Lector's Notes

 To the home page

of Lector's Notes

Pentecost (Sunday morning)

Year B, May 19, 2013

Lectionary index 63

Twenty-second digests for the congregation: Arrange with your liturgy committee to have these brief historical introductions read to the assembly before you do each reading.

Who should announce these before the first and second readings, and before the gospel acclamation? They're not Scripture, nor homiletic, so they shouldn't be delivered from the ambo. They're a modest teaching. So let the presider say them from the chair. Let the lector turn toward the presider and listen.
Print this page, cut it at the blue lines, and give the introduction paragraphs to the person who will speak them.

Pentecost (Sunday morning)

Year B, May 19, 2013

Before the first reading:

Luke's history of the early church begins with a foreshadowing of its ending, people of all nations and races hearing the mighty acts of God.
After the psalm, before the second reading, if from 1 Corinthians:

Paul describes a church diverse in its members and their gifts, united in one Spirit, united as one body.
After the psalm, before the second reading,if from Galatians:

Some who misunderstood the gospel insisted that Christians had to observe the old laws of Moses. Paul insists that is not so, and that the way of God's Spirit leads to love, joy, peace and many other goods.
Before the gospel acclamation, if gospel is from John 20:

With the image of Jesus' breath, John reassures anxious disciples that they can always count on the Spirit of Jesus.
Before the gospel acclamation, if gospel is from John 15:

For a community anxious about persecution and members tempted to abandon Jesus, John reassures that Jesus wants his followers always to have the Spirit from his Father.
To pay for use of the words above, please subtract an equal number of optional words from other places in the liturgy (click here for some suggestions).

On a new website, read a new essay about these readings for a community responding to the Word as a community.

First reading, Acts 2:1-11 [Jerusalem Bible translation]

The Historical Situation surrounding the story: The earliest Christians underwent two rapid, radical changes that their inspired authors helped them interpret (well, many radical changes, of which two interest us here). They realized after a while that Jesus was not going to return in glory as soon as they had expected, and that they had to undertake a worldwide mission in the interim. Secondly, though the followers of Jesus were originally a small group of Jews, their communities had come to be dominated by Gentile converts. When Saint Luke put pen to parchment, the questions raised by these changes governed his writing of the gospel and of Acts.

The Historical Situation within the story: Pentecost was originally a Jewish feast that brought Jews from many places to Jerusalem. The mixed crowd is a providential preparation for the beginning of the Church's mission. But, as the book of Acts continues, the missionaries will increasingly take the initiative.

Proclaiming It: The lector ought to sound more than a little amazed at the description of the extraordinary events:

The amazement should be even more evident in the lector's report of the bystanders' reaction, "How does each of us hear them in his native language?"

Given the two radical changes described above, and how they influenced Saint Luke, Father Roger Karban writes of the Pentecost event, "There's no gentle dove here, hovering peacefully over the community. The Spirit's arrival is accompanied by the disturbing images of wind, noise and fire." All the more reason to let your proclamation be emphatic and dramatic.

Pronouncing the Words: Proclaimers of this passage can lose themselves in the pronunciations of the place names at the end. Learn and/or decide now how you're going to say all those difficult words. In the past, I have minimized the importance of exactly correct pronunciation of Biblical names, in favor of confident pronunciation. I have reconsidered. Of course it's bad to insult the intelligence of those listening by delivering an unprepared reading; that's obvious when one stumbles over strange names as if seeing them for the first time. But confident, uninformed pronunciation is worse. It amounts to bluffing. The bluff is immediately exposed to anyone who knows a correct pronunciation or can deduce one. To those, the bluff says "I don't think you're smart enough to know how this should be pronounced." The ethics of poker should not dictate the aesthetics of worship. To hear acceptable pronunciations of these names, click here.

Even more important is how you proclaim the final line, "yet we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God."

Second Reading, 1 Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13 [Jerusalem Bible translation]

The Historical Situation: Among the Christians living in the Greek seaport Corinth, there was a diverse manifestation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Prophets, preachers, healers, teachers, you name it, the Spirit bestowed the job on someone there. These folks often exercised their gifts in spectacular, ecstatic ways that drew a lot of attention, as they do today among people who attend revivals and the crusades of some faith-healers.

The Theological Background: Paul spends chapters 12, 13 and 14 of this letter trying to get the Corinthians to enjoy and express their gifts in ways that give strength to the community and glory to God. For the natural tendency of some of the supernaturally endowed was to glorify themselves with their God-given power. To make this point, Paul identifies the members of the church with the members of Christ. That is, he goes further than we usually admit. He doesn't just compare the church to a body, he says the members of the church are the members of Christ.

