Scrap the Lectionary? (Post I)

I blogged a while back on the problems with the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL). When it comes to Biblical literacy, the future of worship, children's ministry and the number of basic Bible Knowledge 101 texts that are strangely missing, it gets even worse. Let me refresh you.

I. THE LECTIONARY PROBLEMS: The Lectionary we're using assumes three things that ain't necessarily so any more:

    * Biblical Literacy
    * Regular Worship Attendance
    * A Christian Culture

A. BIBLICAL LITERACY: People are no longer Biblically literate, so most don't recognize the ebb and flow of the texts one week to  the next. Most don't know Amos from Moses (Although they might think he was born in a Louisanna swamp and hunted alligators for a living). Most think Joan of Arc was Noah's wife. You are assuming WAY too much if you think they have any frame of reverence... er... frame of reference on the texts you are reading week-to-week and how they integrate with the whole of the Bible.

B. REGULAR WORSHIPERS: If most church members were attending every week, they might have a chance to eventually understand how the texts fit together, how they relate to the seasons and how  they give a big, balanced picture of the Bible over the three years of the RCL cycle. But that's just not the case anymore. "Regular worshipers" today - maybe 33% of active church members - are probably attending a couple times a month. The other 2/3 don't see the pieces fitting together in any meaningful patterns. "But adult ed is the place to teach the Bible in depth..." you might argue. That would be fine, if it weren't for the fact that most churches adult ed participation is abysmal. The same 9 people go to everything you offer, and the rest go to coffee. Like it or not, the pulpit IS the best venue for adult ed. It's the only place most "regular worshipers" will sit long enough to learn something. But in most of our churches, the pulpit is reaching the most active of our people a few times a month, and the texts we're using rarely relate week to week.

C. POST CHRISTIAN CULTURE:  Although nominally Christian when it comes to the census, our national culture is no longer culturally Christian; thus, the very language, the metathemes and the foundational Christian memes can't be assumed as a frame of reference/reverence any more. That being the case, I believe it is even MORE important to build the Bible narrative from week to week by teaching/preaching and sending home a Bible story week to week, with one week leading logically and chronologically into the next.

Mix all these problems together and add this - the BIGGEST problem with the RCL - and you've got a recipe for disaster when it comes to the future of worship and the future of the church. So, what's the BIGGEST problem?

D. TEXTS THAT ARE STRANGELY MISSING: The RCL we're using leaves out a TON of key Bible stories that you'd want a person to know if you were going to try to raise them with a minimal Biblical literacy.

* Did you know you'll NEVER hear the text about the FALL show up in an RCL church ? (Genesis 3:8-9) Seems kind of important, no?

* NEVER hear the Shama - the central command of Israel - read? (Deuteronomy 6:7-10)

* NEVER hear the coup de gras of the central saving act of the Hebrew Scriptures - the Red Sea Crossing (Exodus 15:1-2, 6, 8-12)

* NEVER hear the story of Daniel and the Lion's Den read in a RCL church? (Daniel 6:16, 26b-27)

* NEVER hear of Ezekiel and the Valley of the Dry Bones? (Ezekiel 36:26)

* NEVER hear Esther's "such a time as this" story and text read or preached. (Esther 4: 8-14)

* NEVER see Jonah and the Whale show up in a reading? crossing? (Jonah 2:2)

*NEVER hear Matthew's version of the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13)

And for you Methodists, you'll...

*NEVER hear the text Susannah Wesley quoted to young John when he was saved from the Epworth Parsonage fire - Brand from the Burning (Zechariah 1:3b, 2:10)

Those are just a few key texts that are strangely missing, but it's enough to show that we are perpetuating our own worst problems when it comes to growing a Biblically illiterate society - even among the regular worshippers.

II. A BETTER WAY

I think we need to either scrap the RCL and start teaching the Bible the same way they paint the Golden Gate Bridge - from one end to the other. Start with Genesis 1 and preach all the way to Revelation 22 over a three or four year period, then start all over and do it again.

