Our BCP lectionary is based on ancient liturgical calendars adapted into the Church of England at the time of the Reformation and compilation of the first Book of Common Prayer. The special feature of the BCP lectionary already noted is how it seeks to tie the OT reading, the Psalm, the NT reading and the Gospel selection together to form a coherent Biblical story keyed to any given Sunday, focusing on the Gospel topic.
The preacher and congregation are able therefore to listen to the Word on any given Sunday and hear connecting messages coming out of all of the various readings, all tied to the topic of the day as capsulated in the Gospel reading. Preacher, choir director and congregation, all tied in the best of BCP lectionary practice to the same Gospel passage. Here in St. Peter’s we have been well disciplined in keeping this rule of the BCP lectionary.
The problem with this traditional lectionary approach is that the Bible, which Anglicans maintain “contains all things necessary to salvation”, becomes a servant to the lectionary. Think of the BCP lectionary as the homework assignment and the Bible as a Google data search base, and you will have a general idea of the problem. The pieces of the Bible especially from the OT are more important than the whole story.
The overall story in particular the large portion of the story that is contained in the OT gets picked apart by the BCP lectionary to serve the Sunday gospel reading. The result is like owning a fleet of cars but never maintaining or taking inventory of the fleet. Eventually they are broken and scattered all over the place and the purpose of the fleet in the first place is lost. We need to remember the whole of the Bible, the whole story from creation and fall to redemption and salvation to sanctification, and this requires knowing the OT as well as the NT.
Starting this Advent a new schedule of liturgical readings is being used in the parish. It is called the Revised Common Lectionary (abbreviated RCL). It is already used by many other denominations and churches throughout Christendom, primarily Protestant congregations. The RCL is different from the BCP lectionary in that it focuses on consecutive readings from OT sources as well as from the Gospels. The advantage here is that the overall integrity of the Word as revealed in the Bible is more fully respected. In the RCL consecutive readings span several Sundays in a row from one OT book whereas in the BCP lectionary OT readings are only chosen in subordination to the Gospel reading, and that means picking from one book one Sunday, from another the next, and so on until there is no integrity at all to the OT. It becomes like that mighty fleet of lost cars.
The RCL in this way allows a preacher and congregation to explore Biblical themes more fully over consecutive weeks on occasion, and using OT material to advantage rather than depending exclusively on the Gospel readings, thus possibly enhancing our biblical knowledge in an age of disturbing Bible illiteracy. There may be occasions however in the RCL when the readings in the OT do not fit with the Gospel or NT selections on a given Sunday. This happens because the OT readings in the RCL run concurrently with the Gospel selections whereas in the BCP the OT readings run subordinately. The preacher must occasionally decide intentionally therefore which stream of biblical source material to run in over a span of several Sundays, OT or Gospel.
This change from the BCP order of scheduled readings to the RCL will require of the preacher alertness to new opportunities for preaching a series of sermons based on OT themes, something hitherto not possible unless the preacher broke the rule of canonical adherence to the lectionary as scheduled throughout the Church, a common practice among non-traditional Protestant congregations but frowned upon in the Episcopal Church. General Convention last summer however approved the use of the RCL in local congregations indeed resolved that starting in Advent 2007 the Episcopal Church will begin a transition to the RCL concluding in 2010 when the RCL shall become the only approved lectionary throughout our Church, rendering the BCP lectionary obsolete.
All of this may be minor matter for most Episcopalians, as indeed may be the adoption of the RCL here in St. Peter’s four years ahead of the mandated date of use. For the preacher this is a significant change. It challenges the mental habits of thirty years of sermon preparation. Renewal comes in many forms however and the preacher welcomes this change as yet another opportunity to help reshape our ministry and mission for the better in the twenty-first century.
This then is how I choose to view the change in how we choose the readings for Sunday morning: it promises to open more of the Word to the ear and mind and soul memory of the regular Sunday worshipper and bring to the congregation a more fruitful spiritual discipline not in keeping to the human tradition that is the BCP lectionary but in attending to the divine revelation that is the Word the lectionary was constructed to serve.
