The Revised Common Lectionary: Sources and Secrets
David Gambrell
David Gambrell is associate for worship in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Office of Theology and Worship and a representative to the Consultation on Common Texts, the ecumenical body responsible for the Revised Common Lectionary.
By the fifth century, many churches were using a series of three readings—Old Testament, epistle, and Gospel—very much like the pattern of the RCL.
Presbyterians were among the first to publish an adaptation of the new three-year lectionary in their 1970 Worshipbook—even before its premeire in Catholic churches.
Sunday/festival lectionaries support the proclamation of the Word and the celebration of the Eucharist; daily lectionaries are used for disciplines of daily prayer.
This article is adapted from presentations at the 2023 Presbyterian Association of Musicians Montreat Worship & Music Conference, “Thirst No More.”
For forty years the people of God wandered in the wilderness. They were living in “liberation limbo,” a dry and dusty place somewhere between Pharaoh and the Promised Land. Exodus 17 suggests that this was the first “protestant” congregation—the people protested bitterly to Moses that they were parched with thirst. God answered their prayer, giving them water from a rock. According to midrash, this rock followed the people of God through the wilderness for forty years. It was called “Miriam’s well,” named after Moses’ older sibling. Whenever the people were thirsty, they would “sing to it” (Num. 21:17); water would spring forth and they would thirst no more.
For the past forty years—since 1983—contemporary protestants have lived with the ecumenical Common Lectionary and with its younger sibling, the 1992 Revised Common Lectionary (RCL). When this project was published—just two decades after the Vatican II liturgical reforms of 1963—the lectionary represented great hopes and dreams for the renewal, transformation, and unity of the church through worship. In the forty years since, sometimes it feels as though we are living in “liturgical limbo,” somewhere between the promise and fulfillment of that ecumenical vision. But the RCL keeps rolling along. It keeps spilling out living water as, week after week, churches turn to the lectionary for guidance, inspiration, and refreshment in God’s Word.
This article examines the sources of the RCL from ancient times to the twentieth century, demonstrating continuity and change through three millennia. It also seeks to reveal some of the “secrets” about how the RCL works in worship—features that were never meant to be secret but are often neglected or misunderstood. By uncovering some of these sources and secrets, I hope to reintroduce the RCL as a deep well of wisdom for the people of God.
Sources: The History of Lectionaries
The first part of this article traces the development of lectionaries through three thousand years. Watch for recurring themes as the story unfolds—unity and diversity, continuity and change, schism and reconciliation, simplicity and complexity. At the heart of this history, there is a pendulum oscillating between two different approaches to proclaiming the Word: lectio continua (sequential reading) and lectio selecta (selective reading).
Tabernacle, Temple, and Synagogue
Long before there were Christian lectionaries there were patterns and practices for proclaiming God’s word in ancient Israel. At the end of Israel’s time in the wilderness, as the people prepare to cross the Jordan, Moses commands the reading of the Law every seven years during the Festival of Booths (Deut. 31:9–13). Centuries later, after a long line of unfaithful leaders in Jerusalem, a good king named Josiah unearths a long-lost copy of the book of the Law during repairs to the temple. He tears his clothes in grief and immediately institutes a major religious reform, grounded in the word of the Lord (2 Kgs. 22:1–23:3). After the Babylonian exile, the Persian king sends Nehemiah back to Jerusalem to rebuild the community and restore the city walls. When construction is complete, Ezra the priest gathers all the people for a public reading of the Law, where they rededicate their lives to the Lord (Neh. 8:1–18).1 These three scenes illustrate how God’s word forms faith from generation to generation, calls us back to faithfulness when we fall away, and rebuilds community in the aftermath of destruction.
The companion books of Luke and Acts offer valuable insights into Jewish lectionary systems of the first century. In Luke, Jesus goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath day and reads a provocative passage from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, adding some commentary of his own (Luke 4:16–21). This story reflects the way in which readings from the Prophets (haftaroth) came to be attached to existing schedules of readings from the Law (Torah). Luke has Jesus again interpreting the Law and the Prophets on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:27) and just before his ascension (Luke 24:44). In Acts, Paul hears the reading of the Law and Prophets at a synagogue in Antioch, and then offers a sermon (Acts 13:15). Preaching in Jerusalem, James says, “For in every city, for generations past, Moses has had those who proclaim him, for he has been read aloud every Sabbath in the synagogues” (Acts 15:21).2 These passages seem to confirm long-standing traditions of weekly readings from the Law and Prophets.