If you use our Bible Song stories/songs/sign langauge/cartoons/theme for education and the home resources to to connect worship to education to the home, that means you either:

A.  Scrap the prescribed RCL lectionary texts completely and opt for a new lectionary that teaches the Bible from one end to the other (I've got suggestions if you want 'em)

If this seems too drastic - even for you - you might consider this:

B.  Substitute a Bible Song theme (verse, song, sign language, story) each week for one of the prescribed RCL four texts. (If you're doing an Old Testament Bible Song lesson in Sunday School this semester, drop the prescribed OT text and substitute the BSS text for the lesson each week. If you're doing the Gospels from Bible Song this semester, substitute what you're learning in SS and home for the prescribed RCL text.)

III. WORSHIP LEADING vs WORSHIP READING: If you want to pour keroscene on the education fire and connect pulpit to home to education, get the kids LEADING 1/4 of the lessons in worship rather than someone READING of the text. Have the kids and parents learn the theme verse in song, sign and art at Sunday School, then drag them to share what they've learned in worship as fast as you can.

    A. SING the theme vers every week (the children’s choir is no longer the 9 girls and 1 boy who doesn’t want to be there, but ALL the SS kids AND parents... Talk about energy!)
   B. SIGN it every week as they sing (oxygen, glucose, adrenaline, dopamine,  muscle memory, major muscle groups, minor muscle groups, and children LEADING worship!)
   C. ART it every week (this can be the “offering that doesn’t fit in the plate” shown on the powerpoint screen or lifted high... Live and ever changing. Kids will grow up knowing their gifts are a valued part of interpreting the Bible in the faith community)
    D. TALK about it with the kids, microphone in hand. Why not turn the children’s sermon into the “children doing the sermon”? If they've just learned the story an hour ago, interview them and have them tell it to you AND the congregation the story and what it means. You could use our Bible Song cartoon slides on the screen in the background and simply ask, “what happened next? What happened next? Who said what?” Have the kids raise their hands, then stand – so everyone can see them – as you interview them on the story. Then - viola -  they pop up and TEACH it to the church, singing and signing as they go.

This is great post-modern post-television GEN-Y activist worship modeling. (How do you become a worship leader? You lead worship!) This is great “priesthood of all believers”. This is great brain science. And it may be a sneaky stewardship program if the majority of parents of the Sunday School kids  come to worship the majority of Sundays. (My kid’s leading worship... I’ve got to be there).

Tell the Stewardship committee you’re going to multiply the worship attendance, joy and involvement of marginally active parents by a factor of 10 and see what that does to the budget!

They shouldn’t have a problem with that.

Comments

[mbt online]

well this blog is great i love reading your articles.

[Christian Louboutin Sandals]

Think what these principles, and the actions that would follow, would mean to the daily decisions of management, customers, creditors and investors!

[Air Jordans]

LO LO LO LO.....OUR CANON IN D....HANGS OUT EVERYDAY....

[Pastor Karl Rist]

Rich,

First off, let me just say that Debbie Streicher turned us on to this idea when she led our weekend workshop this past February.

So we launched Bible Song at Hosanna Lutheran in Rochester, Minnesota this past Sunday. We read Genesis 1 ("In the beginning...") in our worship services, sang songs and prayed prayers based on the Creation theme, and this next week, the Bible Song families will "sing and sign and art" the theme in worship as well.

We are using Bible Song as our lectionary for the next several years, and are even launching an adult Bible study small group ("lectionary lunch") to discuss the themes midweek at noon.

I take issue (as did several other respondents, at least in part) to the texts you claim are omitted from the RCL. The following are all there:

Adam and Eve's disobedience (the FALL)
June 5-11 (Lectionary 10) Year B

the Shema (Hear, O Israel...)
October 30-November 5 (Lectionary 31) Year B

the Red Sea Crossing (Exodus 15)
Easter Vigil or
"semi-continuous" Sept. 11-17 (Lect. 24) Year A
(though you're basically right; people might potentially NEVER hear this on a regular Sun.)

