, this year we have been hearing the stories of the prophets, beginning with Elijah and Elisha, and following through Amos, Isaiah, and now Jeremiah. This gives the preacher the opportunity to make connections from Sunday to Sunday. By contrast, the Old Testament readings in the Book of Common Prayer lectionary were chosen for their connection with that Sunday’s gospel, so it was difficult to see the text in its literary context. In Year A, the Old Testament lessons will come from Genesis-Judges; in Year B, largely from Samuel.

There is also a purely mercenary purpose for our switch to the RCL. Most preaching resources are being prepared for the RCL, so when we begin working on our sermons, we can easily find commentaries on all of the texts in the same place (kind of like Cliff Notes for preachers; but no, that’s not plagiarism). Among the web sites that I draw on for sermon preparation are: the text this week and the Center for Liturgy. These sites are intended for everyone, not just preachers and they provide a wide variety of material reflecting on each week’s readings.