Liberation Lectionary
every season has a story.
The Liberation Lectionary is a Black Liberation worship resource for Progressive Christian communities. Created & curated in partnership with Saint John’s Church - The Beloved Community, and the St. Louis Association of the United Church of Christ, the lectionary is updated every Sunday morning. Scroll through the seasons to learn more about the stories we’ll share.
Stewardship In Creation
Celebrating God the Creator, learning our part in the creation story and caring for our world through climate, food and land justice, and greening every space we are able. This season often happens during Native Heritage Month. Expect a focus on spiritual practice and recommended resources connected to honoring and celebrating Indigenous peoples.
In the Liberation Lectionary, Creation Season is the first season on our church calendar. It usually falls in the four weeks before Advent.
ADVENT
Themes on the season of preparation for Jesus’ arrival, with reflections on Jesus’s family tree.
Christmas
Also called Christmastide. This season usually coincides with the cultural holidays of Kwanzaa and Hanukkah.
Epiphany
Illumination through the life of Jesus. Remembering and Celebrating the bright lights in our faith family tree. This season often carries Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and parts of Black Heritage Month.
Lent
A season of preparation. Learning through the later ministry and ultimate sacrifice of Jesus, the Humble king. We often spend time in Women’s History Month during this season.
Resurrection & Ascension
A celebration season, also known as Eastertide. Reflections to remind us to live out the good news of new life, lifting and amplifying the causes of social justice.
Pentecost
Study and celebration about the origins of the global church, and the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in connecting the people around the globe. Appropriately coincides with multiple cultural occasions such as Asian American Heritage Month, Pride Month, Black Music Month, and Disability Justice Month.
Sabbath Rest
Annual season of rest from all ministry labor for the purpose prayer and fasting. Often coincides with Black August: when we study Abolition theology as a course set for our future..
Renewal Season
Remembering God’s promises that all things will be made new. Participating in the cultural honoring of Latiné Heritage Month and Philippino Heritage Month.
About the lectionary archive
The Liberation Lectionary is an ongoing project. While we will use themes, particular scripture, remembrances and principles on repeat, each year will bring a new thing that causes the learner to engage differently. Scroll through past seasons to learn more about the stories we all share.
LECTIONARY ARCHIVE YEAR A
advent 2021 thru renewal 2022
ADVENT - The season of waiting for the Promised One
Week One: The Tenacity of Hope. Hear from Lucille, Pauli, Tamar, Thomas Dorsey and more this week as we reflect on the first theme of the Advent Season.
Week Two: The Power of Peace. Hear the voices of a prophet, a prostitute and a panther in this second week of Advent. Join the ring shout in Congo Square as we reflect on the Power of Peace.
Week Three: Unmovable Joy. Blessed are the joyful! Hear from Ella Baker, Audre Lorde, cousin Elizabeth and Ruth from Moab this week in our Advent journey through Jesus' grandmothers, this third week of Advent.
Week Four: Liberating Love. Come learn of a Love that “recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.” and wait on the One who can lead us to salvation, through the loving voices of Saint John, Mothers Maya, Toni, and bell the beloved.
CHRISTMAS -The season of celebration for the God who is with us!
Week One of the Christmas Season is the Celebration of Kwanzaa.
Day Two: Kujichagulia (Self-Determination)
Day Three: Ujima (Collective work and responsibility)
Day Four: Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics)
Day Five: Nia (Purpose)
Day Six: Kuumba (Creativity)
Day Seven: Imani (Faith)
Christmas Season Week Two: Pray with Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman, weep with Mother Rachel, and travel with the Magi this second week of the Christmas season. May we face no new year without the fullness of our faith in a God who sees our tears, and sends good gifts as a promise to save us from our piecemeal emancipations, to deliver us into a new day, by a new way.
EPIPHANY SEASON: Jesus, The Light of the World
Week One: Their Eyes Were Watching God. The voices of Zora, James Baldwin, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and more join us this week to open the season of Epiphany - the time of remembrance and celebration of Jesus our Emmanuel (God with us) whom we see revealed as the light of the world.
Week Two: Only Light, #ReclaimMLK. A celebration of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King. We strive to uplift the architects of the civil rights movement whose legacies make our liberation struggle the bright and undeniable light of the world.
Week Three: Send the Light. Langston Hughes, Angela Davis, Arturo Shomburg and others spread the light of truth and liberation.
Week Four: You are the Light of the World. The final week of epiphany season brings a birth story still in progress, about humanity as the light of the world.
Black Heritage and the Afro Future
Celebrating the saints and committing to raise up the next generation.
Week One: Black and Beautiful. a biblical perspective of the phrase Black is Beautiful. This week we are praying the poetic anthem of the Johnson brothers, and looking at scriptures where God casts a shadow as protection for us, not a threat. Music from Marvin, Mahalia, Abbey Lincoln and more!
Week Two: Give Love Words. We are celebrating the unfailing love of Creator God, which speaks to us and brings us into trust. Celebrate Black Love Day with bell hooks, James Weldon Johnson and Rosamund Johnson, Psalm 143, Isaiah 45 and more.
