On Thursday, June 15, the first lesson at the Daily Eucharist came not from the Old Testament or the Epistles, but from the second half of Chapter 7 of the Apocryphal book of the Wisdom of Solomon. On Friday, June 16, something similar happened. The first lesson came from the first half of that same chapter. This coincidence of lessons leads to a simple question: How often does Wisdom appear in the Lesser Feasts and Fasts lectionary?

The answer: lessons from the Wisdom of Solomon appear 11 times. Ten of the 11 come from either Chapter 3 or 7 of the book. If one considers the other Wisdom book from the Apocrypha--the Wisdom of Jesus Ben Sirach, commonly called Ecclesiasticus—the concentration of Wisdom lessons is even greater.

This second Wisdom book also appears in the Lesser Feasts and Fasts lectionary nine times, though that is not immediately evident since the editors of Lesser Feasts and Fasts designated the book as Ecclesiasticus on some occasions and as Sirach on others. In total then, there are at present 20 lessons in the Lesser Feasts and Fasts calendar from the two Apocryphal books with Wisdom in their title. That total may soon rise, however.

The General Convention has sent the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music’s Resolution C003, which calls for consideration of a feast day for the Martyrs of Sudan with suggested lections that include Wisdom 3:1-9. Even without the additional lesson, however, the 20 Wisdom lessons in Lesser Feasts and Fasts are already more numerous that the lessons from any book of the Old Testament.

With the exception of Isaiah (15 lessons) and Proverbs (five lessons), most other books of the Old Testament are severely underrepresented. There is, for example, only one lesson from Genesis and one lesson from any of the 12 minor prophets. There are no lessons from 1st or 2nd Kings, Joshua or Judges.

Could there be too much Wisdom? Were it the case that every person who attended a weekday Eucharistic service in the Episcopal Church also attended Sunday worship, one might argue that this concentration of lesson from Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus would simply provide a complement to a comprehensive cycle of biblical lessons heard on Sunday. Increasingly, however, complicated work and travel schedules mean that for some persons it is a weekday, rather than Sunday service, that becomes the basic unit of church attendance. Such persons are introduced to an eccentric diet of Scripture, filled with Wisdom to be sure, but lacking in any overall coverage of the Old Testament. The same could be said, though to a lesser degree, of lessons from the Psalter or the New Testament.

To this point the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music (SCLM) has not addressed this apparent imbalance. It will, however, have the opportunity to do so in the near future. The Convention also has adopted an amended form of D008, which calls upon the commission to consider authorizing use of the more comprehensive Daily Office or Daily Eucharistic lectionaries as alternatives to the lections listed in Lesser Feasts and Fasts. Let us hope that the standing commission exercises wisdom in dealing with this resolution.