The Glory Job

In our house, the glory job is applying the finishing touches in the kitchen – plating up the pear and endive salad just so, and then adding the sprinkle of pecans.  Growing up, our son was always keen to step in for these kinds of tasks. At church, the glory job – if you don’t count the priest – is the lector. Some might say that the chalicist is more important and I would agree, but the glory goes to the lector.

It is the lector who delivers the word of God from the Old Testament and the Epistle (or Revelation)(or Acts) to the congregation. It is the lector who stands alone under the gaze of all and reads the holy words. I am a lector at my church and I take the job very seriously. For about 15 years now, this has been my great pleasure.

A good lector will practice the reading ahead of time. Even a familiar reading can trip you up with a barrage of subordinate clauses (Paul is famous for these) or a tricky pronunciation. Two very helpful websites will ensure that the lector can access the Sunday readings and pronounce even the most exotic words correctly. They are www.lectionarypage.net   and   http://netministries.org/Bbasics/bwords.htm#e  

I recommend these sites highly. 

The lector will want to read the passage smoothly, of course, but more important still is to read it in a neutral tone. Some passages are emotional, some are fraught with harshness, and some are simply puzzling. The lector must strive to deliver all texts without prejudice. The congregation should not get a sub-textual sermon from the lector. If the lector is transported with love or filled with disgust at the reading, the congregation must never know.

Being a lector is a holy task. Reading Scripture aloud in church changes a person. I felt such a change a few years ago when I was set to read the section of Genesis 2 where God creates Eve to be a partner for Adam. I was sure I would be repulsed by that reading.

It’s easy to read this passage as an anti-feminist text. That was certainly how I felt about it going in. Could I hide my disdain? Did I even want to? But as I read through the verses, I felt strangely moved. I am not a romantic person. I do not have an ideal marriage. The idea of females being created to “help” males is just a bit offensive to me. Yet there was something in Adam’s words of joy upon beholding Eve that moved me almost to tears. I found something in that text I had never heard before: God’s love for humankind. Adam was made in love. Eve was made in love.

In fact, there was more love for Eve than there was for Adam – 100% more if I have my math right. Who am I, with my 21^st Century feminist mind set, to question God’s love or the manner of its working?

Perhaps the hardest text for me to read is the “binding of Isaac” Exodus 22:1-19. We can hear that story a hundred times and be shocked with every reading. When it comes up in the lectionary, I take at least a week to prepare. I sit with it and pray with it and ask God to show me how God loves Abraham, Isaac, Sarah, me. What does this test of Abraham’s faith say to me? Where is truth in this nightmare story? I do ultimately find answers. I find a way to read that passage conveying only God's mystery. 

In Hebrews 4 we are told:"...the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”  These words of Paul go double for the Exodus passage. 

Another passage that tempts the lector to add voice ever so subtly to the reading is Ezekiel's "Valley of the Dried Bones." Ezekiel 37:1-14. When God asks, "Mortal, can these bones live?" we all know what's going to happen. A lector can play on this and invite the congregation's (silent, of course, in the Episcopal church) response. A lector can take the insider position almost making the prophesying to the bones, the sinews, the breath a bit of comedy. 

If there are comic elements to some folks in the pews, if the passage is deadly serious to others, that is for them to decide. The lector should not lead. The preacher may do so, but not the lector. The lector reads, carefully and articulately, but leaves the message to the hearer. The only idea the lector must convey is that here are the words of a loving God to God's people.

I have learned that every passage is brimming with God’s love. You don’t have to be a Biblical literalist to see this. All scripture is holy and has God in it. It was written and selected by God’s servants. It has been argued over and prayed with for millennia. It is opened with tenderness to the wondering eyes and ears of our children in Sunday School. It is held in the firm grasp of the sick and elderly who can’t even read it any more but who want to hold it close nevertheless.

When I perform my lectoring duties on those Sunday mornings, I think of the people reading the same words all over the world. I remember all those who have read in the past and all who will stand in my same spot in the future. The glory job that is mine is to stand up and read the holy words for all those who will listen.