Week Three: Beyond Black History. Come converse with Mama Toni and Mama Audre, as we celebrate their shared saints day. Psalm 139 reminds us that our blackness was built by God, and meditating on verse two of Lift Every Voice moves us to make a lament to the God of both Creation and Eternity.
Week Four: Evidence of Things Unseen. By faith we remember and repeat the stories of the ancestors. This week we are reading about our ancestors in the faith, and praying a litany harmonizing one of the greatest works born of Blackness, with an earnest plea for learning how to love.
LENT
Longing for redemption, hoping for healing, finding meaning in the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth.
Download the full Lent Devotional Here
Week One: Generational Healing. We practice Lent for Liberation. Find stories of healing in history and the bible, read the reflection and use the breath prayers from Rev. Aaron Rogers, and listen to the Playlist. Plus, a bonus round up of some of our favorite titles for reading during Womxn’s History Month.
Week Two: Healing Ableism. Our theme for the second week of Lent is Healing Ableism. Use the daily readings from the prophet Isaiah and the gospel of John. Find the full stories of healing in history and the bible in the Lent Devotional, linked in this week’s entry. Read the reflection on God’s mosaic of abilities and use the breath prayers from Rev. Aaron Rogers in this week’s blog.
Week Three: Healing Our Children. We are learning from our little ones and participating in God’s promise that our children will have great peace, and be taught by God. Read on for daily readings, music for meditation, and a reflection on the power of well protected children.
Week Four: Healing from Sexism & Bigotry. Lent continues two more weeks, but Lent in Women’s History Month closes out with reflection on Deborah the Judge, in a time when much of the white man-focused world would seek to hinder such power. Daily readings continue from Isaiah’s prophecy and the gospel of John.
Week Five: Healing Carceral Christianity: This week’s theme is healing from the wounds of mass incarceration, especially as perpetrated by religious systems and figures. We breaking bread and chains with Assata Shakur, John the Baptist and artists whose work behind walls still sings songs of freedom. Daily readings continue from John’s gospel and Isaiah’s prophecies.
Week Six: Healing Climate. This week we talk about the passion of Jesus. We will read scriptures that detail his work of redemption and healing, and reflect on how that impacts our caring for creation. Join us in breath prayers, hear from Kenyan activist Dr. Wangari Maathai, and prepare to be humming “He’s got the whole world in his hands”.
Resurrection
Celebrating the work of Jesus and the season of new life.
Week One: Women Bearing Witness
Week Two: Resurrection as Return
Week Three: Recognizing Resurrection
Week Four: Rest in the Resurrection
Week Five: Resurrection Power Rising
Ascension
A time to honor the completed work and rest of Jesus.
Pentecost
The month of June means many things. Honoring Black Music Month, celebrating LGBTQ+ communities, and often Pentecost occurs in June. This June, we are remembering the arrival of the Holy Spirit during a season for celebrating the global church. We are also seeing the sacred in our queer beloved, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Movement as Mission: Freedom Season
Connecting to the present Black liberation struggle, remembering the advances of Black liberation struggles in ancient and not so distant past. July is Disability Pride Month, so when this season falls in that month, we will amplify disabled ancestors and activists.
Black August : Abolition Season
Learning and practicing imagination through Abolition Theology - the idea that punishment is not the path to safety. We also center meditations on the church militant. Black August began in the 1970s to remember the assassination of the incarcerated Black Panther, author, and revolutionary George Jackson during a prison rebellion in California. Since this time, Black August has been a time when we honor incarcerated loved ones by visitation as much as possible, advocating for repeal and release, and fighting for an end to policing and prisons. The principles of Black August are Study, Fast, Train, Fight. We hold these principles through the actions of Political Education, Solidarity Fasting, Direct Action Training, and Abolition work.
Renewal Season
Meditating on God’s promise for ultimate justice, repair and restoration, by the power of the Spirit to make all things new. We study and reclaim the Lord victorious, the kin-dom triumphant, and God’s eschatological vision, for the end of all struggle.
Renewal season usually falls in September and October, encompassing Labor Day, Latine/x Heritage Month, Indigenous People’s Day, and All Souls. This is a time for renewal by revolution; Meditating on God’s promise for ultimate justice, repair and restoration, by the power of the Spirit to make all things new. We study and reclaim the Lord victorious, the kin-dom triumphant, and God’s eschatological vision, for the end of all struggle.
Stewardship In Creation
Celebrating God the Creator, learning our part in the creation story and caring for our world through climate, food and land justice, and greening every space we are able. This season often happens during Native Heritage Month. Expect a focus on spiritual practice and recommended resources connected to honoring and celebrating Indigenous peoples.
In the Liberation Lectionary, Creation Season is the first season on our church calendar. It usually falls in the four weeks before Advent. In our premiere year, the first available Lectionary entry was posted during Advent. Creation season 2021 starts this year A officially. And currently is unpublished content which will be shared after year B archives.