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
Easter 2
During the 50 days of Easter, the story would’ve spread like wildfire. And not everyone would’ve told it the same way. Someone would have told a story of one formerly outcast woman going to the tomb by herself, determined to complete the burial rites and then if necessary, to carry his body away all by herself and re-bury him someplace safe. Another story would have had a group of the women who were his disciples coming together to do right by the one they love for his sake and for the sake of his mother. And then there would be the men who say that they were there first and nobody saw them because they ran to tell their brothers. There would be so many stories but they would all agree on this point: He lives!
Thomas was not alone and being afraid to trust the hope that the stories might be true. He was there, for a while anyway. No one who has seen it can forget the sights, sounds and smells of crucifixion: the blood, the tears, the sweat, hammering and cursing, the sound of flesh tearing, the feces and urine released by dying bodies. Thomas was not alone struggling with these incredible stories, hoping they were credible yet fearing they could not possibly be. After all, Jesus spends 40 days visiting his disciples and showing himself, presenting himself, to them. Struggling to believe a miracle is no sin. And Thomas does not deserve the ridicule heaped upon him or all the bad preaching at his expense.
In the report of Jesus visiting his disciples during this period there is so much room for the sanctified imagination of black church preaching. I can see him walking through walls and closed doors as he has in other reports. Stopping by for a meal as he has elsewhere. Maybe some lamb this time. In these visits with anonymous disciples I see Jesus visiting the women whose names are missing or muddled. There would be teaching; Jesus would tell them of the glories to come, ascension and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and her power, soon come. There would be love and laughter. And it would be over all too soon. And then he would be off to another home, heart and, heart. And they too would proclaim with certainty, “Christ has risen from the dead just as he said.”
Eastertide
It ain’t ova!
Eastertide, the season of Easter: Fifty days of wonder as an impossible story spreads in ripples and waves and soon everyone knows someone who knows someone who saw him or touched him. In Easter week, Jesus is walking through walls (Monday), having a fish barbeque on the beach (Tuesday), opening minds to understand the Scriptures in their new post-resurrection context (Wednesday), going fishing and filling nets to bursting (Thursday). With Friday the one week anniversary of his brutal death comes and we revisit Mary’s encounter with the risen Christ and ponder this most extraordinary week. On Saturday we remember the risen Christ appearing to his female disciples and sending them to find his male disciples in hiding and proclaim to them the good news, to preach the gospel to them.
And then comes Sunday, the one week anniversary of the triumph of life over death, of love over hate, of the power of the Holy Spirit over the might of empire. Imagine with me. Using my sanctified imagination, I look back and see groups of disciples and their families and friends and neighbors gathering to tell the story. Mary and the other Mary and Susanna and Johanna and that other Mary and Mary Magdalene all preaching the gospel of a God whose love transcends death. Of Jesus as the living, still living, yet again living, embodiment of that love. I imagine Peter trying to follow suit and getting heckled for abandoning Jesus. I imagine it won’t be long until the male disciples start telling a story that is not theirs because they were in hiding.
There would have been no previously existing liturgy for that first Sunday in Eastertide. They would create their own of word and table. They would tell the story and like all such gatherings, they would feast before, during, after. And, at some point, someone would repeat the words that Jesus said, taking a loaf of bread in her hand, she would say, “This is my body that is broken for you. This is my blood, the cup of the new covenant that is poured out for you.” And in my womanist womanish sanctified imagination, I see the Ever-Blessed Virgin Mary offering the sacrament, this first eucharist, once again offering the body and blood of her holy child to the world, this time with joy.