We’re starting a new newsletter series that we will call “Connecting the Dots,” all about the readings that we experience on a Sunday morning. Normally speaking here at University Lutheran we hear 4 specific readings every Sunday:
The First Reading – Normally the Old Testament, although in Easter this reading comes from the Book of Acts.
The Psalm – Always a Psalm or portion of a Psalm
The Epistle Reading – Always a New Testament reading, but not a Gospel
The Gospel – Always one of the four canonical Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John)
I confess that when I was growing up, I thought that these four readings were simply a sort of bucket of Bible verses that the pastor then could draw from and preach on one of them. But the logic of the readings is deeper than that. The readings are actually supposed to form a sort of mosaic picture of a bigger theme.
Last week there was a theme of helping those who are in need:
Old Testament – Leviticus 19:9-18 – God gives clear instructions to Israel’s farmers about a policy of leaving “left overs” when they are harvesting so that poor people can pick them up. (This then is shown in practice in Ruth 2, where Ruth picks up the left over grain from Boaz’s field.)
Psalm – Psalm 41 – David’s Psalm starts off with “Blessed is the one who considers the poor!” and then continues to be a lament from David about what he needs from God, namely healing.
Epistle – Colossians 1:1-14 – Paul’s letter to the church in Colossae starts off with his telling them that he is praying for what they need, namely that they would be filled with a knowledge of God’s will in wisdom and understanding.*
Gospel – Luke 10:25-37 – Jesus tells the story of a man who needed help, and was given help via an unusual source showing us that we are not only called to serve those in need, but that we also are in need.
* While it worked out this week, normally during “Big Green” (the Sundays after Pentecost) and “Little Green” (the Sundays after Epiphany), the Epistle lesson works through a New Testament book rather than holding with the theme of the other readings.
So why is this important? Well, the readings from Scripture that we share together are supposed to form the backbone of our community engagement with God and His Word. Reading God’s Word should always clarify the decisions that we make in life, and our communal reading of God’s Word should clarify our communal decisions as well as our individual decisions. If we are clearer about what we’re reading in the Bible, we should be clearer about what we’re doing in our lives. Thusly, probably (hopefully) every University Lutheran who attended worship on Sunday had some memory of the readings, and maybe that meant that we were thinking about how we could help those in need around us.
I get kind of excited when I think of what it could mean if we were clearer about what God’s Word says, and if we, out of that clarity, started behaving with ways that betrayed our clearer thinking about God’s Word. What if we treated every Sunday as important news coming from God for how we were to try to live our lives that week? I confess that I don’t often do that, but what if we were able to be about 100 people (or more if you count guests and alumni) who all were this week working to help those in need around us? I think it could be powerful. Or what if after this Sunday we just got honest about our own neediness and started being vulnerable about that? That could be powerful too.
So my hope as we endeavor into this new series is that we’ll get clear on the readings, and getting clear on the readings, we’ll start getting clear about what God is saying to us this and every week of our lives as we show up to worship and receive His Word.