Sunday Toolkit — 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, 15th November 2026

A note before you start: the second reading this week, Revelation 17, is the passage that calls a woman “Babylon” and “mother of whores”. It has a long history of being used against women, sex workers and queer people. This toolkit names that plainly, and section 4 has a suggested sentence to read before it so nobody in the room is caught off guard.

1. Encouragement

This Sunday you get to welcome a queen. The Queen of Sheba travels a very long way, asks hard questions, says what she thinks, and goes home again, and nobody punishes her for any of it. If you are feeling a bit nervous about standing up the front, she is good company to keep this week. She came with a list of questions rather than a set of answers, and the story treats that as a strength.

You are allowed to come to Sunday the same way. Revelation 17 is a hard text and you don’t need to have made peace with it before you read it aloud. Leading people through a reading you find uncomfortable, honestly and without pretending, is a real gift to the room, and it is plenty.

2. This Week’s Reading

Old Testament: 1 Kings 10:1-13, the Queen of Sheba. Read on Bible Gateway (NRSVue). A queen hears about Solomon’s wisdom and comes to test him with hard questions, bringing a caravan of spices, gold and precious stones. She looks at everything, is left breathless, praises God, exchanges gifts with the king, and then goes back to her own land.

“Not even half had been told me; your wisdom and prosperity far surpass the report that I had heard.” (1 Kings 10:7, abridged)

New Testament: Revelation 17:1-6, the woman on the beast (the Women’s Lectionary calls her “The Great Whore”). Read on Bible Gateway (NRSVue). In a vision, John sees a woman dressed in purple and scarlet and covered in gold and jewels, riding a scarlet beast and holding a golden cup. A name is written on her forehead: Babylon. Most scholars read her as a picture of the Roman Empire, the great power of John’s day, with its wealth and its violence.

A couple of things are worth knowing as you read. Both readings are full of luxury goods, and both have someone who is overwhelmed by what they see. The Queen of Sheba is a real woman with power who gets to speak, while the woman in Revelation is only ever a symbol and never says a word. The readings don’t explain how they belong together, and you don’t have to either. This is also the middle week of three Sundays with women from Revelation, and the second last Sunday of the church year, with Reign of Christ on 22 November.

3. What Richard’s Explored Before

Sheba has been here before. On 12 November 2023, the congregation used 1 Kings 10:1-13 (with Proverbs 3) for a farewell service, when Tony, a retiring minister, laid down his stole. People processed in to Handel’s “Arrival of the Queen of Sheba”, and the songs that day included “For Everyone Born, a Place at the Table”. No sermon text from that day has survived, so there is no “last time Richard said” to draw on, but some people in the room may remember the music.

Revelation 17 is new ground. There is nothing in Richard’s sermon records on this chapter, on Babylon, or on the book of Revelation at all. The nearest relatives are sermons on Vashti (April 2026) and on the enslaved girl in Acts 16 (June 2026), both about women whose stories get told by someone else. One caution: the sermon logs stop in August 2026, so anything since then isn’t in them.

Past liturgies. Words for Worship has a file for 12 November 2023 (the Sheba week) and one for 15 November 2020, and L3 has one for 16 November 2025. These match by date and church-calendar label only, not by reading, so they may have nothing on Sheba or Revelation. Worth a quick look if you want general prayers for this time of year.

Where the congregation has just been. On 25 October the service paired Michal with James 3 on careful speech, during Gambling Harm Awareness Week, with prayer stations around the room. On 1 November it is All Saints, with Abigail, Philemon and communion. As things stand on Drive, 8 November is planned as a Second Sunday Conversation with the NCLS survey, with readings still to be announced. So your service picks the Women’s Lectionary back up after a slightly different week, and it may help to say a sentence about where we are in the story of Revelation.