Ezekiel and the Dry Bones (Ezekiel 37 actually)
Lent 5 Year A
Vigil of Easter
Pentecost Day Year B
(THREE times for this one, Reverend Melheim!)

So...despite the limitations of the RCL (and for the purpose of biblical literacy in our post-literate culture, the RCL has many limits), it does manage to hit on many of the core stories and key themes of the scriptural story.

The bigger problem, as I see it, is that it does so in a helter-skelter, out-of-order way that once-or-twice-a-month worshipers cannot follow.

So we're totally with you in the grand experiment.

One thing we're discovering is that lectionary resources (ex. Augsburg's Sundays and Seasons) are still very helpful in worship planning. If you look up on what Sunday of the three-year lectionary your Bible Song text appears, you can find songs and hymns, prayers and pictures, and preaching helps to support your theme. For example, this past Sunday we found Trinity Sunday in Year A contains Genesis 1:1-2:4, and we found all sorts of helpful liturgical pieces that helped supplement Bible Song.

So by all means, don't altogether dismiss the lectionary. It's a tool--but only one of many!

-pk-

[Rich Melheim]

Good points all. And yes, I see Ezekiel and the Dry Bones showing up on Easter Vigil and Lent 5A. My mistake. Dave's comments on the RCL arising out of ecumenical conversations are valid, too. The baby should never be thrown out, although if it grows up and moves away we need to find a way of inviting it back from time to time (not just to watch our old home movies, but to show a particular interest in the no-longer-baby's life). Either that or we need to get busy and conceive a new baby. And, as Georges Pompidue of France was prone to say, "Conception is more fun than delivery."

[Rob Nelson]

Rich-
As a young pastor who understands the disconnect my generation feels with the church, all I can say is AMEN.
I also understand what others have said about not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but the bigger issues here are simply too big to ignore. I think your points A-D above lay out those bigger issues very well. WE'VE GOT TO DO SOMETHING NOW!

[David Schoob]

I also think that you raise some valid objections- but if we are going to look at doing something new we also need to keep in mind the strengths of the lectionary:

1) The unifies us in some ways by encouraging the people of God to all be looking at the same texts in a given week. Wherever we are as the people of God we have a common focus and a common conversation.

2) In Lutheran tradition we believe that certain scripture passages are central to our understanding of the faith and that other passages are seen through the lense of these central passages. The lectionary is a tool for helping us keep the center as the center.

3) as individual preachers we are prone to hitting on themes that are near and dear to our hearts and we tend to gravitate toward passages that have the deepest meaning for us. The lectionary helps challenge us to look at passages that we might not normally engage if left to our own devices.

4) The present RCL came out of an ecumenical discussion and I think those type of discussions are vital to the life of the church. Any method that we use instead should arise out of such ecumenical conversations.

I am open to discussions as to other methods and some of the suggestions you and others offer are interesting- but they needed to arise out of a wider and deeper conversation so that we do not throw the baby out with the bath water.

In our ministry we have used the lectionary as a tool and when there are themes and conversations that are vital to the life of the congregation we are not afraid to also leave the lectionary for a time with the understanding that we will return to it as we all return to roots at times in our life.

I look forward to further conversation.

[twitter.com/MattMusteric]

You raise some vital questions about the use of the Lectionary.

However, I do believe several of the texts you listed as not being in the Lectionary are in fact included in the Easter Vigil: Red Sea Crossing, Dry Bones, Jonah (I know, I know... not many attend the Easter Vigil, but still).

I also believe the Ezekiel dry bones text appears during Lent one year.

What about preaching thematically during the high seasons (Advent - Easter Season) and then in a continuous fashion through ordinary time?