At Morning Prayer, we have two readings - one from the Old Testament, one from the New. And at the Eucharist, likewise two readings - but this time, usually, one from one of the epistles, and a reading from the Gospel. And, for the Gospel reading, we stand up. What's behind all this?
We know little about how early Christians conducted their worship. Luke, in the book of Acts, implies that they met weekly "for the apostles' teaching, for the breaking of bread, and the prayers" (Acts 2:42). Probably in the earliest days, the "teaching" consisted partly of commentary on the Old Testament (for the New had not yet been written, of course!) - like some of the sermons recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. And partly of instruction, maybe reading out a letter from one of the church leaders.
Our regular Sunday worship reflects this. Every Sunday at 8.30, and every other Sunday at ten, we meet, just as the early church did, for teaching, for praying, and to share bread and wine together, as our Lord taught us. On the other Sundays at Morning Prayer, we take up another thread of the Christian tradition. We reflect on our Christian life, with prayers, psalms, hymns and readings, in a service taken over from the monks and priests of mediaeval times, who contemplated the joys of their calling not once a week, but seven times a day!
Morning Prayer involves reading, singing and praying - and, when it is the main Sunday service, as in St Ursula's, learning too. The Eucharist is more structured. If you look closely at your service book, you will see that it is divided into sections, with names- the Ministry of the Word is one part of our preparation for the Ministry of the Sacrament, when we "proclaim our Lord's death until he comes again."
In the Eucharist, the Ministry of the Word centres on a proclamation of the Gospel. In some churches, great ceremonies accompany this - the book containing the Gospel is carried in procession into the middle of the church, with candles symbolizing the light it brings. During the procession, a psalm is sung. The congregation stand in a circle around the open book.
At St Ursula's we have no procession, and we sing a hymn rather than a psalm. We still call it the Gradual Hymn, meaning "the hymn for the procession" And we still stand and face the reader who proclaims the Good News.
Other readings from the Bible have always come before the Gospel. The current lectionary (or list of readings) provides for one from the Old Testament and one from the New, making three readings in all - but normally one of these is optional, and we omit it. The usual readings at the Eucharist tend to be a portion from an Epistle, and the Gospel.
There are several lectionaries, from 1662, from 1928, from 1970 and from 1997 At present we mainly use the 1970 lectionary, which is based on specific Sunday "themes" Other lectionaries have tried to concentrate on methodical Bible reading - the new 1997 lectionary, for example, concentrates successively over a three year cycle on Matthew, Mark and Luke's gospels (with John's version finding a place in each of the three years).
Of course we are selective in what we read. Jesus himself taught that parts of the Bible had got it wrong (look at Mt 5:38!), and it is not very helpful to remind ourselves that ostrich meat was once unclean (Deut.14:15) or what a good thing it was to slaughter babies (Ps 137:9) Except at the Gospel, our readings nowadays end with the affirmation: "This is the word of the Lord." We may or may not agree that this is literally true (the phrase is only used in the Bible for particular words of prophecy), but at least the selective nature of the lectionary makes it easier for us to reply with "Thanks be to God"!
HD