A New Resource for Climate Action Launched
The lectionary is a catalyst for churches.
This ‘catalyst reflection’ alerts readers to the acClimatise the lectionary journey that the Moderator, Rev. Mata Hiliau, will launch (with 2 short videos) on Epiphany Day 2025. This journey will unfold over three overlapping phases:
- Climate lectionary reflections
- to set the rhythm for these reflections, see here on climate and worship
- the climate lectionary reflections for Jan 2025 are available here
- future climate lectionary reflections will be available in Mission Resources and on the Insights website here .
- Review the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL), which is used by mainline churches
- Design a companion / alternative ‘acClimatise Lectionary’
- that tunes in to the quirks of life in Oceania and the global South
- and promotes climate justice at the intersection of related drives for justice
Lectionary
The lectionary is a catalyst for churches.
On Sundays and Festival days, worshipping communities gather around biblical texts assigned in the lectionary. The hymns, the prayers, the message, and the blessings are constructed to enable the selected biblical texts to speak into the lives of worshippers.
The lectionary plays a critical role in shaping the minds and faiths of worshipping communities. Put another way: the lectionary sets the platform and shapes the narrative upon and around which worshipping communities gather on Sundays and Festival days.
Bible
The lectionary leans on the Bible.
The wind in the sail of the lectionary is the respect that worshipping communities have for the Bible as scripture. The lectionary works because worshipping communities believe in and trust biblical authority.
Worshippers believe that the Bible conveys the words and will of God, and that the Bible speaks with the authority of a long, trustworthy, apostolic tradition. These positions are affirmed during worship: e.g., after biblical texts are read, a worship leader says something along the line of ‘this is the word of God’, to which the worshippers respond, ‘thanks be to God’!
Worship
Worship sustains churches.
When worshippers gather, the worship event draws them into the same frame of mind, and into the same space of faith – at the behest of the lectionary. Worshippers come as individuals, with diverse experiences and traditions, and the worship rituals seek to mould them into one body, one spirit, one community. Worship is a platform for (re)moulding.
Across denomination lines, the lectionary (e.g., RCL) brings communities from different corners of the world into the same worship space. Worshipping communities in Oceania that follow the same lectionary as communities in Europe gather around the same biblical texts, on the same Sunday or Festival day. Through worship, the lectionary brings people together across denominational, language, and geographical borders.
acClimatise
Acclimatising is a two-way process.
In theology and biblical studies, acclimatising includes contextualising a biblical text or teaching into local and current situations. There are two critical questions in the contextualising process:
- What did the biblical text say – in the Bible, to the first audience?
- What does the biblical text say to readers and worshippers – in their current situation?
In talanoa circles (see here), where conversation and interaction are expected and welcomed, a third question is important:
- What do we say at and with the biblical text?
Questions 1 and 2 acclimatise readers and worshippers to the biblical text; Question 3 is space for readers and worshippers to acclimatise the biblical text. Question 3 invites readers to bring their realities into worship and enables the reading/worship experience to be a two-way process.
Epiphany
Climate change is one of the critical challenges of our time that needs to find more attention in worship events. This conviction is the key motivation for the acClimatise the lectionary journey, which which is now avaialble ahead of Epiphany Day (Jan 06) 2025 for use in worship.
Why Epiphany Day?
First, because that is the day (12 days after Christmas) when three wise persons from the East are said to have found Mary and baby Jesus. They came with Herod’s instructions, to find the child who has been born to be ‘king of the Jews’ and then report back to him.
But, second, as they were leaving, they heeded an instruction to not go back to Herod. So they went back in a different way.
The acClimatise the lectionary journey will manifest the courage to NOT go back to the empire. To take a different way, for the cause of climate justice.