Despite these glimpses of ancient lectionaries, there is uncertainty around exactly where, when, and how these schedules of synagogue readings took shape. We know that cycles of Torah readings flourished after the destruction of the Second Temple (70 CE) as services of the word replaced the sacrificial rites. There seems to have been an older, three-year Palestinian schedule of readings, but this was replaced by a one-year Babylonian cycle in the sixth or seventh century CE. Because these early Jewish lectionaries depended largely on oral tradition, complete lists or books of readings only date back to the Middle Ages. As it exists today, the one-year cycle of Torah readings consists of fifty-four weekly portions (parashot). Each portion has a Hebrew name, usually drawn from the first verse of the passage. The weekly cycle of Torah readings is interrupted for the festivals of Passover, Weeks, and Booths, just as the Nativity and resurrection cycles of the Christian year break into the flow of ordinary time.3
Early Christian Churches
We might think of the Bible itself as a kind of lectionary. For several thousand years, people of faith have been telling and writing stories about their experiences of God in the world. Some of those stories ended up in the Bible, but not all of them. Storytellers and editors had a hand in shaping and selecting these texts for public reading among the people of God. Ultimately, councils of religious leaders made decisions about which of these stories were inspired by the Spirit and measured up for inclusion in the canon.4 New Testament scholars and church historians have advanced a variety of theories about how the Gospels might have developed as schedules or sequences of readings for Christian worship.5 For instance, the Gospel of Matthew mirrors the five books of the Torah, structured around a series of narratives and discourses of Jesus, and explicitly mentions “the church” (ekklesia).6 The epistles of Paul, generally thought to pre-date the Gospels, appear to have been designed for public reading in their intended destinations. At the end of First Thessalonians, Paul says, “I solemnly command you by the Lord that this letter be read aloud to all” (1 Thess. 5:27). The Epistle to the Colossians offers further evidence that these letters were collected and exchanged among other churches (Col. 4:16).7
Beyond these biblical texts, early Christian writings reveal emerging practices of reading and proclamation among the first followers of Jesus. A Greek philosopher and convert to Christianity named Justin (100–165 CE) wrote a defense of Christian faith and practice before his martyrdom under the Roman Empire. Justin recounts eucharistic gatherings on the first day of the week at which Christians would read from the Old and New Testaments: “For as long as there is time, the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read. Then, when the reader has finished, the president verbally gives a warning and appeal for the imitation of these good examples” (First Apology, 67).8 A fourth-century church order from Syria demonstrates how these patterns continued to develop, with Sunday readings from the Law, the Prophets, the Epistles, Acts, and the Gospels (Apostolic Constitutions, 8.5). As these examples suggest, for the first few centuries of Christian history, the primary rhythm of worship seems to have been the weekly celebration of Christ’s resurrection on the Lord’s Day. These times of worship featured continuous readings through sequences of Scripture (lectio continua).
From the fourth century forward, the rhythm of Christian worship was increasingly inflected by annual commemorations of events in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. These festivals and seasons of the Christian year were accompanied by selected readings (lectio selecta), biblical passages deemed especially appropriate for these occasions. Records of sermons from early church leaders such as Ambrose of Milan (339–397), Augustine of Hippo (354–430), and Leo the Great (400–461) attest to the shift from lectio continua to lectio selecta preaching. By the fifth century, many churches were using a series of three readings—Old Testament, epistle, and Gospel—very much like the pattern of the RCL. Through the Middle Ages, however, readings from the Hebrew Scriptures began to fall away, leaving just the Epistles and Gospels. Under the reign of Charlemagne in the eighth century, a monk named Alcuin (735–804) standardized the Catholic lectionary, developing a one-year system that combined the Roman pattern of Gospel readings with a Gallican schedule for the Epistles.9 In subsequent centuries we find illuminated manuscripts of lectionary books and markings in medieval Bibles that indicate the beginning and endings of lectionary readings.10
The Reformation
When Martin Luther (1483–1546) posted his Ninety-Five Theses on the door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg in 1517, the lectionary didn’t make the list. Luther regularly preached from the Gospels and Epistles of the Catholic lectionary and encouraged others to do so. But Luther also found opportunities to teach on Genesis, Exodus, and the Psalms; a systematic reading of the Epistle to the Romans was especially influential in his theology. Until the middle of the twentieth century, most Lutherans and Anglicans continued to rely on the Catholic lectionary for the proclamation of the Word, with its lectio selecta approach to the Bible.11
