According to Mark November 2016
This November is an interesting time for the church as we wrap up the end of our 3-year lectionary cycle and begin again to where it all began … Lectionary ‘A’, the start of the Christian New Year. Have you ever wondered why we pick the scriptures the way we do? Why not just read them from front to back, starting from Genesis and ending in Revelations?
It’s not possible to read an entire book of the Bible in the context of a single church service. In today’s fast-moving world, it’s not even possible to pay attention to a single chapter. In 1969, the Second Vatican Council’s reforms produced a 3-year study of the Bible for use in congregations, and Protestants modified that to allow us to be able to read each of the Gospel stories of Jesus’ teachings and journeys (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) in each of 3 years, beginning with the first Sunday of Advent every year. The Fourth Gospel, the Gospel of John, is written in very different style and format than the others and it is sprinkled into each of the 3 years during the seasons of Advent, Lent, Christmas, and Easter Week.
We read our Old Testament lessons from a list that relates those readings to the Gospels each week, so that the Old and New Testaments tie together and relate to one another pointing toward God’s revealing message through Christ, and we can see that through the prophets. That’s why many of our OT passages are from Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and we don’t see much from the book of Numbers, Chronicles, or Leviticus.
Also, the books of the Bible are not written in chronological order. So reading the Bible from front to back would be a challenge, since it jumps around from time to place and, with the Gospels, tells the same stories but in different lenses on what is said and where it happens. So it can get really confusing unless we start to chunk the Bible into more discrete sections and lessons that we can then focus on.
Last, we need to relate all of these things to our daily lives. While I’m sure all of you are just dying to find out why the Jebusites built the Temple in a certain way or wore this type of tunic or that kind of robe, we hunger for how these ancient texts, stories, analogies, and allegories relate to us today. I revel in studying these texts and the challenge of putting the stories of the Bible into the stories of our lives, and in the 2.5 years we’ve been together we do this through examining current events, our own life stories, some Broadway plays (like ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’, ‘Carousel’, ‘Oklahoma’, ‘Rent’) and some rock operas and hits (think The Who’s ‘Tommy’ or any number of songs by Cheap Trick or the Rolling Stones).
When we see ourselves in these stories, connected through our experiences and cultural connections, we can indeed see how the Bible comes alive. It is amazing for us to have that ‘aha’ moment where we get a glimpse that God has been active in our life in a way we didn’t expect, in a way that we truly had prayed for, but with a method and result that was a total surprise and pointed us in a different direction.
So as we approach Thanksgiving this year, I am thankful for the opportunity to reveal the Revised Common Lectionary to not just you, but to my own heart, and to take that journey together to discover cool new things about each of us, and all of us. I am also grateful for all of you who read about what we do, who we are, and know that you are welcome to journey with us at any time, knowing that our home is your home. We have just wrapped up a series on hospitality and seeing what that means in welcoming friends and neighbors we have not seen in a while or ones who are new to us. Come and experience a new place of friendship and fellowship this Holiday Season, and welcome to the New Year.
Pastor Mark
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