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About the Revised
Common Lectionary (RCL)
This introduction to the Revised Common Lectionary was
adapted from an interview given by Dr. Horace T. Allen
Jr., Co-Chair of the English Language Liturgical Consultation
(ELLC), and was prepared for the August 1997 meeting
of Societas Liturgica in held in Turku, Finland.
Q: What is the background of the Revised Common Lectionary? Who put it
together and with whose authority?
A: This lectionary system is the work of two ecumenical bodies who
simply provide resources for the churches that send representatives to
them, namely, the North American Consultation on Common Texts (CCT) and,
later, the International English Language Liturgical Consultation (ELLC).
The first of these groups goes back to the mid-60s and was formed by
Catholic and Protestant liturgical scholars in response to the reforms
in the liturgy mandated by the Second Vatican Council, especially in the
area of English texts for the liturgy and then in the dissemination of
the 1969 Roman Lectionary (Ordo Leclionum Missae). Responding to
widespread interest in this Roman model, many North American churches
undertook adaptations and revisions of it for their own use during the
'70s. CCT produced a harmonization and reworking of these in 1983 on a
trial basis and then revised that for publication in 1992 as Revised
Common Lectionary. CCT now includes representative of more than
twenty-five Protestant Churches in North America as well as the Roman
Catholic International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL). The
international body ELLC represents similar groupings in Australia,
New Zealand, Great Britain and Canada, as well as ICEL.
Q: How similar is the ecumenical system to the original Roman scheme?
A: The three-year, three-reading plan is exactly the same. The calendar
is virtually the same. The Gospel readings are almost always the same,
as are the second-lesson selections, drawn from the Epistles and (after
Easter) the books of Acts and Revelation. The only serious divergence is
at the point of the Hebrew Bible lessons after Pentecost, where we laid
aside the Roman "typological" choices in favor of a broader kind of
linkage that uses the Patriarchal/Mosaic narrative for Year A (Matthew),
The Davidic narrative for Year B (Mark), and the Elijah/Elisha/Minor
Prophets series for Year C (Luke).
Q: What is the rationale for that?
A:
In our initial survey of Protestant use of the denominational variants
of the Roman table, we discovered that there was unhappiness at the
absence of the Old Testament's narrative and historical literature, as
well as a deficiency of Wisdom texts. So we have tried to remedy that
with our more expansive kind of linkage, but for the purposes of
ecumenical acceptability we continue to publish an alternative Old
Testament set that is closer to the Roman, Episcopal and Lutheran tables
in this regard for the Sundays after Pentecost.
Q:
How widely is the Revised Common Lectionary now being used (assuming, of
course, that the Catholic Church continues to use its own lectionary)?
A:
The information, which we gathered in Ireland in 1995, is compelling.
Throughout the English-speaking world, most churches that have anything
like a tradition of lectionary use (and some only very recently under
the impact of the Revised Common Lectionary) are recommending our work.
That includes Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the USA, South Africa,
Great Britain (including both the "established" churches of England and
Scotland) and now the Presbyterian churches in Korea (though not exactly
English-speaking except in missionary origins). At our Ireland meeting
we also heard from Catholic representatives of the German- and
French-speaking regions of their interest in this ecumenical
development. Protestant bodies in Germany, France, the Netherlands and
Scandinavia are studying our system too.
Q:
What is the ecumenical significance of this development?
A:
In the first place, it is a totally unexpected development in that after
all these centuries since the 16th-century reformation, many of the
churches that divided at that time are now committed to reading the
scriptures together Sunday by Sunday. This is a kind of ecumenism nobody
anticipated, least of all the Roman See. And it makes possible wonderful
weekly clergy gatherings all over the world for the purpose of mutual
work on sermons and homilies.
Q: The question keeps recurring from just such groups as to why on so many
Sundays there seems to be no clear theological or thematic relationship
among the readings. Can you explain this?
A:
The thematic situation is different depending on whether you are in the
core liturgical seasons of Advent through to Lent and Lent through to
the Day of Pentecost, or in that long stretch of Sundays between
Pentecost and Advent, known in Roman terminology as "Ordinary Time." In
the festival liturgical seasons there always will be an obvious (we
hope) unity that is governed by the Gospel lesson for the day. In
post-Pentecost Ordinary Time, however, the situation is quite different,
and not even the most sophisticated guides to lectionary preaching seem
always to be aware of this. On those Sundays, we "cut loose" the Old
Testament reading from the Gospel on a Sunday-by-Sunday basis, even
though we chose those readings from First Testament books that the
Gospel author (of- the year) seems most interested in - i.e.,
Matthew/Patriarchs and Moses, Mark/David, and Luke/Prophets.
In that same time, preacher should notice that the second (New
Testament) reading proceeds from week to week on a continuous
chapter-by-chapter course, and so there will be no obvious correlation
between that lesson and the Gospel or the Old Testament. So on those
Sundays the three readings, which have deliberately no thematic
interrelationship, are all proceeding on a continuous or semi-continuous
track.. If this were thought curious or troublesome, it should be
remembered that such an "in course" sequence of reading is borrowed
directly from the synagogue's use of the Torah and the subsequent
practice of the churches of the first several centuries. That is to say,
the public reading of the scriptures was never originally conceived
simply as source texts for preaching, but rather as the only possible
way to acquaint the congregation with as much of the scriptures as
possible. And that of course is the expressed intention of the Vatican
Council's desired revision of the Roman lectionary, and therefore of all
systems derived from it.
Q:
What does that mean for the preacher's sermon preparation, particularly
in those Ordinary Time Sundays after Pentecost?
A:
That question regularly comes to mind when someone says that they use
the lectionary "sometimes", meaning that they avoid it in Ordinary Time.
It misses the point of the continuous principle altogether. That is to
say, during that time the preacher who is serious about the lectionary
must decide which "track" (Gospel, New Testament or Old Testament) to
use Sunday by Sunday. Certainly there should be no attempt to force a
thematic unity on all three readings where none in fact exists. Much
less should the preacher "hop, skip and jump" around among three sets of
readings that are organized on a week-to-week basis. The radical shift
that this system requires is for the preacher to think about weekly
preaching as sequential rather than thematic. An excellent analysis of
the issue is found in a book by Fritz West, entitled Scripture and
Memory, and published in the USA by the Liturgical Press.
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