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
Feast of the Annunciation
Gentle Followers, I am behind and off-track. My calendar is a wilderness of commitments.
I w
anted to leave you a world for the next nine months: Marytide.
In the midst of the Lenten season as we prepare to walk the way of Calvary, a way of suffering and death, we are also walking the way of new life in what I call Marytide. The Feast of the Annunciation is also a feast of the incarnation. We celebrate the Feast of the Incarnation on 25 December, but the moment the Word becomes flesh on our calendar — which does not necessarily correlate with the world beyond the pages of the calendar — is 25 March when we celebrate that Love has come into the wilderness of the world in a virgin’s womb. For the next nine months as we pass through Holy Week, Easter and Eastertide, Pentecost and the Season After Pentecost and, Advent we shall be walking with Mary in her miraculous pregnancy.
In the medieval period, some marked the change of the year with the Feast of the Annunciation so that the year turned on this day and not 1 January, a sign that this was the day on which the world began to turn.
This pencil and mixed media artwork entitled “Expectation” by Curtis Woody is from my personal collection.
Lent 5
The first lesson contains the words of a prophet speaking to Israel’s restoration after their decimation, deportations and exile. We read it affirming God’s fidelity past and present, without erasing or negating the original cultural context. The psalm is a riot of praise for all of God’s works. (Year W was not initially conceived of with liturgical churches that do not say “hallelujah.)” For Paul, one of God’s mighty acts is the inclusion of Gentiles in the ark of salvation which he uses to address nascent anti-Judaism in the early church. The gospel offers different models for the breadth and scope of the home God offers all within the embrace of her love.