Amy K Butler - A Preachers Guide to Lectionary Sermon Series--Volume 1: Thematic Plans for Years A, B, and C

2016 Westminster John Knox Press

First edition

Published by Westminster John Knox Press

Louisville, Kentucky

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Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked CEB are from the Common English Bible, 2011 Common English Bible, and are used by permission.

Book design by Drew Stevens

Cover design by Lisa Buckley Design

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kelley, Jessica Miller, editor.

Title: The preacher's guide to lectionary sermon series : thematic plans for Years A, B, and C / [edited by] Jessica Miller Kelley.

Description: First edition. | Louisville, Kentucky : Westminster John Knox Press, 2016.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015051049 (print) | LCCN 2016005048 (ebook) | ISBN 9780664261191 (alk. paper) | ISBN 9781611646658 ()

Subjects: LCSH: Lectionary preaching.

Classification: LCC BV4235.L43 P74 2016 (print) | LCC BV4235.L43 (ebook) | DDC 251/.6dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015051049

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.

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Contents

When I was engaged in discerning my first call to lead a congregation, I remember being consumed with thoughts about how to answer the committee's interview questions, reading bylaws and constitutions, researching appropriate compensation for a change in cost of living, and thinking about how my family would adjust to a new location and congregation.

What I do not recallnot at allis thinking about preaching. Sermons. The activity I would engage in almost every single week of the year, the vehicle by which my new congregation would come to know my perspective and trust my leadership, the most effective vehicle for teaching and leading a congregation.

Why this was, I don't really know, except to say that in my previous experience as an associate pastor, preaching was an occasional task, usually assigned for the weeks after Easter and Christmas and the least-attended Sunday of the year, most often sometime toward the beginning of August.

I also remember the feeling of panicOK, dreadthat settled over me about three weeks into that first pastorate. I said to a friend, I just can't believe they expect me to get up there and say something every single week! I already said everything I learned in Sunday school, vacation Bible school, and seminary!

She answered, That's what the text is for.

What she meant, of course, was the Bible. Even most mediocre preachers know that the sermon every Sunday is not meant to showcase what you know; it's meant to delve deeply into Holy Scripture, to engage a text that has guided people of faith for centuries, and to bring the deep and eternal truths of that text to bear on the realities of our lives and our world. But how?

I'm now engaged in round four of preaching the three-year cycle of texts assigned by the Revised Common Lectionary. This cycle of assigned texts is used by much of the Christian world to guide the rhythm of the church year and in planning worship. Naturally, the possibility for coherence, synergy, and unity is enhanced when the preacher jumps on the bandwagon too.

I chose to use the lectionary to guide my first few years of preaching for the reason I mentioned above: every week I found myself at a loss about where to even begin crafting a sermon. What I've discovered in the years since that initial decision are other, powerful reasonsboth for myself as a preacher and for the congregations I've servedto continue this conversation with the passages of the Revised Common Lectionary.

The first is the truth effective preachers struggle to remember: preaching is not about me. Were I to choose topics reflecting my current interest or passages I randomly prefer, I'd soon veer from the challenging discipline of engaging an assigned text and discerning its resonance for the context I serve. Second, while some might find a tedium in the cycle back to the same texts every three years, this experience has taught me in practice a very real truth of our Holy Scripture: there are depths to be mined, the richness of which I will never fully explore in my lifetime.

Connection with colleagues in both practical and spiritual ways has been a third gift of lectionary preaching. Every year for the past twelve years I've gathered with the same five colleagues to plan preaching for the year ahead. Through our shared conversation and planning we develop the kind of deep relationship that can remind us each of our faith and our calling, and support us through the difficult work of leading God's people.

Leading God's people in the local church is not a task, as we know, for the faint of heart. Local congregations constantly face the challenge of moving beyond immediate conflict, concern, and maintenance to think about the work of the church in the world. The rhythm of the lectionary cycle broadens our understanding of ourselves to include the church universal, congregations of Christians all over the world who gather the same exact Sunday to read the same texts and to explore their relevance for the context in which they live.

I've heard colleagues explain why they prefer to avoid the lectionary: people respond better to thematic preaching, sermon series on a particular topic. Folks don't want a homiletical study on the book of Job, friends will say. They want Five Steps to a Happy Marriage. They have to surrender the rich experience of preaching the lectionary, they argue, in order to give people what they want.

This reasoning is problematic for me, fundamentally because of the dangerous theological assumption that church is about giving people what they want. It's not. But this argument also assumes that lectionary preaching and series preaching are incompatible. And that's just not true, either.

In fact, though I am a dedicated lectionary preacher, I have experienced what my colleagues have told me to be true: people like seriesin fact, more than like. People in the pews engage at a deeper level with a handle to hang onto. If the pastor can shape the common worship life of the people in ways that the congregation can engage, the corporate experience of worship and the larger life of the church are richer and more resonant.

Like most things in life, there's no exclusive dichotomy between preaching the lectionary and building thematic arcs into the worshiping life of the congregation. A good preacher should do both. I have found that when we consider assigned texts with an eye toward the rhythm and life of the individual communities we serve, the pressing concerns of the world around us,