Understanding the Church Calendar: Instruction, Inclusion, and Innovation. 4.28.2022

    “The Preacher” puts it this way in the book of Ecclesiastes; “Nothing new under the sun.” Nope, nope, nope. You may think it is new. You may labor over it and pour your heart into it; you may publish it and even own the copyright. The chances are that at some point, someone somewhere has gone through the same process, arrived at basically the same conclusion, chosen pretty much the same words, and preached or wrote the same thing you have. 

    The Bible comprises what is called a “closed corpus”. It isn’t getting any bigger. No more is being added to the scripture. Our words of explanation, exhortation, and exaltation do not add to scripture though they may, by God’s grace, contribute to the understanding of scripture. The thing about a “closed corpus” is that there is kind of an absolute ceiling about what can be said about it. Just like describing a duck, there are only so many things that can be said. After everything ducky has been described you are pretty much indulging in fantasy. 

    We buy a lot of books. We read commentaries and other secondary literature to help us understand the Scripture and preach it. If we are scrupulous, we try and separate the thoughts of others from our own. There is a point however when the weight of the corpus bears down on us and we hear The Preacher snicker behind us— “I told you, so many books, so little time nothing new!”

    The great tradition is a reminder that we are not the first to preach the gospel. We are not the first to embrace the discipline of study. We may be the point of the spear in our time and place but the lance is long and it reaches back throughout Church history ever since Pentecost. 

    Preachers are hunter-gatherers. We read widely on a variety of subjects to enrich our preaching. History is not a closed corpus. It would seem that there is an endless capacity for change and variety. Yet Solomon’s glare cuts through the pretensions of history as it does through everything else. Humans tend to walk the well-worn behavioral paths of the past. The names and technologies change but the actions seem so repetitive as to appear predetermined. The seemingly endless information at our fingertips reveals not the upward trajectory of humanity but our downward glance. The open contingency of history is undone by halting advances of a fallen race. 

    In preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ we are constantly adapting the focused message of Scripture to an unfocused world. This is not new. This is the job. In Jerusalem greed was an issue. In Jerusalem, hungry widows became a distraction. Paul was mobbed. For John, it was EmpireWe cannot and do not change the Word, but in a fast-moving world we need to be light on our feet in preparing and preaching and we need to have a broad grasp of what has been said before. This leads us back in a rather twisting and wandering way to this month’s broad topic.  

    As scavengers, we should not be copying wholesale or merely repeating any resource for our preaching. The scholarly word for that practice is “plagiarism.” The more vulgar term is “stealing.” It is hard to properly cite everything you use in your preparation. There are circumstances where it is warranted. I do find it odd that anyone who uses commentaries or who reworks and adapts entire books from other preachers would find using a lectionary or integrating insight from the Church year into their work either a restriction or some kind of a compromise. 

    If you are going to read, review, and learn from the work of others why not use that which has been around for 500, 1,000, or 2,000 years? By the way, between this sentence and the prior sentence, I stopped to read scripture over Facebook Live as I do every “normal” working day. I opened LOGOS and clicked on the Today page. One of my cards on that page is the Book of Common Prayer (1928) Daily Office Lectionary. That is the reading I am currently using. Now, I could have looked at my ESV already opened in the program and taken several minutes to choose some scripture. Or I could have chosen from a number of other prepared “reading plans.” This just happens to be the one I’m using. It is of ancient heritage, being derived from the original Book of Common Prayer composed during the English Reformation. I could have reinvented the wheel or fixed a perfectly functional wheel to the work of this day and accomplished quickly what could have become a slog. 

    My goal this entire month has been to encourage you to broaden your palate, expand the reach of your reading, and incorporate some venerable, ancient practices into your daily and weekly work. New things are produced every year to help you do a better job of preaching. Many of those tools are not helps, they are crutches. 

