For years I’ve assumed that the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) dictates what we hear read on Sunday mornings in Episcopal worship. I took it almost as a law of nature: the RCL provides the appointed readings, and our parish simply follows them.

Yesterday’s service at my Episcopal church weaned me out of that assumption. It was St. Francis Sunday—the Sunday after his feast day, October 4—and also the kickoff of Stewardship Month. The readings struck me as unusually pointed, even a bit on the nose:
• Job 39 : 1–18 — God questioning Job about the freedom of the wild animals.
• Acts 4 : 32–35; 5 : 1–11 — the believers sharing all things in common, followed by the grim story of Ananias and Sapphira.
• Psalm 121 — sung by the choir.
• Luke 12 : 13–21 — the Parable of the Rich Fool.

As a listener I thought, how remarkable that the lectionary readings just happen to line up so perfectly with stewardship! Job’s wild creatures, the early Christians’ communal generosity, the warning against hoarding—it all fit. Then, in my spiritual autobiography group, a few members who also attend the Sunday morning Bible study mentioned that some part of the RCL reading was supposed to be from Lamentations, not Job. That piqued my curiosity.

This morning I checked the Lectionary Page myself. Sure enough, for Proper 22, Year B (October 5 2025), the appointed texts were Lamentations 1 : 1–6 (or Habakkuk 1 : 1–4; 2 : 1–4), Psalm 137 (or Psalm 37 : 1–9), 2 Timothy 1 : 1–14, and Luke 17 : 5–10. In other words—completely different.

Puzzled, I turned to Perplexity and then to ChatGPT to find out what had happened. Both confirmed that while the RCL is the Episcopal Church’s official Sunday lectionary, rectors have discretion to substitute readings for pastoral or thematic reasons. The Book of Common Prayer explicitly allows alternate readings for “feasts or special occasions.” It’s common, apparently, to transfer the Feast of St. Francis to the nearest Sunday and to pair it with stewardship themes. My rector had simply made an intentional liturgical choice—one that many parishes make every October.

So my perspective has shifted. I used to marvel at how the RCL passages seemed to “fit” or not fit a given Sunday, as if by providence. Now I realize that sometimes the fit comes from pastoral curation—the rector choosing readings to match what the parish most needs to hear. It’s a different kind of providence, perhaps: human discernment guided (one hopes) by the Spirit.