4. Resources

The draft liturgy is already well under way. There is a Liturgy – 15.11.26 document in this Sunday’s folder on Drive. It opens with Handel’s “Arrival of the Queen of Sheba” playing while items of faith (Bible, candle, cross, cup, bread) are carried in, and it draws its call to worship, offering prayer and benediction from Spill the Beans, Issue 48 (pages 80 to 86, written for exactly this pairing). The Acknowledgement of Country, Opening Prayer, Prayer of the Day and Prayers for Others and Ourselves are still marked “to come”. Spill the Beans is a licensed resource, so check the shared folder for it rather than looking online.

There is no service bibliography for 15 November yet, so this toolkit has worked from the draft liturgy instead.

Two ideas for the Centring Meditation, both already in the draft: a short Spill the Beans reflection on power, read slowly with silence after; or an activity where people get a copy of the reading and write across it the questions they would put to the powerful, since the queen “came to test him with hard questions”.

Something to touch or smell. The queen arrives with spices. A few small bowls of cinnamon sticks, cloves or cardamom passed along the rows while the first reading is read would let the room smell her caravan arriving. It is a simple thing and it tends to stick in people’s memories.

A sentence to read before Revelation 17. Something like: “Our second reading uses a woman’s body as a picture of a cruel empire. That picture has hurt real women, and we read it today with our eyes open.” Change the words to suit your own voice. Nothing in Spill the Beans or the other resources covers Revelation 17, so there is no ready-made liturgy for it. If you want a support line in the notices, 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) is the national service for sexual, domestic and family violence; check the number on their website before printing it.

A possible Acknowledgement of Country, since that part is still to come. Use it, change it, or ignore it:

The Queen of Sheba heard reports from far away, and when she came and saw for herself, she said that not even half had been told her.
We meet on Kaurna Yerta, and we confess that the half has not been told.
The Kaurna people have cared for this land and its waters for longer than any empire has stood.
Sovereignty was never ceded. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.
May we listen for the stories we were not told, and walk towards truth, treaty and justice.
Amen.

For background on writing one of these well, the guest post linked in section 6 is worth a read.

5. Songs

Used before: “For Everyone Born, a Place at the Table” was sung on this very reading on 12 November 2023, and on a few occasions since, so the congregation knows it. Spill the Beans suggests it too. No song choices have been made for 15 November yet in the draft liturgy, and none of the suggestions below were sung on 25 October.

For Everyone Born, a Place at the Table (Shirley Erena Murray). A table where everyone has a place, which suits a story about a foreign visitor treated as an equal. Familiar, so an easy choice.
Not the Powerful. On the congregation’s song list, and sung in February 2022 and February 2025. It is about God choosing the overlooked over the mighty, which sits well beside two readings full of royal wealth. There’s no reliable link for it online, so check your books for the words and number.
God of Freedom, God of Justice (Shirley Erena Murray). A prayer for justice against the powers that harm people, good for the Revelation side of the week. It is on the congregation’s song list.
Come and Seek the Ways of Wisdom (Ruth Duck). Wisdom pictured as a woman calling people to her, and the queen came looking for wisdom. Spill the Beans suggests it. It is not on the congregation’s usual list and they haven’t sung it before, so it would need a run-through with the musicians.

6. Weblinks

Neither reading is in the standard Sunday lectionary, so most lectionary sites have nothing written for these verses. These are the most useful of Richard’s regular stops for this week:

Rod Benson, “35 online resources for prayer and worship leaders”. Brand new on Richard’s list, and written for exactly the people reading this. It sorts prayer and liturgy sites by tradition and says what you are allowed to reuse.
John Squires’ blog, a guest post by Nathan Tyson on Acknowledgement of Country. Helpful background if you are writing this week’s Acknowledgement.
Laughing Bird. Weekly prayers and liturgies from an Australian writer, free to use in worship with acknowledgement. Good for the Prayers for Others and Ourselves.
Progressive Christianity. Short reflections arranged by theme rather than reading, including justice and listening.
Howard Wallace. A Uniting Church Old Testament scholar’s notes, useful for background on the world of the kings.

