Addressing the Weaknesses of the Lectionary
Addressing the Weaknesses of the Lectionary
Heath R. Curtis
I am an unabashed fan and supporter of the Historic Lectionary. Like most LCMS members of my vintage, I grew up on the 3-year Lectionary and was well fed with the Word. But once I had the chance to examine the benefits and structure of the Historic Lectionary, I was hooked. The two main reasons I chose and continue to choose to use the Historic Lectionary are these.
First, I think it is pedagogically more useful. The yearly repetition of the same texts on each Sunday helps people learn them. On balance, I think this is better than the plan of the 3-Year Lectionary to get a wider number of texts in front of the people over the course of a longer time period.
Second, the 3-Year Lectionary is obviously constructed on the basis of an exegetical principle that is foreign to the thought of the church. The first three Evangelists are sequestered to their separate years, and John doesn’t get a year. This would only have been done in the 20th century. There were ancient attempts to bring all of the Gospels to the people. But these always took on the form of combination, like the Diatessaron. The supposition behind such works is that the ultimate author of Scripture is the Holy Spirit. You want every detail. If you were reading about a miracle in Mark, you would want to read Matthew’s account of the same miracle. If you are reading Luke 24, you also want Matthew 28, and John 20-21, and Mark 16.
The supposition behind the 3-Year Lectionary seems to be that each Gospel is radically separate, and that John doesn’t quite measure up (probably because in the post-Enlightenment version of things it’s obviously theological, and thus late, and not historical). This attitude of radical separation has even entered the exegesis of our seminaries. In my capstone exegesis course, Matthew, the professor told us, “You may know the other Gospels, but in this course you only know Matthew. No cross references allowed in exegetical papers.”
I don’t want to cast too many aspersions at the 3-Year Lectionary; I’m just briefly explaining why I don’t use it, even though the bulk of this article will be about the short-comings of the Historic Lectionary. As I said, I was well-fed with the Word growing up with the 3-Year Lectionary and pastors who currently utilize it can exert themselves to overcome many of its problems.
Onto the weaknesses of the Historic Lectionary. There are two such weaknesses that I believe impact my ministry to the people and thus call out for compensation.
The first is not really a weakness of the Lectionary but of our current practice. In the Season of Easter, the Sunday readings only include the accounts of Easter morning and the appearance of Jesus in the locked upper room one week later (Easter Dawn, Easter Day, Quasimodo Geniti). Next follows Misericordias Domini and the beloved readings about Christ our Good Shepherd. After that, the readings really turn away from Easter and toward preparation for Ascension and Pentecost. All the other appearances of Christ are missing: the road to Emmaus; Jesus eating with the disciples in Luke 24; Jesus at the seashore and the catch of 153 fish; the majority of I Cor 15.
Of course, the Historic Lectionary does include all these readings in the various weekday services assigned for Easter Week. But in our world, vanishingly few parishes hold services on these days, and even where such service are held, only a tiny fraction of the parish shows up.
So the faithful preacher must find a way to incorporate them into his preaching. These are key Gospel history that must be familiar to the people. The Lectionary recognizes this and provided a perfectly adequate way to teach them to the people for the time in which the Lectionary was developed. But times have changed and it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks: nobody’s gonna come to Easter Monday, Easter Tuesday, and Easter Wednesday service.
So I think pastors should include these stories in their preaching during the Easter season. If you use the 3-Year Lectionary, this has been done for you. In my opinion, this is the only unambiguously good thing that the 3-Year Lectionary did: credit where due! I have even given thought to using the 3-Year Lectionary during only this post-Easter season. But it is not difficult to fit the other resurrection appearance stories into preaching for Jubilate, Cantate, and Rogate.
The second short-coming of the Historic Lectionary that cries out for correction in our day is, once again, not really the fault of the Lectionary. This problem also stems from the changing of the times. The world is always evil, but as age gives way to age, the spirit of the age chooses different evils to emphasize. Today’s preachers of the Church must bring the Word to bear on today’s evils.
The point of the spear for the spirit of our age is sexual morality, or rather perversion, and an attack on the order of creation. The revision of the Historic Lectionary in LSB acknowledges this in some places with alternate Epistles readings. In our day and age, folks needs to hear Ephesians 5:22-33. Of course, we could just reference it in sermons. But there is something very powerful about hearing a reading from the lectern following by, “This is the Word of the Lord.” “Thanks be to God!”
