Lectionary Preaching defended

I’ve very much enjoyed what I have read in Hughes Oliphant Old’s chatty 6 volumes on preaching through the history of the Church (The series on Amazon.) They are a marvelous introduction to all sorts of preachers and his light analysis of style and emphasis is wonderful. But like us all, he, too, was a man of his times and upbringing. It was his glowing review of Walther that first alerted me to his suspicion of lectionary preaching, but it was in his comments on Loehe that he tells us more precisely what he is afraid of:

Löhe loves to interpret the passage of Scripture before him in terms not so much of its biblical context as of its lectionary context. In fact, this is an important avenue of interpretation for Löhe. In his sermon for the first Sunday in Advent, for example, he discusses at length how the Gospel for that Sunday means something quite different from what it means when the same story is read on Palm Sunday. Far too often one has the feeling that he ends up preaching the lectionary rather than Scripture.

Hughes Oliphant Old, The Modern Age, vol. 6, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2007), 122.

I love the work that Old did in these volumes and wish I could have met him. I marvel at how generous he is to the preachers that he reviews. But I think his idea here is exactly wrong. The Scriptures were written to be read and expounded in the worship service. They were not meant for private reading or for academic study. They are not artefacts of the ancient world. They are the voice of God given to the Church.

The idea that the lectionary might do some abuse to the Scriptures by taking passages out of context is ridiculous. It needs to be named as such. To be sure, men commit this abuse in all sorts of places and ways, but the lectionary itself is not to blame. Agan, this is precisely what the Scriptures were written for: to be read and expounded on in worship. But a point seldom made is that this proper use of Scripture also teaches that Scripture interprets Scripture. The lectionary and the liturgy are always putting passages and pericopes alongside of others. Reading, for example, the triumphal entry on Advent 1 colors the event in a way that is more than simply profound. It is actually necessary to do this sort of thing. It is necessary because nothing that Jesus does is simply one event in a series of events. All of Jesus’ life and all of the Holy Scriptures are singular and enlightened by the rest of Scripture.

Much more could be said of the lectionay’s utility and curbing of the preacher’s pet topics and vanity, but I will leave that for another day.