by Russell Rathbun
Excursus on the Revised Common Lectionary
For Sunday, November 24, 2013—Christ the King
As we have reached the end of end of the church year and are very nearing the end of what we are calling “The Hardest Question experiment” (see the above note if you missed it), I would like to take this opportunity to share a few words about that gang of “Lectionary-ers” whose work provides both form and fodder for this experiment.
Who? What? Why?
If you are a regular to THQ you may have noticed that I occasionally malign, harangue, abrade and excoriate the compilers of the Revised Common Lectionary, who I address as the representative caricature—the Lectionariers or Lectionary-ers (I don’t think we ever landed on a preferred spelling).
They are not cartoon biblical bureaucrats, or nefarious liberals hell-bent on sanitizing the scriptures of the uncomfortable bits, as I may have implied in the past. They are, as far as I can tell, a sober minded collective of scholars striving to serve the mainline protestant church in North America.
More About Our Muse
The North American Consultation on Common Texts (CCT) came together to produce a definitive protestant lectionary in the late 1970s. Twenty or so denominations sent representatives to meet in a secret bunker outside of Nashville, Tennessee to devise a prescribed set of Bible readings for every Sunday of the year—the real trick being, that they would all use these in common.
It was the seventies and everyone was high on ecumenism, not to mention infatuated with a little post-Vatican II Catholic crush. In 1969 the Pope Paul VI issued the Liturgy for the Mass, a three-year lectionary and it was a runaway hit. Like, such a big hit that some Protestant churches were using it.
Then denominations thought, maybe we should make our own so a bunch of them did. Then finally some folks, were like, let’s make one together. And so 1983 the CCT issued the Common Lectionary, based largely on the Lectionary for the Mass, using a three-year cycle. The Revised Common Lectionary, which we love to wrestle, was issued in 1994.
Goes Around and Around
Of course cycles of prescribed scripture readings have been around since there have been scriptures to read. The Talmud says that prescribed readings for the principle feasts were set out by Moses. Jesus seems to be reading the assigned text for the day at the synagogue in Luke 4:16ff. The early church adopted the practice of reading from the Torah later adding readings from the Letters of the apostles and the gospels.
Generating Mercy
As I have written in the introduction to THQ, the ancient rabbis say that when we study the Bible we release God’s mercy into the world. And I think there is something potentially powerful about millions of us studying the same portion of the Bible at the same time.
Maybe it might articulate that mercy being released into the world in particular ways from week to week. I am not saying that the esteemed collection of scholars, that I have come to affectionately refer to as, the Lectionariers are exonerated, or that they get it right, even most of the time (four gospels, three-year cycle, just saying), but one might quibble with the Canon as well. Not that they two are on the same plane, but certainly it gets those of us who are up for it, to be in the same arena at the same time—talking or fighting or struggling with or chewing on the same bit of holy writ.
For that I am grateful.
The Hardest Question
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which, “provides a common language and standard criteria for the classification of mental disorders,” (Wikipedia) has been revised seven times since first issued in 1952!
When are they issuing the next revision of the Common Lectionary? If it’s sooner than later, who gets to join in? Why would we want to?
Russell Rathbun is a preacher at House of Mercy in St. Paul, Minnesota, the author of Midrash on the Juanitos (Cathedral Hill Press, 2010) and the curator of The Hardest Question. Russell's researching his next book and has decided to let us in on the process. Check out the latest at: http://russellrathbun.com/
