On the Second Sunday after the Epiphany

Romans 12.6-16; John 2.1-11

The governing principle of the prayer book’s Holy Communion lectionary is not generally lectio continua, the reading of a book of the Bible from beginning to end in order. We did not follow the example of Zwingli’s Zurich or Calvin’s Geneva, where the old Western eucharistic lectionary was replaced by reaching and preaching through books of Scripture from beginning to end. Rather, like the Lutherans and some others of our fellow Reformed, Anglicans were content to maintain the historic western eucharistic lectionary, with its short, thematically selected Epistles and Gospels for every Sunday and holy day. For Anglicans, it is in morning and evening prayer where the lectio continua approach dominates: this is where we read books of the Bible from beginning to end, one after another.¹