The RCL is the Revised Common Lectionary, a list of four scripture readings for each week. It was created by a group comprised of 21 denominations in North America, in consultation with the Roman Catholic lectionary. If you go into any lectionary church you will hear the same scripture readings as almost every other lectionary church on that particular Sunday.
There are enormous strengths to the lectionary. The two churches I have been involved with as a preacher have both used the RCL. I consider it a spiritual discipline because it can make me use texts that I otherwise would never touch. You can still skip over some difficult texts, and there are some not included, but they are at least there to be dealt with. I have covered Abraham's banishing of Ishmael and Hagar, and his sacrifice of Isaac, among other more difficult texts because they were in the lectionary. In some ways it can be used as an excuse for those who don't want to hear these things preached about. In August I will be preaching on a text from Jeremiah that I probably never would have ever chosen myself. I was even going to go with two of the other readings that week, but in my third time through that was the one that spoke the loudest, and so that is where I will go.
However, one of the problems I have with the RCL is that sometimes the themes are a little contrived. As one critic said, if one of the gospels was to mention a zebra, and a zebra was also mentioned somewhere in the Hebrew scriptures you can be sure they would be paired together on a Sunday even though the only thing they had in common was the zebra.
They also have a tendency to make the Hebrew scriptures subservient to the gospel texts, as if the only purpose they have is to lift up the New Testament. Since the only Bible Jesus knew was what we call the Old Testament (and I refer to as the Hebrew scriptures) I think when we approach the texts this way we do damage to them.
I also don't like that it skips around in the gospel rather than trying to tell a more linear story. I know that a lot of this has to do with the liturgical year, but I think other accommodations could be made. This skipping may have worked when most people were biblically literate, but they are not any more and so I think I causes confusion.
But my biggest problem is that it limits the building up on themes over time. There are a couple of cases where this is not the case, such is in some of Paul's letters, but for the most part you preach one week on something and the next week you're on to something else.
This does not give you enough time to provide any background information on nearly anything. Again if the people in our pews knew their bibles really well, this information would not be necessary. But I think we assume knowledge that most people simply don't have, although they might be afraid to admit it.
I would love to do a sermon series on Paul, in which the first one or two Sunday provides background on who Paul is, where he traveled, what he did and why he is important, and then do the next few weeks on "everything you know about Paul is wrong" in which I dispel some of the common myths that people have about Paul. Myths I also believed until I really started reading his texts and trying to understand what he had to say.
This last Sunday's readings are another good example. The parable of the Good Samaritan has so much going on it that to limit it to just one week is really hard to do. I could easily get a four week sermon series out of it. Week one would look at who Samaritans were and look at other stories of Samaritans in the scriptures. Week two would look at what the passages that the lawyer quotes are, where they are from and what they meant. Week three would look at the parable itself, because now people have some background to approach it properly. Week four would look at what we do with the parable. Why we try and create enemies or people to hate and how we move beyond that as Christians. This could go even further, because you could look at what a good neighbor world would look like, how we as Christians can forward that vision, what the church can do, etc.
I always feel so constrained in trying to cram too much into my sermons, which is why the are often longer than I would like them to be, but I want to give background, I want to teach, I want to reflect and I want to make it practical. That is often very hard to do in a short time period.
And so I am always left with the puzzle or whether I should use the lectionary or not. How do I take it's strengths and try to eliminate it's weaknesses? Or do I even try.
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