What
is a Lectionary?
These notes
explain some of the liturgical practices now common in the United
Church of Canada. They are intended to help those who participate
in the liturgy and worship at Squamish United Church, but many of the
elements discussed are common to other United Churches and also to
other Churches that have been part of the Ecumenical Movement in the
Western Church of the last 80- 90 years. I am a "lectionary
preacher, " meaning that I use the lesson assigned to the day as found
in the Revised Common Lectionary. Even though the United
Church of Canada is new to the idea of a lectionary, most United
Churches now use these lectionary readings in their Sunday morning
worship. What is not commonly understood is how we came to have this
three year lectionary. It is in large part a creation of the last
forty years of ecumenical relations. But what is a
lectionary? And even more to the point, how did we get the
Revised Common Lectionary we currently use?
A lectionary is
a table of scripture readings that moves through a cycle, using various
themes and the Holy Days of the Christian year. It is often used
as a way to have all the scriptures read within the span of a
three-year cycle. Therefore, a Lectionary can mean a book of the
lessons in the table, or simply the table itself. Throughout
history many lectionaries have been used in different parts of the
Christian world. In the United Church of Canada before the late
1960s and early 1970s, there was no common practice of using a set
lectionary. From the Methodist Church, the United Church
inherited the Lectionary of Wesley. But neither the
Congregational Churches nor the Presbyterian Churches that made up the
Union with the Methodists in 1925 relied heavily on
lectionaries. Any lectionaries that did exist were most
often based on a yearly cycle. There was a table of lessons in
the Service Book (1969) that was keyed into the then "New Curriculum,"
but very few of our churches actually used this table. Many
preachers simply selected texts and passages they felt served a
particular purpose for that Sunday's worship. You can imagine
that this meant that great parts of scripture were never read or used
in worship.
Meanwhile, with
our partner churches in North America, and in response to the
ecumenical thrust of Vatican II, with its three year cycle of readings
for Mass (1969), work began on preparing a Common Lectionary. In 1974
an oecumenical version of the Roman Lectionary appeared, out of the
work of the Consultation on Church Union (COCU). This was an
expression largely of mainline protestant churches in the USA, but it
had particular importance in Canada, where a union between the Anglican
Church and the United Church seemed a real possibility. A common
Hymnary was published and widely used in both churches, not without
dissensio, and the Common Lectionary was promoted. Even after the
Union collapsed in 1975, the Common Lectionary continued to be used,
and in fact became common throughout both churches.
Meanwhile, there
was a concern amongst the Protestant denominations involved in
furthering the oecumenical lectionary that Old Testament themes be
included in the table of readings. To do this, the committee
responsible for the Common Lectionary decided that during "Ordinary
Time" (those parts of the year not taken up with Lent, Advent, Easter,
Christmas or other high Holy Days), the Old Testament readings should
be laid out thematically, in a manner similar to that which had
already taken place for the Epistles in the previous lectionaries. This
meant that the cycle of reading for the Old Testament, Psalms,
Epistles, and Gospel would be independent of each other. The
outcome of this revision was that approximately 60 percent of the OT
and 95 percent of the NT could be heard in the churches over a 3-year
period. Problems with this
independent cycle were expressed by the Lutheran, Roman and Anglican
churches. They wished for great thematic linkage between the
lessons. Further, until this point the Common Lectionary had been
largely the creation of North American churches. Thus the Revised
Common Lectionary (1992) attempted to address both the North American
origins of the lectionary and the thematic discontinuities between
readings. In the development of the "Revised Common Lectionary"
there was a wider international involvement, and alternative lessons
allowed both thematic linkages and a wide reading of the whole of
scripture.
The three-year
cycle of readings, with alternatives, is now used widely by the World
Council Churches throughout the world, the biggest exception being the
Orthodox churches (which use there own liturgical pattern). In
the Revised Common Lectionary, the first three readings change from
week to week to complement the Gospel reading. The Gospel reading is
coordinated with the day's observance according to the Liturgical
calendar. In "Ordinary Time," those Sundays not part of the major
festivals and seasons of the Christian year, the Gospel reading is
usually read in the order of its own writing from week to week, or is
grouped thematically by teaching. The letters used in the reading cycle
correspond to the reading through of one of the Synoptic (Matthew, Mark
and Luke) Gospels each year:
* Year A: Readings from the Gospel of Matthew. (2004-2005)
* Year B: Readings from the Gospel of Mark. (2005-2006)
* Year C: Readings from the Gospel of Luke. (2006-2007)
At the close of
the three Cycle one returns to year A again.
Details of these readings can be found at the back of our "red hymn
books," and also at the Web-site of Vanderbilt
University Theological College.
Although the
Gospel of John is not part of the cycle used through "Ordinary Time,"
it is always read for Easter, and is used for other liturgical seasons
including Advent, Christmas, and Lent where appropriate, on a three
year cycle. Thus one of the lasting achievements of the
oecumenical movement of the last century is this Common Revised
Lectionary that, with some variations, Roman Catholics, Lutherans,
Anglicans, Methodist, Presbyterians, Reform Churches and the United and
Uniting Churches use around the world.
Next month
watch for notes on the first part of our Sunday morning worship and the
word "liturgy.
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