It may seem a parochial concern, but the comments on the Revised Common Lectionary post last week have been very intriguing. I've been pleasantly surprised by the comments of two members of the Consultation on Common Texts, especially. That's the ecumenical group that puts together the RCL.
Their comments have been enlightening, but they've failed to address what several other commenters and I have: The redacted portions of the Bible do not seem to be just for the sake of readability. They seem oftentimes to have a theological agenda behind them.
Why, for instance, is the first chapter of Job excluded? asks commenter Alan K. Or why are verses of Psalms that speak of taking vengeance on enemies or bashing babies heads against rock edited out?
So, I'm asking Andrea and Taylor, and anyone else from the CCT, to explain the theology behind these decisions...
More on the Lectionary
Tuesday June 2, 2009
Categories: Church
Filed Under: bible, consultation on common texts, lectionary, news, revised common lectionary, worship
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About The New Christians
Tony Jones is the author of many books, including The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier and The Sacred Way: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life. He is a leader in the emergent church movement and a renowned expert on postmodern theology and the American church landscape.
Find out more about Tony, his books, and his speaking schedule at his website.
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I agree with Tony's basic point that the RCL sanitizes portions of the Bible for public worship. Or, this is at least the effect of pastors who slavishly follow the RCL and have probably never read the background material from the CCT. I think it is a mistake to never read offensive or challenging passages in worship. I think it is important for congregations to hear their pastors wrestle with and even argue with/against these texts, especially in churches where most people only come to worship and don't do adult education. When I preach I feel free to argue against these kinds of texts when I feel it is necessary. I think this is the beauty of having a multivocal canon. I don't have to agree with every passage of scripture and struggling with passages I find problematic is a way to proclaim the gospel with integrity.
I should also say that I appreciate the comments from the CCT members about the purpose and function of the Psalm readings in the RCL. I don't think most people understand this. Still, this only begs the question of why we edit historical (and canonical, right?) prayers to suit our own purposes. Are offensive psalms the "word of God" or inspired yet fallible words of ancient Israelites? The editing of the RCL suggests the latter. I don't have a problem with this, but let's call it what it is. And if we go there with Psalms, what does this say about the approach to the rest of scripture? Again, I don't have a problem with where that leads, but I imagine some people might. I guess the question is really this: what theology of scripture is the RCL promoting (even unintentionally) in churches that use it?
Dear Tony:
A word of thanks to your reader Dan Mayes for alerting me to this conversation on the RCL. Perhaps you and your readers, as well as the members of the Consultation on Common Texts (CCT) who are responding to your posting, might be interesting in learning that over the last several years I designed Year D to supplement the RCL. I have read all the rationales for the design of the RCL, and while there is a certain practical phronesis to many of them, I find none of them take sufficient stock of at least two major considerations: (1) the question of our "common texts" was settled for Protestant/Reformed churches nearly 1700 years ago, and again in during the European reformations and at the Westminster Assembly; if nothing else we should at least gather that the CCT is poorly named; (2) the many, many places where scripture attests to the need to honor, keep, observe the fullness of the revelation of God, the blessings attached to doing so and the sobering warnings against reduction and partiality.
I have presented Year D to the Worship and Theology working group of the Academy of Homiletics, at a continuing ed. event at Princeton Seminary, to pastors reading groups, to M.Div. and D.Min. classes at Dubuque Seminary. What I can tell you is that pastors and preachers universally "get it," even though denominational publishers (so far) do not. They recognize that the same limited repertoire of texts - admittedly never intended to supplant the canon as such - leads to boredom and complacency, a sense of the gospel being watered down or expurgated (as you say), and any number of other theological biases and distortions; indeed, the evidence is everywhere in the mainline churches that a diminished presence of the fullness of the Word in the pulpit and in the liturgy of the church leads to diminished congregational and denomination vitality.