For other branches of the Protestant family tree, lectio continua preaching was the rule. Ulrich Zwingli (1484–1531) began his ministry in Zurich by preaching verse by verse by verse through the Gospel of Matthew. At St. Pierre Cathedral in Geneva, John Calvin (1509–1564) preached through the Gospels and Acts on Sunday mornings and the Psalms and Epistles on Sunday evenings; on weekday mornings he preached on books of the Old Testament. There are records of two thousand sermons by Calvin, touching nearly every book of the Bible.12
The influence of John Calvin, along with the Scottish Reformer John Knox (1514–1572), is clear in the English Reformation of the seventeenth century. The 1644 Westminster Directory for the Public Worship of God called for the sequential reading of Scripture, covering all of the canonical books of the Bible, ordinarily one chapter at a time. At the same time, it granted some freedom to ministers in determining the selection of Scriptures and length of readings.13 Presbyterians in North America used variations on the Westminster Directory for Worship to guide and govern their worship for generations. It would not be until the mid-twentieth century that Presbyterians began to reconsider the value of a lectionary.
At the Council of Trent (1545–1563), the Roman Catholic Church sought to respond to the challenges of the Protestant Reformation. This council reaffirmed the books of the biblical canon, including some (such as Baruch and Maccabees) deemed apocryphal by Protestant churches. It also doubled down on the authority and authenticity of the Latin edition of the Bible. Notably, Trent standardized the one-year medieval lectionary in a version that consisted of 138 different biblical passages, almost exclusively from the Gospels and Epistles. Readings from the Hebrew Scriptures were only used on Epiphany, Good Friday, and at the Easter Vigil. Of the four Gospels, twenty-two readings were from Matthew, twenty-one from Luke, fourteen from John, and four from Mark. This Catholic lectionary would become the norm for four hundred years, from 1570 to 1969.14
The Twentieth Century
In 1962, on the eve of the Second Vatican Council, calls to reform the lectionary came from many quarters. Biblical scholars lamented the narrow use of the Old and New Testaments. Historians cited more expansive approaches to the Bible in the early church. Pastors called for a deeper well of Scripture to draw from in teaching the Christian faith.15 Taking this feedback to heart, the first major act of Vatican II was to approve the Sacrosanctum Concilium, or Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, in 1963. Along with other groundbreaking decisions—using vernacular languages in the liturgy and encouraging “fully active and conscious participation” in worship—this document called for a radical revision of the lectionary: “The treasures of the Bible are to be opened up more lavishly, so that the richer fare may be provided for the faithful at the table of God’s word” (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, 51).16
From 1964 to 1969, a working group labored to develop the new Catholic lectionary. They set forth guiding premises, including the affirmation of the presence of Christ in the word proclaimed, a focus on Sundays and festivals (rather than saints’ days), a strong commitment to an expanded use of Scripture, adaptations to contemporary contexts, and attentiveness to church tradition. They invited prominent biblical scholars to recommend important passages and used these lists to compile the lectionary. Key features were a three-year cycle organized around the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), a pattern of three readings (plus a psalm) for each day, and a combination of the lectio selecta method (for seasons and festivals) and the lectio continua approach (for Ordinary Time). In 1967 a draft was shared with hundreds of church leaders; their input informed the final draft that was approved by Pope Paul VI in 1969. This Lectionary for Mass went into effect on the First Sunday of Advent in 1971.17
Protestants were paying attention. Presbyterians were among the first to publish an adaptation of the new three-year lectionary in their 1970 Worshipbook—even before its premiere in Catholic churches.18 Within the decade, other denominations followed suit, releasing alternate versions of the Vatican II lectionary. But these disparate and diverging efforts were at odds with the hope for Christian unity espoused by the ecumenical liturgical movement. In 1978, the Consultation on Common Texts (CCT), a group of Protestant and Catholic scholars working on shared versions of important liturgical texts (such as the Lord’s Prayer and Apostles’ Creed), undertook the development of an ecumenical lectionary.19 It was determined that the new lectionary would follow the Catholic Lectionary for Mass in several important respects: observing the same liturgical calendar, using the three-year cycle, and (for the most part) retaining its Gospel and Epistle readings. A significant difference was in the presentation of the Hebrew Scriptures—offering semicontinuous readings from the Old Testament during the time after Pentecost. These ecumenical endeavors bore fruit in the 1983 Common Lectionary.20
