The Lectionary

A lectionary is a selection of scripture readings chosen for use in public worship and generally conforming to the calendar or the seasons of worship. The idea of a lectionary is extremely ancient. It was developed for synagogue worship, possibly as far back as the Babylonian exile with its consequent necessity of organizing worship around the scriptures rather than the temple cultus. The concept thus antedates by a good many centuries its use in Christian churches. In the synagogue, readings from the Torah (the five books of Moses) came to be linked—on thematic bases—first, to readings from the prophets and subsequently also to selections from ‘the writings’ (Psalms, etc.). Such was the lectionary as it would have been known to the earliest Christians.

It is unclear how quickly Christians adapted the idea to their own weekly meetings. There is little evidence of such practice earlier than the fourth century. We do know that throughout the Middle Ages (and, in the Roman Catholic church, until the late twentieth century) two readings were used: one from the gospels and another from the letters. The Protestant Reformers generally abandoned the idea in favour of what was called lectio continua—the sequential exposition from week to week of a biblical book. This largely explains why the use of a lectionary has been such a recent experience for large numbers of Protestant preachers and worshippers.

Everything changed, for Protestants no less than for Catholics, with the great Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. The bishops resolved: ‘The treasures of the bible are to be opened up more lavishly, so that richer fare may be provided for the faithful at the table of God’s Word.’ The outcome was a completely new lectionary design—the so-called ‘Three Year Lectionary’. Its principal features were: first, readings over a three-year cycle (Years A, B and C) taken from each of the narrative gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) with readings from St John’s gospel added at convenient places, notably in the seasons of Lent and Easter; second, readings from the Hebrew Scriptures and from the Letters chosen on the basis of thematic linkages to the Gospel reading; and, third, a Psalm for congregational acclamation, also linked to the Gospel.

The speed and enthusiasm with which churches other than Catholic availed themselves of the new lectionary design is one of the wonders of the modern ecumenical age. James White, the renowned Methodist liturgical leader, once described it as ‘Catholicism’s greatest gift to Protestant preaching.’

At the same time, Protestants did find some deficits with the lectionary as it stood—notably in the linkage of both Old Testament and Epistle readings so rigorously to the Gospel for the day. One criticism was that this gave the clear impression that the scriptures of the Old Testament are important not in their own right but only in relation to the Christian gospel. In a post-holocaust world, this was felt to be a less than edifying assumption. A related, though separate, criticism was that according to the original scheme the Hebrew Scriptures and the Epistles were never heard in worship in their own narrative integrity; the selections, having to relate as they did to the Gospel for the day, could only ever be ‘desiccated’, snippets cut from their own contexts in order to blend with the Gospel.

Revisions were therefore undertaken in order, on the one hand, to overcome its felt limitations and, on the other, thankfully to receive the Three Year Lectionary and to preserve the strengths which it had brought to all the churches. The major upshot of these revisions was, first, over quite long stretches of the year, to detach the Old Testament and the Epistle readings from the Gospel. This means that in the seasons of Epiphany and Pentecost—sometimes called ‘ordinary time’—each of the three readings is following its course independently of the others. This arrangement then offered, secondly, the opportunity to read—more nearly in the manner of lectio continua— sequential selections from these books of the biblical canon, thus preserving something of their narrative integrity. The decision does carry the consequence that preachers must understand that in these (rather extensive) seasons of the year no linkage is intended between the three readings for the day. One does encounter from time to time quite amazing feats of harmonization. Such is not however the intention of the lectionary!

No less remarkably than the enthusiasm with which churches other than Catholic took up the idea of a Three Year Lectionary, has been its acceptance and use in the Uniting Church. One can confidently say that at the time of church union, the number of preachers or worship leaders basing their Sunday services on a lectionary would have been miniscule; twenty years into the new church, those not using the lectionary each Sunday had become the exception.

With Love to the World has been integrally part of this. Already in 1977, just a few years after the Three Year Lectionary had been introduced to Catholic worshippers (1969) and certainly before it had become much known beyond that church, the founders of WLW, Gordon Dicker, Robert Maddox and Dennis Towner, in looking about for a lectionary on which to base their weekly bible commentaries, had intuited that this would be the lectionary of the future. With others in the Assembly, they brought influence to bear urging the adoption of this lectionary system for the new Uniting Church. By 1983 the new Protestant revision, the so-called ‘Common Lectionary’, had been released for trial use, and in 1988 this lectionary was approved by the General Assembly just in time for the Commission on Liturgy to include it in its new Uniting in Worship. Slight revisions have since been made giving us ‘the Revised Common Lectionary’; and it is this system of readings which for now over four decades has formed the basis of worship and proclamation each Sunday for a dominant majority of Uniting Church congregations.

Revd Dr Graham Hughes

(updated in 2021)

For more information, visit:
http://assembly.uca.org.au/cudw/worship-resources-and-publications/item/863-the-lectionary