Personally, I came to the task of designing Year D, not to draw people away from the RCL and all the many tools that derive from it, but simply to supplement them. The mainline church is suffering from a serious lack in its scriptural/spiritual diet, plain and simple. Here was my double bind: my own denominational (constitutional) standard, the PC(USA)'s Book of Order, lays the responsibility for text selection squarely at the feet of the the Minister of Word and Sacrament. That responsibility is to ensure that the congregation, over time, hears from "the full range of Scripture" and the "whole range of the psalms" [W-2.2002]. Then it goes on to state (lukewarmly) that lectionaries provide a "broad range of readings" [W-2.2003]. In other words, as a pastor I have a sacred responsibility to range beyond the lectionary into the breadth of the canon, respecting its (!) boundaries, not those of the RCL. Furthermore, I have been given no such tool to do so decently and in order. So I had to develop one myself. While my denominational publishing house is "Feasting on the Word," there remains an important, if humble, instruction from the Lord: "Gather up the fragments." This is what Year D does.
For more information, let me refer you and your readers to the following website, which has not seen much activity lately, mainly because I am concentrating on more face-to-face interactions.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yeardfriends/
Grace and peace to you in the Ministry of the Word,
Timothy Matthew Slemmons, PhD.
Associate Professor of Homiletics and Liturgics
University of Dubuque Theological Seminary
Good questions, John.
I think Andrea's example of how the CCT wrestled with the rape of Tamar probably is exemplary of the considerations that support not expanding existing lectionary traditions to include all of the "unsavory" (if you want to call them that) elements of the Bible.
But again, the point I hope we're all hearing is that the issue has been less about what to exclude than what to add over time. The RCL includes more scripture, including more "difficult" passages, than any previous wide-use lectionary for Sunday worship.
What theology does the use of the RCL promote? I think that would be a really fascinating doctoral dissertation-- or maybe many. The answers there could be as variable as the traditions that use it, and even down to the congregations and the people that encounter these texts over time. How congregations use it, for example-- whether they use only one reading or all four or some combination of these-- could all impact the "implicit," "explicit" and "null" curricula being conveyed by the use of the RCL as a guide for the use of scripture in that particular place among those particular people at that particular time.
Speaking for a bit from my own tradition-- United Methodist-- what we know of our churches is that about 2/3 of the use the RCL 75% of the time or more. What we don't know is how many of the texts from the RCL they use each week or how they choose which ones they'll use or how they'll actually use them. My own guess, based on my observations across our denomination, is that this might mean one or two of the readings are read and part of the Psalm (not necessarily all of it) might be adapted as a call to worship or a responsive reading. United Methodists, from what we can tell, by and large are not "praying" the Psalms in Sunday worship-- despite the efforts of my office and a number of others over the years to try to help our congregations recover this practice. For us, the RCL is voluntary. And frankly, even if we were to try to make it mandatory that just wouldn't fly. So slavish use? I can't say United Methodists, at least, approach the RCL that way.
As far as approach to scripture is concerned, I'd say we're all assuming that the phrase "The Word of the Lord" applies to the entire Bible in some sense. There is great variability about what that "sense" is precisely. United Methodists, for example, along with Anglicans, hold that the Bible "containeth all things necessary unto salvation." Others among those of us who formed and still form the CCT have other approaches that would be representative of perhaps the entire spectrum one might imagine from "inerrancy" (in several varieties) to "witness" (if that's even a good way to describe the spectrum).
So our effort has not been to underwrite one or the other of these approaches to scripture per se. It has rather been to continue to expand upon the lectionary traditions that have been part of the Christian faith across many times, cultures and places. If that represents "sanitizing" per se, then I suppose one would have to conclude that lectionary traditions for Sunday worship have been "sanitizing" scripture for quite some time now.
Peace in Christ,
Taylor Burton-Edwards
Secretary, The Consultation on Common Texts
Director of Worship Resources, The United Methodist Church
I would briefly support one of the major points Taylor has made: the purpose of the lectionary is not to exclude anything. The purpose of the lectionary is to include as much as possible given the parameters of a lectionary format.
Members of the CCT would strongly encourage other groups to engage in the process of creating a fuller lectionary in any way the group chooses to do that. It is a humbling experience to make the choices that need to be made if Sunday worship is to include anything beyond the reading of scripture. Remember that there are (basically) 65 or so holy days in which scripture is read in the Assembly.
If it works better for you, by all means divide the Bible into 65 equal portions and try it out as a way of inviting the congregation into worship. My own guess is that it isn't going to fly in most churches.
But the very experience of wrestling with the issue and realizing that the end product will be used (or not) by thousands of Christians across the globe...and used without any chance to defend your choices to them...is an exercise in discipleship in its own right.
Again, I am so grateful for this conversation.
In peace,
Andrea
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