    We do not have to fully adopt the Church year to allow it to teach us a more disciplined approach to worship and to include portions of it in our individual congregational planning. In fact, were we to examine what even the most liturgically driven Churches do we would likely find that each congregation and each preacher in his planning is constantly including, excluding, editing, resetting, altering, and adding to the “set” readings and making them truly local and situational. 

    That is the beauty of our task. Every week we can examine the broad output of nearly 2100 years of preaching, teaching, discussion, exegesis, hermeneutics, and commentary on scripture. In addition to that, we have enormous stores of data and information, facts, and figures to help us illustrate divine truth in a timely fashion. We have a larger toolbox than at any time in the history of Christian preaching. Just remember that some of the older tools are still very functional and that wielding them well will make you a better preacher and a more capable pastor.

Understanding the Church Calendar: Scripture at the Heart of Time. 4.21.2022

    The liturgical year is organized around daily readings from scripture for community “devotion” and weekly readings from scripture to organize Sunday communal worship. In the Restoration movement, we do not use the words “catholic” or “catholicity” nearly enough. These terms speak to the universal intent of Christ. 

 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (John 17:20–21 ESV)

    Despite the doctrinal and organizational differences between denominations, it is essential for us to embrace the catholicity (universality) of the Church as the present, visible Kingdom of God. Jesus expects us to be unified around His word. In verse 20 above He refers to the Church throughout the ages which was created by the proclamation of the Gospel and the pursuit of mission which began with those frightened disciples who overheard this prayer. 

    A determined, unified reading of the Bible is not a panacea. The global Christian community pausing to find daily refreshment in a programmed reading of the Bible will not fix all our problems. Generations of theological and organizational nitpicking will not just disappear because of a shared attention to the collective reading of scripture. It is, however, a good place to start.

Regardless of views of history, varieties of calendaring systems, or mechanical conceptions of time. Christians all over the world have organized their days, weeks, months, and years according to the regular reading of the Bible. Measuring time this way predates both the modern calendar and the modern chronograph. You may not be able to time baking a cake this way— “Oh, this recipe calls for me to read aloud the book of Daniel!”—but it has historically been a pretty good way to organize a life. 

Regular reading of Scripture orients us not to the daily vicissitudes of life but to the higher calling of God in Christ Jesus. We will certainly keep time and maintain our daily schedules but slipping beyond the mundane regularly helps to keep our lives in eternal as well as temporal perspective. 

A final note. Clocks and calendars are mechanical control devices. They were designed to give the certainty of fixed control in specific environments. Chronographs were created to allow mariners the ability to coordinate observable celestial phenomena with distance and time to more accurately understand where they were at, an important preliminary to understanding where you are going. Calendars allowed the coordinated activity of individuals in time and distance. It is theoretically possible to be wholly detached from other human beings in time and space. Both calendars and clocks allow us to determine whether this existential detachment is worthwhile. 

Before the invention of these mechanical representations of time existence was ordered around those events or behaviors that were of central importance. For example, farmers plant in spring. They don’t have to know that it is April to know the changing of the seasons. Sleep when it’s dark. Again, this does not require anything beyond simple observation.

Regular, lectionary structured reading of Scripture proceeds as follows:

1. When you get up, read this.

2. When it gets dark, read this one.

3. After you’ve read six iterations, gather and read that.

To those of us who have lived our entire lives by the spinning of the clock or the flipping of the calendar ordering our life around scripture helps us to sacralize time itself and live obediently to Paul’s mandate to redeem the time.

Understanding the Church Calendar: Milestones 4.14.2022

    Whenever Mrs. Beckman and I go and see one particular group of grandkids there are several landmarks that serve as milestones for the trip. We head north on IL 130 and the adventure begins. The first milestone is in Newton IL where there is a statue of Burl Ives. When we pass that statue, we both wave and speak to it. The next milestone is Greenup which is fun to say and has amazing infrastructure for basically being in the middle of nowhere. When we get to Charleston there are a few turns required to follow 130. One thing that is interesting about this stretch of highway is that we cross the Embarrass River four times. We get on 36 at Tuscola, take the interstate to Paxton, and soon one of us is sitting in Wren’s playhouse. 