If you want to go a bit deeper on the readings themselves, Richard’s own Monday Prep notes for this week list several articles, including feminist and womanist readings of the Queen of Sheba.

7. Pop Culture

Five songs for the lead-up to the service:

Nat Bartsch, “Searching For The Map”. A short, gentle piano piece with no words. Good for imagining the long journey the queen made to get there.
Tracy Chapman, “Mountains O’ Things”. A song about wanting more and more possessions and what that hunger does to people. It pairs well with all the gold and jewels in both readings.
Jason Isbell, “White Man’s World”. A man looking honestly at the advantages he was handed. A way into Revelation’s question about who benefits from an empire.
Brandi Carlile, “The Joke”. Written for people who get mocked and labelled for who they are. A good song to hold beside a woman with a name written on her forehead by somebody else.
Courtney Barnett, “Nameless, Faceless”. A Melbourne songwriter on online abuse and on women not feeling safe walking home. It connects to how a text can make a woman into a target. It has a little strong language, so it’s one for your own listening rather than the service.

From the library: Joy Ladin, The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God and Torah from a Transgender Perspective. Ladin is a Jewish poet and scholar who reads the Bible’s stories about strangers and outsiders through her own experience as a trans woman. It isn’t about the Queen of Sheba, so this is a bit of a stretch, but a foreign queen being welcomed as an equal at a royal court is very much the kind of story Ladin helps you see freshly. It is thoughtful and readable, and you can dip into a chapter at a time.

On screen: Queen of Katwe (2016, directed by Mira Nair, with Lupita Nyong’o and David Oyelowo). Based on the true story of Phiona Mutesi, a girl from a poor neighbourhood in Kampala, Uganda, who becomes a chess champion. A young African woman winning contests of wits against people who expected nothing of her makes a lovely companion for a queen who came to test a king with hard questions. It is rated PG and is a good family film, with a couple of things to know about: a child is hurt in a motorbike accident, the family is homeless for a time, and Phiona’s older sister is drawn away by an older man and becomes pregnant (nothing shown).

8. Notable Dates

9 to 20 November: COP31, the UN climate conference, is under way in Antalya, Türkiye, on the day of your service. The Uniting Church has joined other faith leaders calling on Australia to back a global fossil fuel treaty. Revelation 18, just after this week’s reading, lists the luxury trade of Babylon and the people it costs, so a line in the prayers would fit naturally.
11 November: Remembrance Day. Worth a mention in the Prayers for Others and Ourselves, as always.
16 November: International Day for Tolerance (UNESCO), and Margaret of Scotland, a queen who washed the feet of poor people before she ate her own meals and set up ferries to help pilgrims on their journeys. A second queen for the week, and one remembered for using her wealth for others.
17 November: Hilda of Whitby, who led a monastery of women and men in seventh-century England. She noticed Caedmon, a worker from the monastery stables who had been given a song in a vision, and named him a poet and songwriter. The Calendar of Commemorations also notes that she was not afraid to oppose church leaders when she disagreed with them. A good day to give thanks for the people who spot gifts in others.
19 November: Mechtild of Magdeburg, a thirteenth-century mystic and poet whose criticism of church leaders led some to call for her writings to be burned. In one of her poems God calls the soul “my Queen”, and the soul arrives bringing its treasure, which makes a gentle echo of this week’s story for a prayer or a closing thought.
20 November: Transgender Day of Remembrance, when trans and gender-diverse people who have been killed are remembered around the world. It falls the Friday after your service. A candle or a line in the prayers would be a natural way for this community to hold it, alongside World Children’s Day on the same date.

9. Final Word

Here is a small thing to try this week. Before the service, write down one honest question you have about these readings, the kind you wouldn’t usually say out loud in church. You don’t have to share it. Just carry it in your pocket while you lead. The queen came with hard questions and was welcomed, and leading with a question in your pocket tends to make a leader gentler and more open with the room.

May you travel to Sunday with curiosity rather than worry. May the people you lead find more there than they were told, and may you go home again knowing you gave them something good.