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
Advent 3 Year W
Another week in Advent, another annunciation. This time the woman is not named, her son will be, Samson the strong. Like Yocheved (Jochebed) the mother of Moses, she will be the mother of Israel’s deliver. Yet this woman named many times over by the rabbis is more than a womb pressed into service. She is a conversation partner of the Divine, the preferential partner, her husband having been passed over. She is more than her womb and more than her motherhood, an important reminder in these stories that focus so much on the promise of children and one Holy Child. The psalm places the blessing of God on those who trust and revere her. It doesn’t matter what kind of bodies they have and what functions they perform or are incapable of performing. In the epistle we all become the longed for children, we are the beloved children of God. In the gospel, two extraordinary women celebrate and surely commiserate over two even more extraordinary pregnancies. Mary, drawing on the spirit of the prophet for whom she was named sings as Miriam sang, the hymn of Hannah recontextualized for her context, a lesson in exegesis.
Advent 2 Year W
This week the sacred stories converge to tell a story of a holy family that extends beyond a nuclear family or even a single lineage. It begins with the family we might today call Iraqi who will become the ancestral parents of the people who will come to be called Israel, a reminder that we are one human family. The psalm calls us to preserve our ancestral heritages across generations by by telling and teaching our stories of and with God. As the generations unfold and we wait for the culmination of the great story, Romans calls us to persevere and hope for that which we do not yet see. The gospel marks the climax of the story beyond compare. The sacred story is bigger than any one individual or people. The ark of salvation bears us all. In the present it can be difficult to reconcile our shared identity as the family of God with the very serious issues that divide and fracture us. At the same time, our shared identity does not require erasure of the identities we already have in our families and lineages. The Church has always struggled to accept these realities, preferring instead to sanctify some identities, genders, ethnicities, nationalities and, ways of practicing and believing above others. This new year on the calendar of the Church offers a new beginning, another chance to live into the richness of the tapestry that is the heritage of God as the story unfolds.