    We don’t need those milestones to make the trip worthwhile—we’re going to see grandchildren after all. Yet we generally make mention of them to break up the trip and lend a sense of continuity with all other trips just like it. 

    Each of us, every human is taking a journey. From January to December. One year after another. Each year is different. Each year is the same. Allowing for some kind of organizing principle to guide this journey helps us to understand diversity in terms of continuity. 

The Christian year is organized around the two most significant celebrations within the broader Christian Community, Christmas, and Easter. Though the polemic often leveled against the Christian year makes it seem unbiblical or even contradictory to Scripture, it is in fact designed to put Jesus in the center of all Christian experience. This is done by orienting every other day of the year, to the Cross, the cradle, and other central affirmations of His life.  It is true that some individuals abuse the freedom we have in Christ to make more of these milestones than is healthy. That does not invalidate the process of the rest of us responsibly marking the landmarks of our yearly pilgrimage of faith. 

    When understood properly and proportionately the Christian year is another way of pointing Christians to the Word who became flesh and the Word which is written. I am tired of the consciences and behaviors of good, balanced, clear-headed people being constrained by the obsessive, compulsive, controlling, or addictive behaviors of others. Yes, some abuse the “holiday spirit” of Christmas and Easter. Some make far too much of it. Some do not take seriously the signal events celebrated, whether incarnation or resurrection. Abandoning historic Christian behavior due to the potential risk of abandoning Biblical principles will not prevent excess, irreverence, and ambivalence from those who approach everything so carelessly. 

    Calendar and lection, which is to say world and word, are reconciled in the committed lives of believers who treasure the reality of God in flesh. By committing ourselves to weekly remembrance around the communion table and pulpit, as well as yearly remembrance of the central acts of the Gospel story we are bearing witness to the act of God in Jesus. By this act, we are saved. By this act, we are nourished. By this act, we are embodied as the Church. By this act, we are commissioned as witnesses. What a privilege to say to a wearied world, "the Prince of Peace has come!" And a greater privilege to proclaim, “He is alive!”

Understanding the Church Calendar: Fence or Ladder? 4.7.2022

    Free Church protestants of mine and similar tribes do not commonly follow the Church year. Consequently, there are many otherwise common practices we must re-invent every year. While our approach enforces one level of discipline there is much to learn from the liturgical tradition which stretches back nearly 1900 years. 

    Let’s begin this discussion by talking about literacy. In the “west” we enjoy the privilege of near-universal literacy. This impacts the way you and I preach and the way we engage in other direct forms of teaching and pastoral ministry. It is not infrequent for us to address an issue raised by a member of our Church, an attendee, or a seeker by encouraging them to “look up such and such a scripture.” And then discuss it with us. For much of Christian history, and even today in vast portions of the world, this was not and is not possible. Let’s historicize a bit. If this hypothetical exchange took place 1000 years ago in most Christian regions of the time our interlocutor is more than likely illiterate. He may have natural talent and have what we would call a high IQ, but unless he was a part of the aristocracy he likely could not read. Also, being a peasant, he could no more own a Bible than he could a unicorn. The rich could barely afford them, much less the peasant class. 

    To live when we do, where we do is a privilege and privileges have responsibilities. In the past, the Church could not extend the privileges of universal education or provide Bibles for the illiterate masses, but it could act responsibly so that the faithful knew the basics of their faith. 

    

    The Church used two basic tools to help the faithful know and understand their faith. The calendar and the lectionary. Today we will talk about the former and reserve the lectionary for another essay. 

    As I mentioned at the start, we free-church protestants don’t typically follow the historic Church calendar. We do dabble in it, however, inasmuch we celebrate Christmas and Easter according to the Western Church Calendar. 

