“Immolatus vicerit”
~ Auden, Horae Canonicae (from the Pange lingua of Venantius Fortunatus)

“He conquered, in offering himself.”

Introduction

In 2006, the General Convention of The Episcopal Church (TEC) resolved “that the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) shall be the Lectionary of this Church, amending the Lectionary on pp. 889-921 of The Book of Common Prayer, effective the First Sunday of Advent, 2007.” To some this may have seemed a minor blip in light of the larger presenting issues which have hurled the Anglican Communion to the brink of ecclesial fragmentation. However, long after the current controversies have moved out of the limelight, the RCL will still be with us. It is precisely because our communal life depends on our saturation in the Word of God, our becoming a “Scripture-formed community” as Stanley Hauerwas has called it, that the successes and failures of the RCL merit our continued attentions in the ongoing work of collective reception.

At the forefront, I should say that I have general misgivings about the adoption of the RCL. Paramount in fueling my skepticism is the RCL’s departure from the Roman Catholic lectionary cycle. I know that many would point to the goal of pan-protestant ecumenism, which is a worthy goal in itself. However as we are now in full sacramental communion with the ELCA, matters on that front seem to be moving in a positive direction. On the other hand, full reconciliation between the Roman Catholic and Anglican communions looks to be an increasingly slim prospect for the time being. If we cannot share the blessed sacrament with Roman Catholics on Sundays, I pray we can at least share, to the degree offered by the 1979 BCP, God’s word.

Further and more serious misgivings arise from the oft-purported aim of the RCL to prevent the “cherry-picking” of Old Testament texts, as evinced in the BCP, which are chosen particularly for their relevance to the Gospel texts. The Hebrew Scriptures, it is argued, ought to be appreciated for their own sake, not only as forerunners of the Gospel. With this last statement, I am in full agreement; the Hebrew Scriptures bear a unique and true witness to God’s character which can be appreciated in their own theological idiom. The question is rather to what end they ought to be read on Sundays during the Mass.

How are we to answer this question? A first step could be to argue that insofar as the Liturgy of the Word takes place in the context of the Mass, it must by that same token be Christocentric. But let us not leap to so strong a conclusion; for the sake of argument, suppose we accept the premise that the relative independence of the lections from the Hebrew Bible on Sunday morning ought to be our aim, so as to avoid “cherry-picking.” Does the RCL succeed on this score?

A full-scale analysis of the RCL exceeds the scope of this essay (See the study by M. H. Mead, below). I would like to focus rather on one particular example, which is perhaps not exempla gratia: the RCL’s departure from the BCP for Lent 2, Year B (Sunday, March 8, 2009). In this essay, I will consider the changes to the first lessons in Lent Year B, and argue (1) that the RCL fails to extricate the Hebrew Bible from the shadow of the New Testament texts and (2) that it actually impoverishes the potential that the Hebrew Bible lections have for encouraging Jewish-Christian dialogue and illuminating the Gospel text.

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A Tale of Two Lectionaries

On opening my BCP last Sunday morning, I was pleased to find that Gen 22:1-14, the story of the near-sacrifice of Isaac, or the aqedah, “binding,” as it is called in Jewish circles, was set as the first lesson. It is a passage of foundational significance for the development of the Rabbinic doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, as Jon Levenson has masterfully demonstrated in his monograph, The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son. Moreover, it holds a key place in the Christian understanding of the passion of Jesus, toward which all our Lenten meditations tend.

You can only imagine my disappointment, upon opening the insert in my bulletin before the service, at finding not Genesis 22 but Genesis 17, the narration of God’s changing the names of Abram and Sarai to Abraham and Sarah. To be sure, this is an important passage in its own right, although its Lenten relevance did not immediately strike me. Upon hearing the Gospel reading, Mark 8:31-38, I was struck by its seeming lack of connection with the passage from Genesis. Perhaps, I thought, this is an instance of an alternative “track” in the RCL, which would treat the Hebrew Bible with a greater degree of independence from the New Testament lessons. So upon returning home, I compiled the two lectionaries for Lent Year B to test my theory. The results are in the table below:

Lent, Lectionary B

                  1L (BCP)                1L (RCL)                    2L (BCP)                    2L (RCL)
Lent 1         Gen 9:8-17             Gen 9:8-17               1 Pet 3:18-22               1 Pet 3:18-22
Lent 2         Gen 22:1-14           Gen 17:1-7, 15-16     Rom 8:31-39               Rom 4:13-25
Lent 3         Ex 20:1-17               Ex 20:1-17               Rom 7:13-25               1 Cor 1:18-25
Lent 4         2 Chron 36:14-23   Num 21:4-9               Eph 2:4-10                   Eph 2:1-10
Lent 5         Jer 31:31-34           Jer 31:31-34             Heb 5: (1-4) 5-10         Heb 5:5-10

NB: The Roman Catholic Gospel for Lent 2 Year B is Mark 9:2-10. This will be discussed below.

Several things become apparent from this data. In the first place, there is no visible attempt to mitigate “cherry-picking.” Lent 1, 3, and 5 remain the same in BCP and RCL. In Lent 2, the Gospel lection from Mark 8 is a departure from the Roman Catholic Liturgy, perhaps to avoid “retelling” the transfiguration narrative. Mark 8 was likely chosen in part because of its proximity to the original reading; it also shares some deep theological features with Gen 22. Moreover, the change in Lent 2 from Gen 22 to Gen 17 and in Lent 4 from 2 Chron 36 to Num 21 has nothing to do with a Hebrew Bible “track” (the track notion, I found on further research, is related to the “summer options”, primarily incorporated into the RCL in the season after Pentecost). The change had to derive from elsewhere.

