Year W?

Scott Anderson

Wait a minute! We’ve come to know Year A, Year B, and Year C over the years. As we’ve cycled through these cycles of readings, they have become familiar and perhaps even welcome guides to our faith practices. But Year W?

For the season of Lent and Easter—beginning with Ash Wednesday and through Pentecost Sunday—we will interrupt our regular practice of following the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) to take on a modified set of scripture readings instead. The occasion gives us a good opportunity to remember what a lectionary is and what it is for.

What is a Lectionary?
Simply put, a lectionary is an order of readings practiced by faith communities. The RCL is a three-year cycle of Sunday readings: (1) a first reading (usually from the First Testament), with a song, a psalm or canticle, that offers a response to it, (2) a second reading (usually from a New Testament letter or epistle), and (3) a Gospel reading. Year A generally follows Matthew, Year B centers Mark. We are currently in Year C, which centers Luke. The Gospel of John shows up in all three lectionary cycles, usually during the festival seasons (Advent/Christmas and Lent/Easter and the festival Sundays that surround each).

It has been our common practice at St. Andrew to follow the RCL for numerous reasons. Among them:

• The practice draws us toward the church universal. It aligns us ecumenically with churches down the street and throughout the world who are reading the same or similar texts on any given Sunday.
• The selection of scriptures draws us from our tendency to explore those texts that we know and are comfortable with (a “canon within the canon”) toward a more expansive reading and a more dynamic faith and practice.
• The lectionary cycle weaves theme and meaning from one Sunday to the next and invites us into the fullness of the gospel as it is reflected in the church seasons.

The last point can be made in another way: a lectionary is essentially a curriculum—one of the most ancient within the Christian faith tradition, and others too. From the fourth century, lectionaries have been continuously shaped and used to guide the faith and mission of the church.

So, back to the initial question:

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