Our Rich Liturgical Heritage
The Collect, Epistle and
Gospel
for today
The Rt Revd Dr Peter Brain
During the cold war years, with many of our fellow believers in prison camps, we asked each other in youth group: ‘If push came to shove and you were to go to prison for being a Christian, and were allowed to take only one book with you, which would it be?’ We replied: ‘Our Bible of course!’
But then the point was sharpened. ‘What if the prison guards knew that the Bible was in two parts?’ The New Testament’ was our answer. And then ‘if another guard heard that the Bible was in fact a library of 66 books?’ Then we differed, some opting for a gospel and others, an epistle.
How fortunate that none of us in Australia have had to make that choice. But if we ever had to, and no Bible or part was allowed, I would take the 1662 Book of Common Prayer (and keep quiet about the wide range of Bible passages it contains!). Not only, as with AAPB and APBA, does it contain all the Psalms, but unlike these more recent books, they contain an Epistle and Gospel for every Sunday of the (Church) year plus for the numerous Saint’s and special days, printed in full. Add to these readings we would have the introductory verses for Morning Prayer, the Lord’s Supper’s words of assurance and 16 verses urging us to be generous givers, then readings for baptism, ordinations, marriage, funerals.
I would be happy to go back to the old English text if it meant I had these passages and the Psalms ready to go if I was imprisoned for Jesus. I recall the saying:
‘Give me a Bible and a candle, and shut me up in a dungeon, and I will tell you what the whole world is doing’. More importantly I could experience the reality expressed by the translators of the 1611 AV as I read the Epistles, Gospels and Psalms. ‘If we be ignorant, they will instruct us; if we be out of the way, they will bring us home; if we be out of order, they will reform us; if in heaviness, they will comfort us, if dull quicken us; if cold, enflame us.’
The reason we read so much Scripture in our services, even more than in BCP, and are encouraged by the Bishop’s exhortation at the Confirmation Service, that we: are called to study the Bible, to take part in the life of the church, to share in the Holy Communion, and to pray faithfully and regularly (APBA p.93), is because we want to emulate our Saviour, by listening to our Father and opening ourselves to the presence and leading of the Holy Spirit.
Bible reading is not simply for our information about God, though there is no other way to know about God and his purposes than through thoughtful and prayerful Bible reading, but for our transformation, edification, emancipation, maturation, proclamation and joy. Bible reading is such a life-changing experience because its principal author, the Holy Spirit, takes the written word and makes it a living word to the believer who is keen not to quench the Spirit who dwells within, but to be consistently led by and filled by Him. This is how, in terms of our Lord’s words: ‘we abide in Him and he in us’ and how we obey his words: ‘not to live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’.
Along with the Spirit given epistles and gospels, Archbishop Cranmer has given us Collects, prayers that prepare us for listening to, rejoicing in and obeying what we read. One that has helped many in their personal and corporate reading of the Bible runs: Blessed Lord, you have caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them, that encouraged and supported by your Holy Word, we may embrace and always hold fast the joyful hope of everlasting life which you have given us in our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Its clarity is clear its humility plain and joy evident. The only way out of being imprisoned by the confines of our self-centred wills, fashions of the world and lying temptations of the evil one is to be constantly immersed in, captivated by and daily nourished by obedience to God’s unchanging Word. We honour God as we gratefully receive our heritage and love others enough, in bequeathing it to them, through our example and teaching.