Dear Friends,
This year the month of May is fully enveloped in the season of Easter. Of course even that phrase “season of Easter” isn’t one that most people give much thought, but in the Revised Common Lectionary and the liturgical year the weeks between Easter Sunday and Pentecost Sunday do constitute a season of sorts. It may not have quite the heft of Advent or Lent, but it is a season, and there are ways in which that something is said across different parts of the lectionary.
Gospel readings, naturally, will fill in what they can of the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus. There aren’t enough of those, though, to constitute the six Sundays between Easter and Pentecost for one liturgical year, let alone three. As a result, we “drop back” into the accounts of Jesus’s ministry on earth, often pointing forward to the time after the resurrection. The epistle readings are more variable. To give just one example, this year’s epistle readings for the season are from the book of Revelation, not a book that shows up in the lectionary very often. If I weren’t going to be out of the pulpit a couple of Sundays, I might have gone there.
But we will, this year, be turning to the book that perhaps has the most to say about living post-Easter. For this season, the typical readings from the Old Testament (not the Psalm readings), though, are replaced by texts from the book of Acts. The readings stretch from the earliest days of the resurrection and the disciples trying to make their way in Jerusalem, to more being added to their number and the good news making its way out of Jerusalem proper, to the travels of Paul and his companions as the gospel spreads across the Greco-Roman world. That will be the route we follow for this Easter season .
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Speaking of being out a couple of Sundays, I will be away on May 4 for some continuing education back at my old seminary in Virginia. I am grateful to Shannon TL Kearns for filling the pulpit. The following Sunday the pulpit will be filled by the Executive Presbyter of the Presbytery of Southern Kansas, Rev. Christina Berry, who will stay on after the meet-and-greet lunch on May 10 to lead worship (including communion) on May 11. Oh, that prompts one more reminder: if you plan to attend that lunch - please, please RSVP to PSK connector Catherine Neelly Burton at pskconnector@gmail.com to let her know you’ll be there. You wouldn’t want the lunch to run out of chicken, would you?
Charles