Lectionary Poems, Year A

Lectionary Poems, Year A
Author: Scott L. Barton
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 129
Release: 2019-12-13
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1725253062

This is a book of insightful, often humorous, and always grace-filled poems for each Sunday of the church year and occasional other days. Based on one or more texts for Year A of the Revised Common Lectionary—Original Testament, Gospel, Letters, and Psalms—each poem reveals surprises about God much like the proclamations made by the biblical writers. For preachers, the poems here will be a joyful springboard to the sermon, each one a mini-sermon in itself; and for people in the pews, a brand-new way of thinking about the Bible. The index of 124 biblical references will make the book usable at any time. With titles like “The Once and Future Comeuppance of the Butters,” “What’s Really Original Here,” “Three Drinking Limericks,” and “They Thought It Was the Feds,” these poems will help the reader discover the God known and shown by Jesus and the earliest faith communities as amazing, abundant, boundary-pushing, and bold.

Lectionary Poems, Year B

Lectionary Poems, Year B
Author: Scott L. Barton
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 144
Release: 2020-11-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1725286432

Here is a second book of engaging, creative, and theologically astute poems for each Sunday of the church year and occasional other days based on the texts for Year B of the Revised Common Lectionary—Original Testament, Gospel, Letters, and Psalms. With the conviction that Scripture always proclaims something new about God, each of these 107 poems reveal a surprise, often with humor, like the proclamations made by the biblical writers. There are five new hymn texts with suggested tunes, and another poem can be a light-hearted choir anthem. For preachers, study groups, and personal devotions, the index of 128 biblical references will make the book usable at any time. With titles like “Kind of Disturbed by Some of These Scriptures,” “Does Jesus Still Thumb His Nose?” and “From the KJV to Shazam!” these poems will provoke, amuse, inform, and inspire anyone who suspects the Bible’s purpose is to proclaim grace for our lives.

Lectionary Poems, Year C

Lectionary Poems, Year C
Author: Scott L. Barton
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2021-10-11
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1666719730

This is the third book in the series of poems based on texts from the Revised Common Lectionary—Original Testament, Gospel, Letters and Psalms which look to the heart of each text in order to provoke in the reader a new experience of the good news of God. They are written in a variety of poetic styles and rhythms, sometimes with humor, sometimes with an eye to the issues of contemporary life which the gospel addresses, and always with faith that there is something new for the people of God every day. This volume has 150 poems and includes seven new hymn texts with suggested tunes. Arranged chronologically for Church Year C, the index of all 147 biblical references will be useful even for those not specifically following the lectionary. With titles like “The End of Going to Church”; “To the Readers of the Christmas Story: No More ‘Ho-Hum, the Reading of Scripture’”; “Send in the Clowns”; “Omega 3 Antidote to Scarcity”; “Comeuppance of a Blowhard”; and “All This Mommixity and Foofaraw,” these poems will delight, inform, and inspire preachers, devotional readers, and study groups alike.

Sounding the Seasons

Sounding the Seasons
Author: Malcolm Guite
Publisher: Canterbury Press
Total Pages: 102
Release: 2013-02-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1848255152

Poetry has always been a central element of Christian spirituality and is increasingly used in worship, in pastoral services and guided meditation. Here, Cambridge poet, priest and singer-songwriter Malcolm Guite transforms 70 lectionary readings into inspiring poems for use in regular worship, seasonal services, meditative reading or on retreat.

Breaking Bread with the Dead

Breaking Bread with the Dead
Author: Alan Jacobs
Publisher: Profile Books
Total Pages: 154
Release: 2020-09-10
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1782835849

A Spectator Book of the Year It's fashionable to think of the writers of the past as irredeemably tarnished by prejudice. Aristotle despised women. John Milton, the great champion of free speech, wouldn't have granted it to Catholics. Edith Wharton's imaginative sympathies stopped short of her Jewish characters. But what if it is only through the works of such individuals that we can achieve a necessary perspective on the troubles of the present? Join literary scholar Alan Jacobs for a truly nourishing feast of learning. Discover what Homer can teach us about force, what Machiavelli has to say about reading and what Charlotte Brontë reveals about race. Not all the guests are people you might want to invite into your home, but they all bring something precious to the table. In Breaking Bread with the Dead, an omnivorous reader draws us into close and sympathetic engagement with minds across the ages, from Horace to Donna Haraway.