A six-year trial period (two lectionary cycles) followed, during which the CCT received feedback from preachers, educators, denominational leaders, and international partners. Some respondents called for more biblical stories of women. Others sought expanded readings from the Prophets. Still others raised concerns about the piecemeal use of psalms. Anglican and Lutheran member churches lamented the loss of the Gospel-related readings from the Hebrew Scriptures in the time after Pentecost. After three more years of work to address these and other matters, the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) was released in 1992. The RCL added passages foregrounding women’s experiences, expanded the readings from the Prophets, revisited the use of psalms, and provided two tracks of Old Testament readings in the time after Pentecost: a semicontinuous track, moving sequentially through major stories of the Hebrew Scriptures, and a complementary track, with readings thematically tied to the Gospel.21
The RCL was immediately published in the 1993 Presbyterian Book of Common Worship; notably, given the Reformed preference for lectio continua, only the semicontinuous track of Old Testament readings was included.22 Twenty years later, research for Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal (2013) revealed that many Presbyterians were using both tracks interchangeably, drawing from online resources and ecumenical publications. Thus the 2013 hymnal and the 2018 edition of the Book of Common Worship provide both tracks of readings from the Hebrew Scriptures in the time after Pentecost.23 The official website of the Episcopal Church also now uses both tracks of the RCL.24
Secrets: How the RCL Works
I have organized the second part of this article around “seven Cs”—key principles in the development and design of the RCL that have important implications for how it may be effectively used in Christian worship. The first three Cs are based on three “foundational assumptions” identified by Horace Allen in his introduction to the 1983 Common Lectionary. (Allen used “cult” as a technical term for worship; I have substituted “context”).25 The other four Cs are drawn from my own research and reflection as one who relies on the RCL in teaching, preaching, and planning worship. They are also informed by and indebted to countless conversations with ecumenical partners from the Consultation on Common Texts.
1. Calendar: Christian Year
Lectionaries are inextricably connected with the calendar. In our brief review of church history we observed how the earliest Christian lectionaries emerged alongside the seasons and festivals of the liturgical year. The RCL, following the 1969 Catholic Lectionary for Mass, was designed to support the proclamation of salvation history and the celebration of the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Christ through the Christian year.
Specifically, the RCL is built around two seasonal cycles: the incarnation cycle, anticipating the coming (and return) and celebrating the Nativity of Jesus through the seasons of Advent and Christmas; and the resurrection cycle, anticipating the passion and celebrating the resurrection of Jesus through the seasons of Lent and Easter. Generally speaking, readings from the beginning of the Gospels are featured around the Nativity of the Lord, while readings from the conclusion of the Gospels are found around Holy Week and the Resurrection of the Lord. Outside of these seasonal cycles, the primary pattern of Christian worship is the rhythm of the week; in these periods of “Ordinary Time” we proclaim the extraordinary mystery of Christ’s resurrection on the Lord’s Day. During the Sundays after Epiphany, the RCL offers sequential Gospel readings from the early days of Jesus’ ministry, including the call of the disciples; during the Sundays after Pentecost, the RCL tells the stories of Jesus’ life and teaching.
The narratives of the Hebrew Scriptures are presented in a systematic way through the semicontinuous track of the RCL in the time after Pentecost. Year A features the early history of Israel: the ancestral narratives of the people of God from Genesis through Judges. Year B focuses on the reigns of Saul, David, and Solomon, as well as the Wisdom literature traditionally associated with Solomon. Year C highlights the prophets, beginning with Elijah and Elisha and continuing through many of the major and minor prophets, with special attention to Jeremiah.
2. Context: Christian Worship
Lectionaries are designed for liturgical contexts—they have certain orders of worship and ritual practices in view. Sunday/festival lectionaries support the proclamation of the Word and the celebration of the Eucharist; daily lectionaries are used for disciplines of daily prayer. The RCL is a Sunday/festival lectionary, intended for services of Word and sacrament, primarily on the Lord’s Day. (The RCL Daily Readings, published in 2005, expands on the Sunday/festival RCL by offering passages that anticipate the Lord’s Day on Thursday through Saturday and reflect on the Lord’s Day on Monday through Wednesday.)
