A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church Year W

Year W

Wilda C. Gafney

• Publisher: Church Publishing
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781640654754
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

What would it look like if women built a lectionary focusing on women's stories?

What does it look like to tell the good news through the stories of women who are often on the margins of scripture and often set up to represent bad news? How would a lectionary centering women's stories, chosen with womanist and feminist commitments in mind, frame the presentation of the scriptures for proclamation and teaching?

The scriptures are androcentric, male-focused, as is the lectionary that is dependent upon them. As a result, many congregants know only the biblical men's stories told in the Sunday lectionary read in their churches. A more expansive, more inclusive lectionary will remedy that by introducing readers and hearers of scripture to "women's stories" in the scriptures.

A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church, when completed, will be a three-year lectionary accompanied by a stand-alone single year lectionary, Year W, that covers all four gospels.

THE LESSONS WITH COMMENTARY

Year W

ADVENT I

Genesis 16:7–13; Psalm 71:4–11; Philippians 2:5–11; Luke 1:26–38

Genesis 16:7 Now the messenger of the ALL-SEEING GOD found Hagar by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. ⁸ And the messenger said, “Hagar, slave- girl of Sarai, from where have you come and where are you going?” And she said, “From my mistress Sarai am I fleeing.” ⁹ The messenger of the INSCRUTABLE GOD said to her, “Return to your mistress, and subject yourself to her.”

¹⁰ The messenger of the WELLSPRING OF LIFE said to Hagar, “Greatly will I multiply your seed, so they cannot be counted for multitude.” ¹¹ Then the messenger of the FOUNT OF LIFE said to her,

“Look! You are pregnant and shall give birth to a son,
and you shall call him Ishmael (meaning God hears),
for the FAITHFUL ONE has heard of your abuse.

¹² He shall be a wild ass of a man,
with his hand against everyone,
and everyone’s hand against him;
and he shall live in the sight of all his kin.”

¹³ So Hagar named the LIVING GOD who spoke to her: “You are El-ro’i”; for she said, “Have I really seen God and remained alive after seeing God?”

Psalm 71:4–11

⁴ My God, rescue me, from the hand of the wicked,
from the clutch of the cruel and the ruthless.

⁵ For you are my hope, Sovereign, WORTHY ONE,
my trust, from my youth.

⁶ Upon you I have leaned from birth;
from my mother’s belly, you cut me.
You will I praise for all time.

⁷ As a portent have I served to many,
yet you are my strong refuge.

⁸ My mouth is filled with your praise,
all the day, with your glory.

⁹ Do not cast me off in the time of old age;
when my strength is spent, do not forsake me.

¹⁰ For my enemies speak about me,
and those who watch my life take counsel together.

¹¹ They say, “Pursue and seize them,
God has forsaken them,
for there is none to deliver.”

Philippians 2:5 Let the same mind be in you all that was in Christ Jesus,

⁶ who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be seized,

⁷ but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness;
then being found in human form,

⁸ he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross.

⁹ Therefore God also highly exalted Jesus
and gave him the name
that is above every name,

¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus
every heavenly and earthly knee should bend,
along with those under the earth,

¹¹ and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Savior,
to the glory of God the Sovereign.

Luke 1:26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town of Galilee, Nazareth, ²⁷ to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the name of the virgin was Mary. ²⁸ And the angel came to Mary and said, “Rejoice, favored one! The Most High God is with you.” ²⁹ Now, she was troubled by the angel’s words and pondered what sort of greeting this was. ³⁰ Then the angel said to her, “Fear not Mary, for you have found favor with God. ³¹ And now, you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. ³² He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Sovereign God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. ³³ He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his sovereignty there will be no end.” ³⁴ Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have not known a man intimately?” ³⁵ The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit, She will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the one born will be holy. He will be called Son of God. ³⁶ And now, Elizabeth your kinswoman has even conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for she who was called barren. ³⁷ For nothing will be impossible with God.” ³⁸ Then Mary said, “Here am I, the woman-slave of God; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel left her.

PROCLAMATION

Text Notes

The language of Hagar’s annunciation parallels the promise to Abraham in Genesis 13:16 closely; each is promised that their “seed” (or offspring) will be numerous beyond counting. Hagar is the first woman in scripture granted an annunciation, the unnamed mother of Samson follows in Judges 13:3–7, followed in turn by Mary the mother of Jesus. Hagar and Rebekah (Genesis 24:60) are the only women in the canon credited with their own seed/offspring; the language is usually reserved for men. (Rebekah’s seed is blessed by her matrilineal family; her father Bethuel ben Milcah bore his mother’s name, not his father’s.) Notably, God speaks to Abraham about Sarah in Genesis 17:15–16, as do the divine messengers in Genesis 18:9–10, even when she is within hearing; none speak to her.

