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Volume 64 Number 1
January 2010
Cover Jan 2010

Liturgy and Lent

This issue on the Lenten season is the second in our series exploring the rich resources available for preaching and teaching important themes connected to the Christian calendar. Marianne Meye Thompson’s survey of the lectionary texts invites us to return to God with a deepened trust and a renewed commitment to charity and service. Frank Burch Brown examines the capacity of both sacred and secular music to “infuse faith with heart and passion.” Robin Jensen demonstrates how simple forms and colors can deepen and expand the way we “visualize Lent.” Richard Griffiths discusses specific ways poetry can be a resource for personal devotion and liturgical worship during Lent. Paul Simpson Duke returns to the biblical texts that chart the Lenten journey with focused attention on the preacher’s task.

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In This Issue

TURNING AND RETURNING TO GOD: REFLECTIONS ON THE LECTIONARY TEXTS FOR LENT • Marianne Meye Thompson

While the season of Lent often prompts introspection, the various biblical texts set for Lent call not for turning inward, but turning again to God with renewed trust and gratitude for the steadfast love and faithfulness of God. Jesus’ death is the supreme example of the love of the God who has a steadfast commitment to deliver his people from captivity, whether captivity in Egypt, or captivity to sin and death.

LENTEN PRACTICE IN A MUSICAL MODE • Frank Burch Brown

The music most pertinent to Lent often engages and stretches us in ways that, while intimately connected with faith, can nonetheless be difficult to put into words or to accommodate within Sunday worship. Yet faith shaped by worship and Scripture informs the very capacity to hear—and be changed by—vital resonances in such music..

ASHES, SHADOWS, AND CROSSES: VISUALIZING LENT • Robin M. Jensen

Lent is not normally thought of as a time for adding to or enriching the church’s liturgy with visual art. This essay explores possibilities for using visual art that corresponds to the purpose of the season of Lent as a time for somber reflection and reconciliation.

POETRY AS A RESOURCE FOR WORSHIP IN THE LENTEN SEASON • Richard Griffiths

This article examines the suitability of poetry as a vehicle for prayer, worship, and meditation. It then takes two specific examples of Lenten courses based on poetry: one based on depictions of the events of Holy Week and one based on a discussion of the problem of suffering in a world created by a loving God. It also looks at the liturgical use of the arts in Holy Week services.

PREACHING IN THE HALF-LIGHT OF LENT • Paul Simpson Duke

Lent is a season of difficult and gracious disclosures. To preach in Lent is to give speech to alienation and contradiction, to bear witness to the transforming mysteries of grace, and to recall the church to its memory, fidelity, and hope.

Between Text & Sermon

John 7:37–39
– Barbara Reid

John 7:53–8:11
– Frances Taylor Gench

John 11:28–37
– J. S. Randolph Harris


 

Major Book Reviews

A New Climate for Theology: God, the World, and Global Warming by Sallie McFague and Ecologies of Grace: Environmental Ethics and Christian Theology by Willis Jenkins

Jeremiah: A Commentary by Leslie C. Allen

1 & 2 Thessalonians by Linda McKinnish Bridges

 

Read a selection of our major book reviews online >>

Shorter Book Reviews
Short Book Reviews and Notes

Read a selection of our short book reviews online >>

Read a selection of our book notes online >>