So the revision of the Historic Lectionary in LSB adds Ephesians 5:22-33 as a new option for Epiphany 2 in place of the historic Rom. 12:6-16. This makes Epiphany 2 (Wedding at Cana plus Eph. 5 on husbands and wives) an annual opportunity for the preacher to reach the entire congregation with teaching on marriage and the order of creation.
The LSB revision of the Historic Lectionary does something similar on Trinity 3, which historically includes the first two of the Lost Parables in Luke 15. The revision gives the Prodigal Son as an alternative since it is an important story that otherwise does not appear in the Sunday readings. I have taken to using both options and simply ready all of Luke 15 as the Gospel that day.
In the context of our society, the people need to hear the sedes doctrinae for sexual morality read in church and add their faithful response, “Thanks be to God!” They need to hear both the positive description of godly sexual morality as narrated in Matthew 19:3-12 and the negative condemnation of homosexual perversity in Romans 1:18-27 and 1 Cor. 6:9-11. Yet none of these readings appear in either the Historic Lectionary or the 3-Year Lectionary.
Of course there is nothing stopping a pastor from reading these lessons from the pulpit during a sermon and commenting on them. You should make a plan to do that, for sure. But I also think that actually incorporating them into the Lectionary readings is important and worthwhile.
Ideally, this incorporation would come from church authorities, the way LSB revised the Historic Lectionary as noted above. I believe in church authority and dislike each man going his own way. On the other hand, I do not believe that we are bound to shackle ourselves slavishly while awaiting the next revision of the hymnal when pastoral exigency dictates that we serve the people the whole counsel of God.
Such changes or additions to the Lectionary should not be done willy-nilly, and they should not be done without consultation among the brethren. So here I am consulting you, brethren.
There are three ways in which a pastor might add readings to his congregation’s experience on Sunday morning.
The first is to make use of the optional observances for Feasts, Festivals, and Occasions in the Lectionary found on pp. xxii-xxiii in LSB. For example, each fall we replace one of the Sundays after Trinity with the Occasion for Christian Education.
There is no current Occasion listed that covers any of these three texts (Matt. 19:3-12; Rom. 1:18-27; 1 Cor. 6:9-11). One or more set of readings for an additional Occasion could be composed which include one or two of these readings. This Occasion (Divine Service for a Chaste and Decent Life? Day of Prayer for Chastity?) could then be used in lieu of a non-privileged Sunday. Keeping with the format of the Occasions listed in p. xxiii, this Sunday would be denoted:
Occasion OT/First Reading Epistle Holy Gospel
Day of Prayer for Chastity Rom. 1:18-27 or Ex. 20 I Cor. 6:9-11 Matt. 19:3-12
Second, we could follow in the footsteps of the LSB’s revision of the Historic Lectionary and offer options to replace or expand the Historic Epistle and/or Gospel.
Third, also following in the steps of both Lutheran Worship and Lutheran Service Book we could suggest different First Lessons. Recall that this First Lesson, commonly called the Old Testament lesson, is an invention of the 20th century. It’s a good invention that demonstrates that the issue I am pointing out is not a new one. The Church has long recognized that changing circumstances require an expansion or slight revision to the Lectionary.
Given the narrative function of the Festival half of the Church Year, it would be best to keep such revisions within the Trinity season. Ideally, we would keep the heart of the Historic Lectionary’s focus on the week we wish to revise and rely more on expansion than replacement. I propose the following as the best option.
Trinity 6. The Gospel is from the Sermon on the Mount regarding the 5th Commandment. The Epistle is Paul’s encouragement to godly living in light of the Gospel from Romans 6. The LSB First Lesson lines up with the Gospel by assigning the 10 Commandments as listed in Exodus 20. To expand this week to cover two of the readings our people need to hear:
Expand the Gospel Lesson to be Matt. 5:20-30. This now includes the Dominical sayings on both the 5th and the 6thCommandments.
Replace the First Lesson with either the Rom. 1 or 1 Cor. 6 reading. The Romans 1 reading covers more of the ground covered by Exodus 20, so that may be the better option.
My plan for 2024 is to use this plan of expansion and replacement on Trinity 6 (July 7): Romans 1 as the First Lesson; Romans 6 as Epistle; expanded lesson from Matthew 5 as the Gospel. I offer that plan up to you brethren for commentary and advice.