Sermon Lectionaries

This week we sing morning prayer, one of the services that are called the Daily Office.  These days the offices are usually restricted to Morning and Evening prayer, but in the monastic tradition there are 7 or 8 offices, or prayer times each day.   Each full of prayer, praise and of course scripture; with the psalms being the most important of the readings. 

In the monastic order of readings, or lectionary you would read through all 150 psalms in one month.  Can you imagine, the book of Psalms read through each and every month.

With seven times of prayer per day, it became important to establish a rhythm and a structure to how and what you would pray.  That included what scripture would be read at each service.  Weekly worship, especially Sunday worship needed to have a format as well, so that people would know what to read at each service.

Fortunately, there was a precedent to this.  The early Christian communities followed the Jewish lectionary, which followed a continuous reading from the Torah, the first 5 books of the bible.  These would be chanted at the Sabbath worship, with special readings for feast days or holy days.  As many of the early Christian gatherings became more formal this became the common lectionary of readings.  As time and opportunity progressed these readings were supplemented with letters that were passed from community to community, exerts of the gospels as they became available in the 4th and 5th centuries and by the 6th c the first compiled Liturgical calendar and lectionary of readings became available.

 

However, there were many local and territorial differences as Christianity continued to change and grow.  It wasn’t until Charlemagne in the 8th century and the institution of the Holy Roman Empire that a standard liturgy and lectionary was established.  This lectionary utilized a one year cycle, with a focus on special themed readings around lent, Easter, advent, Christmas and Pentecost.  This Roman lectionary became the common practice in the Roman Church until the 16th century. 

It does bear mention that the Orthodox Church, the Eastern tradition had developed it’s own lectionary with it’s own calendar.  This lectionary started at Easter and followed on from there which is still why Ukrainian Christmas is celebrated in January, while we still follow the Roman Calander. 

The protestant reformation brought on many liturgical changes to the church at large, of course…most importantly…the beginning of the Anglican church! Significantly at the time of the reformation the several emerging church had different approaches, not only to how one should worship, but also how one should read scripture.

Lutheran Church at that time kept the one year cycle Roman lectionary, but ceased reading it exclusively in Latin, and began emphasizing using the language of the congregation and printing bibles in local languages.

 

 

 

The Calvinists and other reformers abandoned the use of a lectionary at all, allowing the clergy and reader to chose the readings for the Sundays.

Importantly for us, the newly founded Anglican Church had compiled and created a Book of Common Prayer in 1549 and it included a lectionary of daily readings that departed from the seasonal structure Rome had established. 

Of course when the pendulum swings one way, it inevitably swings back the other.  In response to the reformation, the Roman Catholic Church became increasingly rigid and there was little change in the lectionary until the 20th century.

Vatican II in the 60’s saw the creation of a 3 year scripture cycle which included the majority of the gospels and followed the church seasons.  This inspired the protestant churches to look at how they used scripture and in 1992 to create what we know as the Revised Common Lectionary.

This lectionary has been adopted by the majority of the mainstream Christian churches.  Within the Anglican tradition there is a twofold lectionary.  The Revised Common which is used on Sundays, and the Daily Office lectionary for Monday through Saturday.  These are both supplemented by a calendar of saints days and holy days.  Indeed for a great many years it was the daily office that was used as Morning prayer became more common than Sunday Eucharist.

All this is meant to say that historically there has been a lot of evolution around what scripture we read on Sundays and how often and how much is read.  For the longest time, I thought that every church used the Common Lectionary and it wasn’t until seminary and subsequent conferences I learnt that there are many churches where the priest picks which ever scripture they wish for a Sunday.

Frankly that sounds exhausting! Not to mention that I’m guessing that some of the more challenging scripture readings get missed because no one wants to preach on them!  That is one of the things that I have always appreciated about the lectionary, that I don’t chose.  The readings are already chosen, one less task for me! And I don’t get to skip the challenging bits.  However, in the revised common lectionary we don’t get as much of the scripture as you might expect, there is an emphasis on the New Testament readings over the old and the readings are given in small segments called pericopes.

We get, as you well know, one old testament reading…about 13% of the old testament over the 3 year period.  One psalm, and over the 3 years we hear at least some of each psalm.  We hear the letters in our second reading, about 41% of them, and over the three years we hear almost all of the gospels.

Now this is ok if we as a congregation continue to read the daily office everyday, but we do not do so.  So if the Sunday service is the only time we are hearing scripture, although the RCL does a great job liturgically we are missing a lot.

Also it is interesting to note what we are missing.  Primarily, the old testament.   Now one could argue that as Christians, surely the Gospel reading is primary…the story of Christ!  Now you won’t catch me arguing against that, but…. Christ’s ministry as world changing as it is, was a mere 3 years in the story of God’s interaction with humanity.  3 years which focus on the Son of God walking in the world.

What we miss when we only read 13% of the old testament is 87% of the stories of how people walked with God.   The old testament is full of characters and interaction of the people of God, who tried, failed and bore the consequences, good and bad of a life lived as God’s people.  We miss the family stories of who we are and how we should live.  The examples of our spiritual forbearers which could inform our lives and our choices as a people of God, here and now.

It is clear that we, as a Christian people, have begun to forget those stories, to forget our history.  There are many people, as I’ve mentioned before who do not know that David the shepherd boy, King David and David of the Psalms were all the same person!

We know the part of the story where Issac is saved from being sacrificed, but no what happened before or after.  We remember Samuel calling out here I am Lord, but do we know what happened when he grew up and had a family?  These are important stories for us to know.

So, starting next Sunday we are going to take a temporary walk with a different lectionary.  A departure into the stories of our faith, old testament and new that will go form September to May.  We will still observe advent and Christmas, lent and Easter and all such important dates, but there will be some changes.

We will have 3 readings instead of 4.  One long reading which will be the main reading and the one I preach on.  This will be focused on a particular person or event, telling a good deal of the story.  We will have a psalm that reflects that reading and a Gospel reading.  If the Gospel is not the primary that day, then it will be short…if as in the second part of the year it will be, the Gospel is the primary reading than it will be long.

Our readers will be reading the first reading and will be leading the psalm, no worries emails are to follow with instructions.

The goal will be to get an increased familiarity with our stories.  To know who we have been as a people.  Our triumphs and failures and the everyday people of the bible who have done extraordinary things.  To see ourselves reflected in the biblical story and to know that we are just as important to God’s story now, as the people were then. 

So for the next year, starting next week, prepare to be immersed in the biblical story, and feel free to read up on the people and events we hear about.  Prepare to be amazed, horrified, awed and humbled as we enter the bible in a new way this year.

Using the Narrative Lectionary.