Proclaiming It: The latter sentences of the reading, therefore, deserve clear and emphatic proclamation. I would say slowly and deliberately the phrase "so also Christ," then pause for just one beat. Make your listeners say "What?"

So why does Paul care so much about the Corinthians' use of the spiritual gifts? It's his goals: The unification of the church by the humbling of all members, the squelching of their rivalries, and the re-direction of their efforts to mutual service and mission. Understand that, and make them your own goals, and you'll proclaim the reading properly.

A Theological Reflection: This, by the way, is the context of the famous passage we hear at so many weddings, "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love ..." That's the middle chapter of Paul's extended teaching about the gifts of the Spirit. It's consoling to realize that, while the Spirit may not grant me tongues or healing powers, I can always choose to exercise the gift of love, which Paul ranks higher than all the rest.

Optional Second Reading in year C (2013, 2016), Romans 8:8-17

The Historical Situation: In Romans, Paul wrote several chapters arguing that as Christians, we do not save ourselves by our good works, but we (should) let God save us by undeserved grace. Faith is acknowledging that we can't save ourselves, and trusting that God will save us anyway. In chapter 8, he reiterates the same teaching in terms of living in the flesh versus living in the spirit. One of the things he means by "living in the flesh" is that self-sufficient, indeed arrogant stance that says, "I can make God save me by how well I keep the Law, or do good deeds, or do religious practices." On the contrary, by baptism into Christ's death and resurrection, we receive the same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead. There's no way we could deserve such power, but it is ours to accept, which is to live in the spirit.

Your Proclamation: The heavy theology here puts the lector in a demanding situation. What would have to happen to enable a lector to get this teaching across to a congregation? A steady, gradual teaching effort, of several weeks, by the preachers, lectors, liturgists and the parish's adult education team could accomplish it. In the absence of that, let the lector emphasize the various contrasts in the ways Paul describes life in the flesh versus life in the spirit. A listener might not know why the Apostle was so emphatic, but may get the idea that there's a right way to be right with God, and one or more wrong ways to try it. If that causes even a little self-scrutiny by some worshippers, your proclamation will not have been in vain.

Alternate second reading, year B (2009, 2012), Galatians 5:16-25

The Theological Background: The contrast of flesh and spirit is a favorite theme of Saint Paul's. But here the term "flesh" has a nuanced meaning. Living in the flesh means not just being ruled by one's carnal desires. It also means trying to live by law alone, trying to keep the Old Law of Moses (roughly speaking, the Ten Commandments) by one's own moral strength. That is, using the resources only of one's own flesh to control one's own flesh and make oneself right with God. Paul is sure it won't work; we're not that strong morally; he has tried it himself. Only the Spirit can make us right with God. Good practices, even religious practices, that people attempt on their own cannot make us right with God.

So it's from both kinds of bondage that Paul wants people to be free. Neither carnal desire nor rule-bound self-righteousness should enslave us.

As you read this, let the stark contrasts in the text find rich expression in your voice.

Comments powered by Disqus

Several other commentaries on these passages. All are thoughtful, all quite readable, from the scholarly to the popular.
Links may be incomplete more than a few weeks before the "due date."
Lutheran pastor and college teacher Dan Nelson's notes for a study group

Dan covers different passages for the second reading and for the gospel



Archived weekly column of Father Francis X. Cleary, S.J. (Log in using 0026437 and 63137.) 		Father Roger Karban of Belleville, Illinois, USA, writes a newspaper column about every Sunday's readings. Here are his essays for today's passages, from: courtesy of The Evangelist, official publication of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, New York, or of The Belleville Messenger, of the Diocese of Belleville.

Read all of Father Karban's recent columns here, at the site of FOSIL, the Faithful of Southern Illinois.

The Text This Week; links to homilies, art works, movies and other resources on the week's scripture themes Saint Louis University's excellent site for Sunday liturgy
Most welcome here are Reginald Fuller's commentaries.

(Caveat lector as of April 14, 2013, Lector's Notes' author is speculating about the exact URL of SLU's Pentecost offering, since it's not yet posted. If you get a 404 Not Found, try here).

The Lectionary selections in the frame at the left, if any, are there for your convenience. The publishers of the page in that frame have no connection, except for membership in the one Body of Christ, with the publisher of this page. Likewise the publishers of the pages on the links above.

Return to Lector's notes home page

Send email to the author.

Last modified: April 14, 2013