Voices Found and the Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church

                                                                          


Voices Found# 16

With Miriam we will dance 

and celebrate the day

when sullen seas were 

swept apart to show the way

the dancers lend us grace 

to turn from seas of fear

towards the unknown wilderness

 for God is there.

Words: Janet Wooten

Music: Leoni, Hebrew melody, harm. Hymns Ancient and Modern

Forty-six hymns!

Voices Found celebrates our foremothers:  Sarah, Jocheved, Miriam, Deborah, and Hannah in the Hebrew Scriptures; Mary, Elizabeth,  Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susannah, and Phoebe in the Christian Scriptures; also the persistent widow and other brave souls with no name.  

Like the  lectionary, the Episcopal Hymnal1982 reflects a masculine bias.  It excludes or marginalizes the lives  of women. We do not sing about the faith of our mothers but we can sing "Faith of our Fathers." We need to sing about  matriarchs  as well as  patriarchs; we need to celebrate brave women who answered God's call.    

In 1997,  General Convention adopted a resolution to publish an official hymnal supplement to the Hymnal 1982 to expand from the andro-centric bias of  existing hymnals. Thus,   Convention directed the compilation and publication of a new supplement to focus intentionally on the voices of women.  That supplement, Voices Found, was released in 2003. Many parishes in the US and abroad now sing from it.  However, many parishes still use only the  familiar patriarchal hymns from 1982.

In 2021, Church Publishing released the Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church, Year W, which intentionally includes scriptural lessons that highlight women in the Bible.   In 2024, over twenty years after the publication of Voices Found,  the Women's Lectionary, Year C emerged.

In her introduction to the Women' Lectionary for the Whole Church, the author, Wilda Gafney, points out that of the over 2 billion Christians in the world, about 1.4 billion customarily hear or read scripture mediated through a common lectionary. Jews also use a lectionary to mediate scripture.  These scriptures and lectionaries are andro-centric (male-focused).  There are at least one-hundred and eleven named women in the Hebrew Scriptures-- yet women  are so under-represented that very few students or parishioners can name even ten women in the Bible. 

  

Worship leaders, clergy and musicians, choose  hymns for congregations that support  lessons appointed in  lectionaries  in the Book of Common Prayer and the Revised Common Lectionary.  Like the Scriptures themselves, these lectionaries are andro-centric,  focused  on a masculine point of view.  As Gafney states, very few women are actually named in the Bible and even fewer are included in the lessons selected for the lectionaries.  Thus, the opportunity to sing about women is limited, in part, because of the biased  lessons appointed in the  lectionaries. 

With permission of their bishops, a few parishes are using the new Women's Lectionary for worship.  I hope more will follow.  As I have worked through Year B, I have found the lessons and commentaries with notes to be inspiring and affirming as I have highlighted  musical suggestions  from Voices Found that support use of Gafney's lectionary.  Her translations also offer feminine images for God and  emphasize women's experiences. Again, Voices Fund offers hymns that enhance the lessons.  

 To encourage women and men to pray and meditate on these readings, I have selected Voices Found texts by women poets as meditations and reflections on the appointed  scripture.  I have found these texts to be uplifting personally and nourishing spiritually.

 As we begin year C,  I reflect on the my work of the past season;  writing, praying, and reflecting on the Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church Year B with Voices Found: Women in the Church's Song.  I deeply appreciate author Gafney's work  in translating the texts and arranging a lectionary that highlights women in scripture and offers translations that affirm women's voices in the  Bible.  Now, I look forward to finding more spiritual treasures as I explore Year C.

Lisa Neufeld Thomas, 2024