Readings at Evensong
yohan300
Shipmate
Do the two readings at evensong need to be from the bible? 😐
The first reading is always from the old testament and the second always from the new testament. Or at least that is what I thought until this evening...
The first reading is always from the old testament and the second always from the new testament. Or at least that is what I thought until this evening...
Comments
I'm all for poems by R.S. Thomas during sermons or whatnot but this seemed a bit of a disruption to the expected and familiar rhythm of the service to me. I was wondering how unusual it was.
It's an extra-diocesan peculiar. I'm not sufficiently well-versed on ecclesiastical law to know whether its therefore within the Province of Canterbury, but if it wasn't a peculiar it certainly would be.
At least the choir sang the Nunc after this non-biblical reading, and not something by Bob Dylan...
I wonder if this idea (which seems sensible to me - the extra reading, perhaps in place of a homily, gives some insight into the subject of the day) has been extended, but perhaps illicitly?
Most of the patristic readings are worthwhile; the ones I didn't like were just travelogues or accounts like "we fasted for two weeks, and then the Bishop came, and we listened to him, and then we fasted for another month..." On those days I went to From the Fathers to the Churches and usually found something more edifying.
Examples could be Christian poetry, secular literature, secular song lyrics spoken rather than sung, and religious-but-not-Christian scripture and literature. If a church service presents something from one of these sources as a “reading”, is that prohibited?
I've never been to a Common Worship evening service, perhaps I should get out more.
I'm all in favour of extra readings, but was just surprised that what I had assumed was a core part of the service as much as the Mag and Nunc are, was actually entirely dispensable.
I've been to quite a few CoE cathedral evensong services and couldn't imagine such a substitution occurring there, and I had thought this peculiar would be the same. I guess I should have realised the change in the small print dropping the BCP was significant. However if a non-biblical second reading is the only consequence I'm going to notice, I think I can cope should I visit this place again.
Cathedrals and 'places where they sing' typically have a choral Eucharist on Sunday mornings and Choral Evensong in the afternoon/evening. The former, these days, will probably be from Common Worship and the latter almost always from the Book of Common Prayer (1662 edition). It may be that some parish churches will have a sung evening service on Sundays that is based on the CW office but I don't know of any (then again I need to get out more).
I don't know if they ever substitute a prescribed reading, or add an extra one.
FWIW, our previous priest held daily Morning Prayer in church, using the Franciscan Office - the present chap has daily Mass instead, but AFAIK he also says the Office in church most days, using the Roman Catholic form.
Sometimes there will be a service to mark an occasion, when anything might happen, but in modern language, with prayers, hymns, Readings from the Bible. Rarely will there be a reading from another source, but that would be in addition to not instead of OT and NT.
I'm not talking about readings from some outside source that a preacher quotes in a sermon. What I am asking about is going through a liturgical service where you do the minimum number of Scripture readings (starting with "A reading/lesson from" and ending with "The word of the Lord/Here endeth the lesson", or whatever your tradition's equivalent), and then come up and have a reader do another reading from a secular poem or non-Christian scripture (Starting with "A reading/lesson from", etc, but maybe not ending with "The Word of the Lord"), and then having the preacher come up and do their sermon (or having a Gospel reading after the non-Scripture reading and then the sermon), and that would be fine?
Why on earth would it not be?
Well, my denom tries to avoid that, because the ignorance level here is astounding, and people WILL take Khalil Gibran or whatever as part of the Bible (and everything that goes with that in their minds--Word of God, authoritative, something to punish the pastor for supporting, what-have-you) if we don't draw a very clear bright line between Scripture readings and other stuff. Which in practical terms means using words like "This is the Word of the Lord" etc. to mark readings off, and generally avoiding nonbiblical readings at times and places where people are used to getting the Bible. I mean, you can have your Florence Foster Jenkins equivalent if you absolutely must (and can convince the powers that be before they runs screaming) for your wedding or funeral--but we'd ask you to either save it for the reception, or do it standing somewhere other than the lectern. That sort of thing. And we won't do it during regular public worship at all.
In that regard, it might be worth noting that the RC Office of Readings, one of the canonical hours of the RC Liturgy of the Hours/Divine Office, includes non-scriptural readings.
Which is why I said "not counting martyrological readings." The Office of Readings includes readings from more than just the lives of the Saints, but they tend to be from the writings of the Saint of the Day or from some Patristic writing, Papal Encyclical, etc., regarding the Feast of the Day. But I'm putting all these under the umbrella of "martyrological," whether it has to do with a specific Saint or not.
I know some denominations are stricter about this than others - and I'm not personally opposed to having non-scriptural, non-Christian, or non-religious readings be quoted during a sermon or some other homiletic or explanatory part of a service, or maybe even quoted briefly in a prayer for a special occasion (but the source should be said out loud during the service so that people don't get it confused with Scripture or with the text of the Liturgy). I just think that if you have someone read a passage from the Quran or a poem by TS Eliot during a public Christian worship service, it should not be done from a place or in a manner where people think that it is being put in the same category as Christian Scripture, unless it is in a denomination like the Unitarian Universalists that very strongly embraces religious pluralism and encourages its members to find spiritual meaning wherever they can. Also, if a worship service is relatively unstructured and spontaneous, like a Quaker meeting, then (depending on the congregation), there may not be any problem with having anyone in the congregation read a passage from what they feel is appropriate.
I was wondering if any denominations had rules that specifically addressed this possibility, and what those rules were. Because let's face it, every denomination probably has a minister who decides one week that they want to preach on the Bhagavad Gita, on Rumi, or on Sylvia Plath. The question is, can those readings be "readings" in the liturgy or can they only be things that when the preacher comes up to preach they say "the readings this week make me think of this quote from...."?
Absolutely forbidden. The proclamation of the Word at the Eucharist is one of the ways that liturgical theologians recognise the presence of Christ. So its non-negotiable.
Yes the Office does contain non-scriptural readings but they are usually from the Greek or Latin Fathers and are resolutely non-secular. And thats just the Office of readings - the other hours don't really have readings, just a verse or two after the psalms which are the main focus.
The only slight exception is that a poem is sometimes read at the end of a funeral, but that isn't universally allowed - places that ban eulogies at a Requiem would certainly ban a poem too.
How does that mean that non-Scriptural readings can't be used as well?
Good question. I really don't know. Maybe its to avoid suggesting a false equivalence. For whatever reason it is forbidden - the Liturgy is an expression of the whole Church, not just that individual.
On occasion, at the discretion of the Minister, a reading from non-biblical Christian literature may follow the biblical Readings.
In the olden days when we had Midnight Mass at midnight and it was packed, I put together a 30 minute pre-Mass service of Advent into Christmas readings and hymns/carols. The last reading was always a bit of Leo the Great where he announces the Incarnation.
So I guess that's me bound for a long spell in Purgatory.