Rehearsing Scripture

Rehearsing Scripture
Author: Anna Carter Florence
Publisher: Canterbury Press
Total Pages: 172
Release: 2018-07-31
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1786220733

Popular preacher Anna Carter Florence explores how to read, encounter and interpret Scripture as it was originally intended - by doing so collectively with others. Drawing on practices from drama and the theatre, she shows how to bring familiar texts to life, uncovering meaning and better apprehending biblical truth for daily life. Her methods are illuminating, easy to grasp, and easily adaptable to a variety of contexts - ideal for study group leaders and pastors seeking to bring the Bible and the real lives of congregations into conversation. Full of helps for preachers especially, Rehearsing Scripture invites groups and churches to gather around a shared text and encounter God anew together.

There is a Future

There is a Future
Author: Amy Bornman
Publisher: Paraclete Press
Total Pages: 107
Release: 2020-12-15
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1640606149

Learning about the ancient Jewish tradition of midrash, a rabbinic form of textual interpretation that seeks and imagines answers to unanswerable questions, felt to Amy Bornman like a poetic invitation to re-engage with the Bible in a new way. There is a Future: A Year of Daily Midrash – an award-winner in the Paraclete Poetry Prize competition – grew from a yearlong project to read the Bible daily, and write daily midrashic poems in response to the readings—to honor the text by wondering about, and struggling with, it. By engaging particular passages of scripture across the Old and New Testaments directly, these poems imagine new dimensions of the text, and make vivid connections to the world as it is now and to the author’s own life—emerging at year’s end with new hope in a future that at times feels impossible, as the days pile on days and the text’s enduring questions continue to ring.

Another Scroll

Another Scroll
Author: Amy G. S. A. Brooks
Publisher: The Pilgrim Press
Total Pages: 110
Release: 2021-11-15
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 0829821848

“A timely and poetic journey through sacred texts that causes the reader to pause and consider matters worthy of our action, repentance and transformation. Another Scroll is in defiance to oppression and encouraging to the work of liberation.”—The Rev. Dr. Pamela Lightsey, Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs, Associate Professor of Constructive Theology, Meadville Lombard Theological School. To the Revised Common Lectionary, Amy G. S. A. Brooks adds another scroll of holy texts: gritty, fiercely loving, justice-minded poems that defy theological oppression. Another Scroll: Defiant Readings for Lectionary Year C is a sacred invitation to open the scripture and allow it to unfurl with the courageous affirmation of every reader. As Brooks notes, “Beloved, in case no one has told you: you are whole, you are holy, you are wholly loved.”

Reading Revelation Responsibly

Reading Revelation Responsibly
Author: Michael J. Gorman
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2011-01-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 162189262X

Reading Revelation Responsibly is for those who are confused by, afraid of, and/or preoccupied with the book of Revelation. In rescuing the Apocalypse from those who either completely misinterpret it or completely ignore it, Michael Gorman has given us both a guide to reading Revelation in a responsible way and a theological engagement with the text itself. He takes interpreting the book as a serious and sacred responsibility, believing how one reads, teaches, and preaches Revelation can have a powerful impact on one's own--and other people's--well-being. Gorman pays careful attention to the book's original historical and literary contexts, its connections to the rest of Scripture, its relationship to Christian doctrine and practice, and its potential to help or harm people in their life of faith. Rather than a script for the end times, Gorman demonstrates how Revelation is a script for Christian worship, witness, and mission that runs counter to culturally embedded civil religion.

A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church Year B

A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church Year B
Author: Wilda C. Gafney
Publisher: Church Publishing, Inc.
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2023-07-18
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1640655719

The next installment in the critically acclaimed lectionary series that focuses on women's stories. In this second volume of the three-volume Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church, widely praised womanist bible scholar and priest Wil Gafney selects scripture readings that emphasize women's stories. Focusing especially on the Gospel of Mark, Year B of A Women's Lectionary features Gafney's fresh, inclusive, and thought-provoking translations of every reading, alongside commentary on each reading. Designed for liturgical use or scriptural study, this resource offers a new perspective on the Bible and the liturgical year. “Gafney's paradigm-shifting scholarship will influence biblical preaching and teaching for generations to come." —National Catholic Reporter