I was reading from Ezekiel 16 last night - whoa was God not happy with Israel! It's no wonder He sent them into exile! Don't believe me? Read it. (Read it in ESV - NIV is too soft.)
As I was reading it, I asked my wife, "Hmm, I wonder why this text isn't included in the lectionary?" A lacuna perhaps? Or perhaps it was too poignant? You ever heard it read in worship?
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The lectionary's history might provide some perspective here. The Church year is formed around the life of Christ on the one hand (Advent - Pentecost) and the Teachings of Christ for the life of the Church on the other (Trinity Season).
So the lectionary which serves this year, serves these themes. In other words, the point of the lectionary has never been a cover to cover Biblical literacy. This was handled at the Matins and Vespers services which were held daily (and sadly now defunct) or in the everyday life of Christians.
The themes of Ez. 16, God's judgment, are certainly brought to bear in the lectionary. For example, many of Jesus' judgment parables. And the be all and end all of this is Trinity X (or maybe it's XI, I forget) which has Jesus' judgment of Jerusalem paired not with a reading from the OT, but a reading from Josephus and his eye-witness account of the historical fulfillment of Jesus warning. Complete with cannabalism and the streets running with blood.
This reading was in all the old German lectionaries and I make sure to get it into the sermon each year.
So if you want the judgment back in your church year, come home to the lectionary Luther, Augustine, and Walther used and dump that 3 year monstrosity that the pope made up in the 60's. Can anything good come from the 60's? :)
+HRC
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