The configuration of three readings (plus a psalm) in the Sunday/festival RCL represents a theological conviction: that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament together point to Jesus Christ, whom we encounter in Christian worship through the proclamation of the Word and the celebration of the Eucharist, and then go forth to follow and serve. The first reading is ordinarily from the Hebrew Scriptures (or Acts in the season of Easter); the psalm is provided as a musical and prayerful response to the first reading. The second reading is drawn from the New Testament Epistles (or Revelation in Easter of Year C). This pattern culminates in the proclamation of the good news through the Gospel reading—welcoming the Word made flesh.
When we remember the ritual setting of Lord’s Day worship, the biblical selections of the RCL spring to life. The voices of the prophets, messages of the apostles, and teachings of Jesus resound in the proclamation of the Word. Stories of water and meals gesture toward the font and table. Calls to love and serve God and neighbor lead us into the world.
3. Canon: Christian Scripture
Lectionaries are made up of readings from Scripture. Yet lectionaries are not intended to be plans for reading the whole canon of Christian Scripture, nor are they substitutes for Bible study in Christian formation. They have other priorities in view, such as the celebration of the Christian year and the context of Christian worship. Within those parameters, the RCL seeks to represent the breadth and depth of the biblical canon as fully and as faithfully as possible.
The RCL provides readings from all but five books of the Old Testament: First Chronicles, Second Chronicles, Ezra, Obadiah, and Nahum. First and Second Chronicles overlap considerably with other parts of the Hebrew Scriptures from Genesis through Kings. Ezra is a companion to Nehemiah, originally considered a single book. The minor prophets Obadiah and Nahum are among the shortest books of the Old Testament. Selections from all but three books of the New Testament are included in the RCL: Second John, Third John, and Jude. The three omitted epistles are very brief, each consisting of a single chapter. In summary, of the sixty-six books in the Bible, the RCL draws on fifty-eight.
The use of the Gospels in the RCL merits special attention. The RCL highlights one of the Synoptic Gospels in each of its three years: Matthew (25 of 28 chapters) in Year A, Mark (all 16 chapters) in Year B, and Luke (all 24 chapters) in Year C. The Gospel of John (20 of 21 chapters) is by no means neglected; the fourth Gospel is used prominently in the seasons of Lent and Easter, along with Nativity of the Lord and the Three Days (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Resurrection of the Lord). Distinctive passages from the Synoptic Gospels are used on other festival days, such as Luke on Christmas Eve and Ascension, or Matthew on Epiphany.
4. Catholicity: Ecumenical Hope
Lectionaries serve the church. They gather the people of God together around the reading and proclamation of the Word and send us out to share the gospel with the world. As grains of wheat are gathered into one loaf, lectionaries can help to unite the body of Christ.
The RCL represents a fervent hope for the unity of the church—that Catholic and Protestant churches might be united in the reading and proclamation of the Word. This hope is evident in the shared use of the three-year cycle and the fact that New Testament readings are held in common; the appearance of deuterocanonical (or “apocryphal”) readings help us remember that other churches tell other stories. Because of the ecumenical hope embodied by the RCL, local ministerial alliances can gather and study Scripture together as they prepare for worship; because of the RCL, church publishers have been able to produce a wealth of common commentaries and worship companions; because of the RCL, on any given Sunday congregations across the street or around the world may find themselves “on the same page” or “singing the same tune.”
5. Continuity: Church History
Lectionaries have histories. Some patterns of reading, such as the Catholic lectionaries of the Middle Ages and Counter-Reformation, have deep roots in church history. Even when contemporary lectionaries are devised or revised, they carry with them the histories of interpretation that are attached to certain biblical texts.
Because the RCL is grounded in Catholic lectionaries, there are threads you can trace back centuries and millennia into the practices of Christians who have come before us. There are patterns of readings in Lent, for instance, that reflect practices of preparation for baptism in the early church in places like Italy, Constantinople, and North Africa. And in a more personal sense, from generation to generation, we can imagine our parents and grandparents and so on reading these same readings through the Christian year. But there are also important examples of intentional discontinuity with church history—paying more attention to the experiences of women, for instance, and avoiding texts with histories of discrimination, violence, and oppression.