    For most of human history, most people were illiterate and illtemporate (I may be coining that phrase in this essay). This is to say that they not only could not read or write, but they largely could also not locate themselves chronologically. With no mechanical way to keep the time they regulated their lives by the rise and setting of the sun and the coming and going of the seasons.  The peasant classes in society have always been dependent on some aristocratic or priestly class to tell us the time. Early in its history, because so much of the gospel story hinges on when something occurred, as well as where, and what occurred, the Church formalized means for Christians everywhere to locate themselves in relation to the world through the Word of God and sacred worship. 

    So, for a great many Christians, Advent gives way to Christmas. Christmas yields to Epiphany. Epiphany leads us to Lent. Lent prepares us to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection at Easter. Easter puts the coming of Pentecost into context. Pentecost shifts into a few months of ordinary time, bringing us around once again to Advent. 

    When this temporal structure was combined with regular lectionary readings on both a daily and weekly basis the Church provided a means for the poor and illiterate to know and understand the faith to the best of their natural ability. This combination of sacred calendar and sacred word helped locate the pilgrim community in time and space.  If our hypothetical, pious peasant was able to attend regular weekly worship, he participated in a worship environment impregnated with scripture. If he was able to join in daily worship, he benefited even more. If he had a particularly attentive parson, he might even hear quality expositions of scripture. 

    It is true that this system was far from perfect. It relied on clergy who may or may not have really cared or who were inattentive to the readings. For most, the readings would have been in Latin. However, if you listened to the Bible read in Latin for 15-20 years you likely understood much of what was read. This system of “Word and World” still undergirds the worship of Billions of Christians of various stripes to this very day.

    My tribe doesn’t really participate in this historic structuring of sacred time and space. It is not how we “do Church.” I am where I am and minister as I do because I agree with our doctrine, practice, and churchmanship. I can, however, learn from others, and recognize their strengths. Where others draw strength from practices developed over two millennia many of us, far too many of us, for all intents and purposes reinvent the wheel every Sunday of every week of every year. We determine our own way of setting aside time through the regular reading of the Scriptures. We create denominational or congregational traditions to recreate boundary markers we associate with the doctrinally suspect. We recreate institutions that were functional and Biblical because we reject ancillary details which do not affect spiritual or doctrinal faithfulness. And we do so this very selectively.  As I noted before, we don’t suggest alternative dates for Christmas or Easter. And virtually every one of us worships on the Lord’s Day.  We just ignore, marginalize, or reconceptualize everything else. Rather than use the proven tools of shared Christian history we commit acts of liturgical piracy and waste time and energy reduplicating structures that work and pretending that our pretense is innovation. 

    

    Like all the “modern” tools we discussed last month the Church Calendar and historic lectionaries are tools. Tools that can help us leverage our time, talent, and treasure to do the best job of ministry that we can. You may not use any of these tools in the pulpit but that does not mean that you, the preacher, should not benefit from them. 

    The entire concept of regular, daily, planned reading is the very definition and heart of Christian liturgy and has been for 2000 years. We don't call it that but that is what it is. You can pretend that you invented it, but you are wrong. Christians have been doing this for centuries. Virtually every "read the Bible through in a year" plan begins with or began with one lectionary plan or another. YouVersion has deluded us into thinking that our very own, personal, “new reading plan” is some kind of a revolution. Nope. 

    Many of the practices left abandoned by the Reformation and later by my own Restoration movement were discarded because they were perceived to be fences. Fences that limited our ability to be authentic in expressing our faith, or which prevented us from being entirely Biblical in our outlook. The result far too often is that our outlook becomes provincial and our authenticity nothing more than shallow, narrow, and mossy. Rather than considering something as prosaic as the Church calendar as a fence perhaps we should start to see it as a ladder that helps us to climb out of the shallows and beyond those mossy narrows of our own self-limiting traditions.