Hagar’s abuse or affliction, more rightly, Sarah’s abuse of Hagar in verse 11, is articulated with a verb that encodes both physical and sexual violence; the verb is also used of the abuse the Israelites suffered at the hands of the Egyptians. The divine demand that Hagar “subject herself” to Sarah is communicated with a reflexive form of the same verb; she is told to subject herself to more potential violence. Some translate Ishmael’s fate in verse 12 as living “in opposition,” i.e., conflict, with his kin rather than “opposite,” i.e., in their sight or presence; the verb has both senses.

In verse 4 of the psalm, God is named as “lord” (corresponding to lowercase use as is common when addressing men) in combination with God’s unpronounceable Name, YHWH, usually rendered as “Lord GOD” (capitalized for deity). In verse 6 the “God-as-midwife” theme familiar from Psalm 22:9 takes a dramatic turn with God “cutting” rather than “drawing” the baby out. The difference is gochi versus gozi, a single letter, perhaps indicating recall of the former psalm without access to the text. The cutting itself could range from a cesarean delivery—practiced in ancient Egypt—to cutting the cord as in CEB.

In Mary’s linguistic and cultural world, in Hebrew and Aramaic, the Spirit is feminine; the Syriac text uses a feminine verb for the Spirit in Luke 1:35. Also in her world, there was no distinction between servant and slave. Mary is not saying she will wait on God hand and foot in verse 38; she is giving God ownership of her body, ownership slaveholders claimed without consent. This volume uses “slave” normatively, reflecting the troubling language in the scriptures and their contexts.

Preaching Prompts

This first lesson in each Sunday of Advent in this volume is an annunciation story: Hagar, Sarah and Abraham, the mother of Samson, and Hannah. Annunciations communicate an understanding of God involved in history and deeply involved in the lineage—ancestral and descendent—of God’s people. Mary’s annunciation and the story of Jesus’s first advent stand on that foundational understanding.

In traditional readings these women are all but reduced to biological functions, a function which not all women have or choose to perform. Yet there is space in that “all but” to see that even in a very reductionistic text these women are more than incubators. They are theologians and divine conversation partners and, in Hagar’s case, a philologist. They are also evidence that God is concerned with those who are at the bottom of all the hierarchies: women, the enslaved, foreigners, and, as so often is the case, persons in more than one category (all for Hagar), whose overlapping identities result in intersectional oppressions.

Jesus, as the incarnation of God, continued to identify with those on the margins and those excluded by the margins, “taking the form of a slave” according to Philippians 2:7. He did so scandalously, between a woman’s thighs and, as Cornel West says (paraphrasing Augustine), far too close to the orifices for urine and feces. The psalm makes clear this is not a new arena for the divine Midwife, who does not simply passively “catch” babies who largely birth themselves, but she actively intervenes to ensure a live birth, cutting what needs to be cut. Perhaps she will also deliver Mary when her time comes.

Mary takes on the language of enslavement, subjecting herself to God and God’s will, where Hagar seems to have come into bondage as a child, if not from birth. Yet there is a question in the mind of some readers as to whether Mary actually had the option to consent given Gabriel tells her what will happen to her, to her body. It is unclear what would have happened had she demurred. Yielding herself to God, Mary joins the ranks of those deemed “servants,” slaves of God: Moses, David, Paul, James. Through her yielding the first Advent comes to us, through her model and that of Hagar, we prepare for the second Advent.

ADVENT II

Genesis 17:15–22; Psalm 78:1–7; Romans 8:18–25; Luke 1:39–45

Genesis 17:15 Thus God said to Abraham, “Now as for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, for Sarah is [now] her name. ¹⁶ And I will bless her, and indeed of her will I give you a son. And I will bless her, and she will become nations; rulers of peoples shall come into being from her.” ¹⁷ Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, “Can a child be born to one a hundred years old? And can Sarah, ninety years old, give birth?” ¹⁸ Then Abraham said to God, “If only Ishmael could live in your sight!” ¹⁹ God said, “Nevertheless your wife Sarah shall give birth to a son for you, and you shall call his name Isaac. And I will establish my covenant with him, an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. ²⁰ Now as for Ishmael, I have heard you and I will bless him and make him fruitful and I will make him exceedingly, exceedingly numerous and he shall be ...