Epiphany 3, Year B January 22, 2012 In seminary, one of my good friends was always complaining about how the lectionary didn’t include enough of the great Old Testament stories. I hate to admit it, but I always thought it was much ado about nothing until I started preaching and thus really started paying attention. We go through pretty much all of the Gospels in our 3 year cycle, and get plenty of time with the Epistles, but other than the Psalms we only get one Old Testament reading each week. Only one-in-three of our major readings are from the part of the Bible that is 3 times longer than the New Testament. So I guess it’s not surprising that our coverage of the Old Testament is reduced to snippets and sound bites. But today’s example, from the book of Jonah, is especially egregious. The miniscule portion of Jonah that we get today is not enough to bother with. It makes both Jonah and God seem like boring and one-dimensional characters, when in reality they are anything but.