Sun. Mar. 1, 2009 (Laurel Gasque)

On March 1st we observed the First Sunday of Lent. Laurel Gasque spoke briefly on the four lectionary texts of the day, showing how they were interrelated and how, by reading them sequentially, we can make new observations about each of the texts. Early Christians were intrigued by these possible cross fertilizations, even if we might find them a bit stretched (e.g., 1 Peter looks at the story of Noah as prefiguring baptism). Laura then showed pictures of a series of woodcuts from the late 1400s published within that broad genre German scholars popularly called the "bibliae pauperum" (paupers' bibles). This grows out of the genre of miniature manuscript illuminations that had enjoyed popularity among the wealthy European monastic and aristocratic circles for centuries, and has strong antecedents in medieval art and stained glass windows. The individual woodcuts we were shown depict multiple vignettes--scenes of a various biblical stories. Laura asked us to consider how the selections of these stories and characters might have helped medieval believers think about specific themes or interrelationships between the stories, and how those stories might have been reinterpreted by readers encountering these juxtapositions (just as we do in our lectionary readings). [JEK] Listen to the sermon audio MP3 recording from Sunday Mar. 1st, 2009 using your browser's preferred media player.