Welcome to Wading in the Waters of the Word™ with A Women’s Lectionary
Gentle Readers, Followers, Preachers, Pray-ers, Thinkers and Visitors, Welcome!
Welcome to this space where you can share your worship – liturgy and preaching – preparations – using A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church. We begin in Advent 2021 with Year W, a single, standalone Lectionary volume that includes readings from all four Gospels. (We will continue with Year A in Advent 2022 to align with the broader Church.) In advance of each week, I will start the conversation and set the space for you all. I will come through time to time, but this is your space. Welcome!
Media Resources
A Women’s Lectionary For The Whole Church
Session 1, October 16, 2021
Rev. Wil Gafney, PhD at Myers Park Baptist Church
Plenary 1 | Translating Women Back Into Scripture for A #WomensLectionary
This session introduces participants to frequently unexamined aspects of biblical translation in commonly available bibles and the intentional choices made in “A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church.”
A Women’s Lectionary For The Whole Church
Session 2, October 16, 2021
Rev. Wil Gafney, PhD at Myers Park Baptist Church
Plenary 2 | Reading Women in Scripture for Preaching, Study, and Devotion
This session provides an overview of “A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church,” its genesis, production, and content. There is also an in-depth exploration of specific passages appointed for specific days including time for public and private reading and discussion.
Lectionary Lectio
Click the Comment links to add to the conversation
Pentecost 8
The story behind this week’s first lesson is that God seems to have allowed herself to have reluctantly permitted Israel a king in spite of her own good judgment and, the objections of her prophet Samuel. It is one of the ironies of scripture and its interpretation that Samuel, person and the books that bear his name, is firmly anti-monarchal but also, the primary source of the account of the rules of Saul and, David in his early years. One way to look at it is that God permits us to make terrible choices with consequences that span generations if we insist on doing so but, provides a word of warning should we choose to heed it.
What terrible choices are we making today? What choices rooted in authoritarianism that like monarchy will shape the lives of generations to come for bad and for worse? The love of and lust for power and inability to imagine another way to relate to each other and care for the common good never get resolved in Israel’s story nor apparently, in our own. Paul is critical of those who would crown him, seeing in their adulation a trap. Jesus critiques the inequity of monarchy and its after effects using a parable about the enslaved that does not critique the social hierarchy and human trafficking of his time. But the Psalmist offers a vision of true majesty. The God of heaven and earth and all their creatures, human and divine, is the majesty of majesties and no power-hungry human can compare.
Pentecost 7
These readings offer thinly veiled critiques of monarchy, particularly suitable in an era where women are treated like chattel subjects dependent upon the whims of a despotic theocratic ruling class. Samuel is, surprisingly to many readers, anti-monarchy. He lists all that a king will take from the people and how they will find themselves enslaved by their own monarch.
Lacking other models, the psalmist conjures a template for a righteous monarch. It is presented as Solomon’s own prayer for a wise and just rule. It can be read in light of David’s excesses as a sincere prayer to do better. However, monarchy is a despotic venture. Solomon will not do better.
The epistle demonstrates the hostility of monarchy – empire here – to potential competitors, here the Church. Again, presaging our current era: there is no freedom to believe differently than those who hold power over your life.
And in the gospel, the One who could claim every kingdom, every monarchy, every empire, said, “you can keep that crown.” Perhaps because they would not hear him, Jesus demonstrated that there was no throne on this earth fit for his Majesty by walking away on the water, the sea that stormed and raged and from time to time swept their loved ones away.