The Lectionary.
A lectionary is a list of readings. As a spiritual discipline, a person may simply open The Bible at the beginning, and start reading. They might read a chapter or more each day. The weakness of this kind of reading is that it is the reading style of our time, the method for reading a novel, or even a text book. It assumes a narrative thread from beginning to end. However, a text book is often not read from cover to cover. It may be designed as a resource with discrete sections to be consulted at appropriate times.
The Bible is even less novel-like. With 39 "books" in the Hebrew Scriptures, and 27 in the Christian Scriptures, there are multiple authors, times, geographic locations, and theological perspectives represented. This considers only the main collection (Canon) of the books common to most Christian traditions. There are also the books not present in the Hebrew Scriptures or "Old Testament" which are often known as the deutero-canonical books. How does one read all this and make sense of it?
Christian groups have traditionally created lists of texts that are considered important to read. They sketch out some of the key planks of that group's tradition, and its understanding of the Christian faith.
One well known modern lectionary is the Revised Common Lectionary, which is used by many churches world wide. It divides the bible over a three year period, based around the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. The readings are chosen to reflect the cycle of church year as it progresses from the hope for a Messiah (Advent), through Christmas, and on to Easter. Each week also has a reading from the Hebrew Scriptures, the Psalms, and from the letters of the New Testament. The Gospel of John is used in each year around the times of the major festivals. There are often readings assigned for special days which do not occur on a Sunday.
Many ministers preach from a lectionary. It provides a discipline which works against the temptation to avoid uncomfortable subjects and concentrate on favourite themes.
A lectionary provides an overview of the Christian tradition. Unfortunately, it also represents a particular theological and historical outlook. Some people point out, for example, that women's stories, often already marginalised in Scripture are further submerged by the RCL . The lectionary is also constructed of short readings, excerpts from the whole, so that some parts of the bible will never be read in public worship under this scheme. It also means that the wider flow of a narrative is interrupted, and perhaps divided in ways never anticipated by the authors. In their own devotions, many people will at least read from the end of the previous week's readings to the end of the designated readings of the current week, in some attempt to overcome this disintegration of the narrative.
Seek not to be rich
Week of Sunday February 27
Gospel: Matthew 6:24-34
(19 ‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; 20but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22 ‘The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; 23but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!)
24 ‘No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.
25 ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? 28And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” 32For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
34 ‘So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.
This chapter begins with comments about when one might receive one’s reward. “Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.” vv 2, 5, 16. Clearly, some forms of reward are worth more than others!
Jesus also makes us question where our treasure is.
19 ‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; 20but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
It is all preparation for the big issue of the chapter, which is whether we stand in light or darkness (22,23) in relation to the question of wealth. Wealth is health... or disease, depending on exactly what our treasure is. What do we have our eye fixed upon?
24 ‘No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.
This was said to people who would have thought me unbelievably rich. This is despite the fact that my stipend is significantly below the “average income” for Australia. How much more then, might you cannot serve God and wealth apply to me, and to my culture?
Like Jesus’ society, my society has a huge imbalance of wealth. There are many, many people who receive far below the mean income, and many fewer who sit far, far above that mean income figure. And like Jesus’ society, income is critical to our survival.
Our family income will drop by almost half next month, when I cease one of my ministry placements. As we have worked out how to survive, what is most apparent is not the problem of food and bills- we will manage. The problem is that our social interaction will be hugely curtailed. All our life choices will be under threat. There will be no discretionary spending. I have been here before; it is not pleasant. But Jesus says, “Do not worry.”
Jesus was speaking, first of all, not to me. My straightened circumstances will be temporary, I hope. The people to whom Jesus spoke were mostly permanently impoverished. And yet he still warned them about wealth! He was not warning the comfortable middle class at risk of becoming complacent in their affluence. He was warning the poorest of the poor about the dangers of wealth; the dangers of everything to which they might aspire!
From perspective of poverty his words may seem almost obscene:
26Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
If we are not persuaded by a theistic, interventionist image of God, then this is little comfort. It is just words, and a whistling in the dark. And
... can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? (27)
This is true. But it also does not pay the mortgage, or rent, or provide food. For me not to worry, or be concerned in some way, would be foolhardy, in my present circumstances. And as much as I have approached our situation from a fairly relaxed perspective, I still sometimes find worry flooding in upon me, unasked. Not worrying is hard work!
28And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31
Lovely poetry, but when you join the lines of poor people seeking food handouts- I've done this- it is truly the poetry of the privileged. We need to preach this with caution. Some of our congregation, and we might be surprised by whom, will find it ridiculous and scandalous- it will make them stumble- because they are going hungry. Unless we privileged people free ourselves from the hold possession have on us, and generously and wastefully use them for the kingdom of God, we abuse people when we quote these verses.
There is also another ethically contentious verse:
32For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
This is religious and racial prejudice, plain and simple. We can understand its genesis, a religious community under pressure, but we must not pretend that Christians are faithful to God with respect to possessions and that those who are not Christians are somehow lesser human beings. They too, trust the universe for their survival.
Is there anything here for us in these verses?
The brutal facts of reality are that our existence is controlled by probability to an extent that is quite frightening. We impose false patterns upon the randomness of life to deal with the terror. There seems no reason, for example, why several of my student friends died in car accidents and I did not. Or why a fellow cyclist was run over and killed by a truck, whereas I was run over by a truck, and escaped with bruises and a busted bike. Why my friend Rosemary slipped and fell off a mountain and was killed, but I fell of a mountain and ended up in a pool of water at the bottom and didn’t drown, is beyond me. There is nothing but luck and circumstance that means I have always lived in a stable, wealthy society, comfortably in the middle class, while my friend Mary has lived through war and seventeen years in a refugee camp.
We build up theologies which suggest that God loved me more than these other people, and we make God into a monster. Mary’s faith shames me. Rosemary was a person I admired. I aspired to some of her character traits. Why would God punish them and not me? Only an arbitrary creature, who is not God, would do that.
In our society wealth and possessions are the insurance we seek so that we may avoid the arbitrary nature of the universe. They become just as much an idol as those immature images of God which imagine we are held in the palm of his hand, and that nothing will touch us.
In the end, if we are to be healthy, we can take sensible precautions and live wisely, but must then simply trust Reality – God – The Cosmos – The Divine that we will survive. Otherwise, buried in possessions, we become captive to our fear of death. (Read Freud's Ghost and the Quest for an Authentic Faith or a good intro. to this.)
This is not mere resignation. Matthew chapter six is not resignation rolled up in poetry to soften the harshness of our reality. There is, according to Jesus, another “place” to anchor our hope. A place that is not mere material possession. He says
33... strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Instead of striving for higher wages, better job security, more superannuation, and a safer suburb, I should strive to become the kind of person described by Matthew 5; a beatitudes kind of person. That will do two things. Firstly, it will move me towards the righteousness of God. It will make me perfect (5:48) in the sense of being whole and mature.
More than this, it will transform my priorities and realities so that possessions, and security from worldly goods, will lose their appeal. I will recapture the poetry of Matthew 6 in this week’s reading. It will be true, not because I have some foolish notion of God, but because possessions lose their charm over me. I will see them for the empty things they are.
Andrew Prior
Direct Biblical quotations in this page are taken from The New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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