What is the Lectionary?

I don't do these kind of posts very often, but I taught a Sunday school class yesterday that focused on the Lectionary.  Here is part of what I learned and taught concerning what the Lectionary is, how is was started, etc. 

What is the Lectionary?

The best place to start, I think, is to look at what the word Lectionary means – it is a table of readings.  So, a lectionary is a collection of readings or selections of readings from the scriptures, arranged and intended for proclamation during worship.

Lectionaries have been used for centuries – major churches in the Fourth Century arranged scripture readings according to a schedule that followed the calendar for the church year.  Prior to Christ, those who studying the Hebrew scripture arranged it into a schedule of readings for particular celebrations, like Passover.

We currently follow the Revised Common Lectionary, which was first published for general use in 1992.  This is a revision of the Common Lectionary, which got much of its pattern from the Roman Catholic lectionary for mass of 1969.

While the United Methodist church uses the Revised Common Lectionary, it is not United Methodist.  It was compiled by two groups – the Consultation on Common Texts (a forum among many Christian Churches in the US and Canada) and the International English Language Liturgical Consultation group.  The RCL is used worldwide.

Before we get into it more deeply, consider – Why bother?  What should we have a table of readings?  What advantage does it offer us as a local church?  Or as a connected church?  Do you see disadvantages?

Structure –

1. The revised common lectionary is a three year cycle of readings.
2. Each Sunday in the year is assigned four readings
   a.       A reading from the Hebrew Bible (although during the season of Easter, the
   Hebrew passage is usually replaced with one from Acts)
   b.      A Psalm
   c.       A reading from the epistles or Revelation
   d.      A reading from the Gospel
3. There are three years – A, B and C.  The first Sunday of each year is the First Sunday of Advent.  Year A is always divisible by 3, so December of 2007 began a Year A year.  We just finished a Year A year (2010 through 2011) and are currently in Year B.
4. Since the seasons of the church year reflect the life of Christ, the gospel reading is usually the focus for the Sunday’s readings.  
5. Each year – A, B, or C – focuses on one of the synoptic gospels, with sequential readings throughout the year.  Year A is Matthew, Year B is Mark and Year C is Luke.  John is read in every year, especially during Lent, Easter and Advent and also in Year B during a few weeks of the summer because Mark is a short gospel, and they ran out of it.
6. From the First Sunday of Advent, which is the beginning of the year’s readings, through Trinity Sunday (first Sunday after Pentecost), the non-Gospel readings have a thematic relationship to the gospel reading (although not always). From Trinity Sunday through the rest of the year, there is an alternative tract of readings that carry a connected theme – for example, in Year A, the alternative readings carry the story of the Patriarchs through the Sundays – Abraham, Jacob, Moses, etc.  Year A is the Patriarchs, Year B is the Monarchs and Year C is the Prophets
7. What passages are not included in the RCL?  Not much from Leviticus or Numbers, Chronicles, nothing from Obadiah, Nahum, 2 John or 3 John. Not everything is in the RCL, but you have a Bible.  Go read it.