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You may already know that the Sunday rotation of readings for Eucharist is a two-year cycle while the weekdays follow a three year repeating pattern. One of the significant exceptions in the year begins today since every year the scriptures for 17-24 December are the same.
This means that one year ago today and every year back into the past, the gospel reading is the genealogy which opens Matthew’s gospel, Matthew 1:1-17.
Why?
Surely it’s simply a list of more than forty mostly unpronounceable names leading up to the birth of Jesus?
That’s the point.
And this point is central.
Last year in my post for this 17 December genealogy one FFF reader, Stephen, commented:
“There’s a small language in Papua New Guinea who finally believed that Jesus was who he said he was when the translator finally translated the Matthew genealogy. He had left it to the very last bit of the New Testament because he considered it not important. It became the difference of belief in Jesus as God’s son or not.”
It’s all about flesh and blood, beginning with the promise to Abraham culminating in the fulfilment of the covenant with the birth of Jesus the Messiah.
This record of Jesus’ family tree reminds us in every name of a unique human person who lived and breathed and walked this earth, every one of them with their exits and entrances, playing many parts from infancy to earthly death, that each human life a creation of God.
Most importantly of all, God has used them all as God uses the good and the bad in each of us to sow seeds and mature and nurture faith that may bear abundant fruit only in generations to come.
And give a thought for the poor deacon or priest who has to read Shealtiel. Abiud, Eliud and Amminadab, and three dozen more near-unpronounceable Old Testament names of the ancestors of Jesus.
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Take an initiative and send me a date time and place for a FFF cafe-catchups. john@fff.org.nz. I’ll advertise these on each morning’s post throughout Advent.
New Plymouth
Thursday 18 December 1.30pm
Stumble Inn
200 Mangorei Road
New Plymouth. Joan
I love this reading! Snch a rich text, bringing the humanity of Jesus into perspective as those beautifully poetic names roll off the tongue of the proclaimer!
How blessed are we to be part of this never ending story!
Simple plea that priests without a good singing voice resist the temptation to sing this reading.
i reflected on the sense of connectedness that todays reading gives. Being connected as family or as church binds us to the teachings, the values and the faithfulness, of the group. It provides a sense of history, of purpose, and places our experience in a greater whole. It saves us from the errors of our own paths but should never stop us from exploring and challenging, like a leading climber stretching forward but held safe by the rope that connects us to a strong anchor. Naming those in our family , our church, or our wider faith journey that have formed part of that golden rope is something to be grateful to God for, daily.
You say that the Sunday rotation of readings for Eucharist is a two-year cycle while the weekdays follow a three-year repeating pattern. Isn’t it the other way round with Sundays following a years A, B & C cycle and weekdays alternating between Years 1 & 2?