Lection and Liturgy

Daniel, as I have mentioned in a previous post , is not classified among the prophets in the Hebrew Bible, but as one of the rather more miscellaneous “Writings”. The main reason for that is almost certainly because it was written quite late – around the time of the Maccabean revolt 1 , as an encouragement for those who were being called to give their lives, if necessary, as a faithful witness to their God.  The writing on the wall at Belshazzar ‘s Feast. See the story in Daniel 5. The first half of the book deals with previous examples of faith shown by the legendary characters of Daniel and his companions, Hananiah, Azariah and Mishael. The story calls them both by these Jewish names, and their Babylonian names: Daniel is Belteshazzar, and his companions Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. It seems likely that these stories are already old by the time the author of the book of Daniel selects these characters for as the basis for his purpose of encouraging faithfulness in...

Ezekiel may be one of the longer books of the bible, but there are comparatively few readings from his prophecies which occur in the lectionary. Those that do tend to reflect the most straightforward aspects of his message. Right from the beginning, however, Ezekiel draws his listeners in to bizarre descriptions of his visions. Perhaps fortunately for readers and preachers, these are omitted from the Sunday cycle of readings. Ezekiel’s visions – a woodcut by Hans Holbein via Wikimedia Commons As a priest, he has a particular interest in the Lord’s glorious presence dwelling in the temple. The book begins with visions given to the prophet in Babylon, and part of the burden of Ezekiel’s message is that the Lord’s glory had left the temple in disgust. Much of the first half of the book, despite being set in Babylon, seems to be addressed to the residents of Jerusalem before their exile. Ezekiel puts a great deal of stress on the transcendence of the God who nonetheless ad...

Over the last few posts, we’ve seen how there is a continuing thread running from Judaism into Christianity of reading the scriptures in the context of giving worship to God. One of the obvious questions that the early church then found itself asking was “Which books should we read in public worship?”.  This was one of the key drivers in developing a sense of “bible”: making lists of the books that Christians should read above all when they met in public to worship God, and which would therefore also form their core collection of texts when they wanted to think about faith and life. Some of these books were clearly inherited from Jewish tradition, from Jesus as a user and interpreter of scripture, and then from his apostles and the earliest Christian communities. These earliest communities, the ones we find reflected in Paul’s letters, didn’t know they were Christian, of course. They simply thought of themselves as people who were finding the Jewish prophecies ...