Training Plans and the Lectionary

When people discover that I enjoy running marathons, they will often tell me, “There’s no way I could ever run a marathon!” To be honest, there’s a part of me that thinks that same thing at the start of every training season. The long cold winter months (along with a few too many tall cold brews) make the prospect of 26.2 rather daunting. This past Saturday, my “long” run was 11 miles, and it seemed to last an eternity.

One doesn’t just decide to pin on a bib number and run a marathon like you would a Thanksgiving Day turkey trot. There is a significant amount of preparation that goes into making sure your body and your mind are properly prepared for the endeavor. This preparation includes incrementally increasing daily mileage that is laid out in a training plan. These plans also include things like speed work, tempo runs, cross-training, fartleks, etc. There are a variety of training plans available that can meet the needs of beginners as well as elite runners. I’ve used a higher mileage plan based on the concept of cumulative fatigue. I’ve used plans that emphasize lower mileage but higher quality speed work. I’ve even used an “old guy” plan that had me run for specific periods of time rather than a particular distance. 

I got to thinking about these training plans as the church prepares for the season of Advent and a new liturgical church year. This year at Holy Cross, we’re going to begin using the Revised Common Lectionary once again. Several years ago, I moved away from the RCL and began creating thematic sermon series for our worship life. In his book Shrink: FaithfulMinistry in A Church Growth Culture, Kansas City pastor Tim Suttle would refer to this decision as one rooted in church growth techniques and strategies that seek relevance that creates church fans rather than faithful disciples. The whole premise behind the development of a sermon series is to produce a marketable product that appeals to the felt needs and wants of the worshipper. It also allows the preacher to shape the congregation’s worship life in ways that support the pastor’s ministry priorities. This is an important critique that preachers ought to keep before them at all times. It’s also an important critique that preachers ought to keep in mind when the goal is drawing people into God’s mission to heal the world rather than the parochial needs of the local congregation. 

Personally, I began to tire of searching for and creating the next appealing sermon series theme that would capture people’s attention. A return to the RCL offers freedom from these demands and immerses me in the liturgical rhythms of the wider Church. The appointed texts, along with the daily lectionary, function like one of those marathon training plans. The structure of the lectionary not only lays out the appointed readings, but some of those readings are going to feel like a difficult speed session. Each week, the appointed texts draw us into the seasonal rhythms in which God speaks to us in both law and promise. The texts interpret us and the world in which we live and shape us for lives of faithful discipleship. In an interview from 1966, Karl Barth said: “The Pastor and the Faithful should not deceive themselves into thinking that they are a religious society, which has to do with certain themes; they live in the world. We still need - according to my old formulation - the Bible and the Newspaper."

As I write this post, the community of Ferguson, Missouri is in crisis. Race, culture, economics, criminal justice, and violence have a community reeling and a nation seeking answers; even more than answers, redemption. This is the world that the biblical text critiques and speaks a word of gospel. This is the world that God loves. This is the world to which the church is sent to make the Kingdom of God a reality. As preachers, leaders, and communities of faith, we have the holy calling “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, ¹³ until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12-13). That calls for a really good training plan.