Whatever shortcomings my non-liturgical self sees in liturgical services, the frequent and uneditorialized reading of Scripture is not one of them.  Over the last couple of years, I’ve tried to attend a local evensong service.  Psalms and songs, Old and New Testament readings: the thirty minutes is almost completely Scripture.

If I could change one thing about that short liturgy, it would be the sentence fragment that comes at the end of each Scripture reading and is followed by “thanks be to God.”

The fragment?  “The Word of the Lord.”

Instead I would say: “This is the story we are in.”

Why?  Isn’t the text the Word of the Lord?  Of course it is.  I have no problem with that.  What I do have a problem with is remembering that the story of the Bible locates me, acts as a sign and signal of my . . . of our . . . place in things.  So many stories every day to get sucked into, to tell and be told.  And all of those stories, good or bad, are parts of a larger story that draws us into it that we might live out of it.  A God who loves and rescues and reveals Himself so that we might live like Him.

“This is the story we are in.”

“Thanks be to God.”