6. Community: Forming Relationships
Lectionaries foster relationships. They put stories alongside other stories, as well as symbols of the faith. As we remember these stories and share these symbols, we grow closer to God and one another. Thus, lectionaries help to shape our faith and build up the body of Christ.
The RCL makes use of two kinds of relationships between and among biblical texts: synchronic (at the same time) and diachronic (through time). Synchronic relationships are formed when Scriptures occur together on the same day, as stories and images in one text illuminate or expand on those of another passage. Synchronic relationships are especially prominent in the first half of the Christian year, the time from Advent to Pentecost, as we celebrate the festivals and seasons of the church. Diachronic relationships are formed when sequential passages of Scripture occur through the weeks and seasons of Christian worship, as we journey with the people of God and follow in the footsteps of Jesus. Diachronic relationships are especially featured in the second half of the Christian year, during the times after Epiphany and Pentecost, as we trace the narratives of Hebrew Scripture, read the writings of the apostles, and tell the stories of Jesus.
7. Choice: Selected Readings
Lectionaries are selective. By definition, they make choices about which texts to include and how, where, and when to include them. The word “lectionary” comes from the Latin root lego, legere, legi, lectus, meaning “to gather” (as in “collect”), “to choose” (as in “select”), or “to read” (as in “lecture” or “lectern”).
This whole range of meaning is implicit in the design of the RCL. It gathers together appropriate readings for each Sunday, festival, or season. Drawing on the whole canon of Scripture, it chooses particular readings for particular occasions. And it exists to support the reading of the Word of God in worship. The RCL makes choices; but it also offers choices. Examples include the two tracks of readings from the Hebrew Scriptures in the time after Pentecost, or the option of longer readings (through the use of verses in parentheses).
For forty years and counting, the Common Lectionary and the RCL have been a source of wisdom and a sign of hope for the universal church. With our ancestors in the faith, let us continue to sing:
Spring up, O Well of Wisdom,
and fill us with your grace.
Let streams of blessing cover
this dry and dusty place.
Pour out your Holy Spirit
to make our spirits soar
and give us living water
that we may thirst no more.
(David Gambrell, 2023)
Notes
1. John Reumann, “A History of Lectionaries: From the Synagogue at Nazareth to Post-Vatican II,” Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology, 31:2 (1977), 118.
2. Normand Bonneau, The Sunday Lectionary: Ritual Word, Paschal Shape (Collegevlle, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1998), 5–8.
3. Reumann, “A History of Lectionaries,” 119; Bonneau, The Sunday Lectionary, 5–8.
4. Gail Ramshaw, A Three-Year Banquet: The Lectionary for the Assembly (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 2004), 6–8.
5. Reumann, “A History of Lectionaries,” 120–122.
6. Gordon Lathrop, The Four Gospels on Sunday: The New Testament and the Reform of Christian Worship (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2011).
7. Ramshaw, A Three-Year Banquet, 7; Bonneau, The Sunday Lectionary, 8.
8. Bonneau, The Sunday Lectionary, 9; Ramshaw, A Three-Year Banquet, 7.
9. Hughes Oliphant Old, Worship: Reformed according to Scripture, rev. and expanded ed. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), 65–70.
10. Horace T. Allen Jr., “Lectionaries,” The New Westminster Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), 274–275.
11. Ramshaw, A Three-Year Banquet, 9; Old, Worship, 70.
12. Old, Worship, 70–78; Ramshaw, A Three-Year Banquet, 9–10.
13. Old, Worship, 80–81.
14. Bonneau, The Sunday Lectionary, 18–19.
15. Bonneau, The Sunday Lectionary, 21–22.
16. Allen, “Lectionaries,” 275.
17. Bonneau, The Sunday Lectionary, 24–29, 31–51.
18. The Worshipbook (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1970), 165–175.
19. Consultation on Common Texts, The Revised Common Lectionary: 20th Anniversary Annotated Edition (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2012), xviii.
20. Consultation on Common Texts, The Revised Common Lectionary, 203.
21. Consultation on Common Texts, The Revised Common Lectionary, 203–206.
22. Book of Common Worship (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1993), 1035–1048.
23. Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), 968–978; Book of Common Worship (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018), 157–400.
24. episcopalchurch.org/lectionary, accessed September 12, 2023.
25. Consultation on Common Texts, The Revised Common Lectionary, 163–183.
