The Word of God?

Like many people, our Bible reading at daily offices has been structured by a lectionary - in our case, the Episcopal Church's two-year cycle of daily readings.  For years, for decades, we've each read these passages in their cycle.  But it's getting harder.  Now, at least for now, we're taking another road.

In the season after Pentecost we enter the grim history of Israel with.  This year we're in Samuel, and we will follow through the Kings, the exile, and the return.  This is important history, but we can't do it this year.  I won't speak for Elizabeth's reasons: here are mine.

First, the picture of God throughout doesn't mesh with my understanding of Jesus' Abba God.  This God remains quick to anger, jealous and demanding.   And though scholars today like to say that this God loves all of creation and just holds Israel to be an experiment in fidelity, a light to the nations, this history makes that perspective somewhat obscure.  You have to really work to get that.  And yes, it is a story of human failure and human striving, of God continually giving us another chance, but it is a story in which "we" delight in seeing our enemies (God's enemies) cut into pieces and fed to the dogs.  I know these stories.  I need some other wisdom right now.

The other reason this feels important is that the Christianity of the future has to meet other religions on another ground than exclusivism or triumph.  We need to learn from one another, and we need to learn to live together or all our traditions will vanish in favor of some insane, demented versions of one or another.  This summer we are reading a lot of work from other faiths or from the intersections; our shared book for this month is The Garden of Truth, about Sufi wisdom.

So for the season after Pentecost we are opening another way.  At Matins our first reading is from holy writing from many sources.  We began using Love Letters to God, a collection of writings from many traditions and times.  We're looking at the World Wisdom Bible now, and may start using that.  For our second reading we're reading the Epistles straight through.  Then at Vespers we read the Gospel appointed by the lectionary.

Again, this works for us because we have read the Hebrew Scriptures for a long time.  If you do not know these writings, don't pass them by.  They are your inheritance, they have shaped your faith in ways you do not know, and they must be encountered.  But if you have read them, if you want to broaden your understanding of God and of others, I invite you to find some other readings and make them your "lectionary" for the reason of the season until Advent.  And I'd love to hear what you decide to read!

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