It appears, rather, in the case of Lent 2, that the Hebrew Bible reading which speaks of Abraham’s change of name at the age of “ninety-nine years old” (Gen 17:1) has been chosen to correspond to Paul’s claim that Abraham received the promise when he was “as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old)” (Rom 4:19). In other words, the Hebrew Bible reading is even more slavishly tethered to a NT reading than it was in the BCP. Moreover, neither the first or second lesson (both novel additions of the RCL) bear obvious exegetical or theological connection to the Gospel lection, which alone is maintained from the BCP. The disjunction, in fact runs deeper, as Mark 8 seems to have been chosen as a replacement for Mark 9 in the BCP partly because of its pertinence to Gen 22. Just how closely these texts are wedded will be revealed below.

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Isaac, Jesus, and the Aqedah

Let us turn now to the theological emphases of each lectionary in the Lenten context. Gen 17 and Rom 4 draw to the foreground God’s covenant with Abraham, not through any adherence to the law, but through faith. Gen 17 provides one of the important scriptural intertexts for Rom 4, but Paul cites more extensively from Gen 15:5, 6. It is not clear then the RCL highlights the most important parallel. The theme of covenant formation, however important in both Jewish and Christian tradition, seems more appropriate to the season of Pentecost, which is the festival of Covenant renewal in Second Temple Judaism and the celebration of the birth of the Church, in the descent of the Holy Tongues.

How much more sobering and centering is the aqedah with its sparse narration, “fraught with background,” to quote Auerbach. The narrative darkness draws the reader to his knees as he reads with holy terror:

wayyiqqah ’Abrāhām ’et ‘əsē hā‘olā wayyāśem ‘al yishāq bənō.

Then Abraham took the wood of the whole burnt offering and placed it upon Isaac his son. (Gen 22:6a)

Here is the image of the father of faith placing the instrument of his only son’s immolation upon his back to carry. Genesis Rabbah, the Amoraic exegetical midrash on the first book of Torah, interprets this verse famously:

And Abraham took the wood of the burnt-offering [and he placed it on Isaac his son]”—as one who bears his cross on his shoulder. (Gen. Rab. lvi.3)

No further rabbinic explanation of this description of Isaac is given in the text; but it seems clear that the rabbis could construe Isaac’s position as similar to that of the many Jewish martyrs who had been made to carry their own crosses by brutal Roman tyrants. From the apologetic works of Philo and Josephus, we know that Jews of the 1st century C.E. were proud to die for their laws, for Torah.

For the Scripture-formed community of Christians, reading the aqedah during Lent would seem a worthy annual exercise. It is true that the BCP lectionary provides for its reading also on Good Friday. But that provision is removed by the RCL (Isa 52 is the only first lesson provided). Moreover, the connection of Gen 22 with the Gospel lection of Mark 8:31-38 becomes only the more salient in light of the preceding analysis:

[Jesus] called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” (Mark 8:34-35, emphasis is mine)

Jesus in Mark’s Gospel evidently has much in common with Isaac. Both are on the road to Jerusalem, Isaac to Moriah, Jesus to Golgotha. Both are the only and beloved sons of his fathers, both will carry the wood for their own sacrifices—or, in light of the Rabbinic exegesis offered, both will carry their own crosses. Both will offer up their life out of obedience to their fathers, only miraculously to receive them back in return. The aqedah narrative sheds light on the Gospel saying of Jesus, in that it reveals Jesus’ shouldering of his cross as a part of his responsibility as beloved son; we too, who are called children in our baptism must follow him, and become obedient as Isaac, compliant with the will of our Heavenly Father. Despite their important halakhic differences, the teaching of the Rabbis sounds in concord with the wisdom of the father of Mt. Athos on this point: “Obedience is life.”

Conclusion

Of the previous two lectionaries for Lent 2, I have argued that the BCP’s far outstrips the RCL in pertinence to the season. This cannot of course substitute for an argument against the RCL on the whole. It should serve as a conservative voice of caution that change is not always for the better. The hard work of updating the lectionary cycle achieved by Roman Catholic liturgists in the mid-20th century to include three synoptic cycles and lessons from the Hebrew Bible represents a major accomplishment. In many ways, the 1979 prayer book lectionary is still very much in the process of reception, and the legislation of the RCL by General Convention 2006 represents a pre-emptive step; the RCL’s superiority over the BCP is far from established. The goal of teaching the Hebrew Bible to congregations in a more linear and holistic fashion is a noble one. It is our suggestion, however, due to the Christocentricity of the Mass, that this endeavor be undertaken in parish Bible Studies and Sunday School. A community cannot be adequately formed and saturated by Scripture during the Mass alone. Moreover, many theologians in the 20th century have argued that the Eucharist itself may be seen in its entirety as a liturgy of the Word: the Word of God in Scripture and in the Blessed Sacrament. To provide readings from the Hebrew Bible in this context which distract from rather than complement the Christological goal of the liturgical action seems to be a misguided effort.

Further Reading:
Levenson, J. (1993) The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity (Yale).
Mead, M. H., Book of Common Prayer and Revised Common Lectionary Analysis (http://images.acswebnetworks.com/1/49/RevisedCommonLectionaryAnalysis.pdf). Available on the website of St. Mary the Virgin, New York.
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I am certainly no fan of the RCL, and I appreciate this article. At General Convention 2003 I was instrumental in delaying the adoption of the RCL at that time, and in 2006 I was simply outmaneuvered in my attempt to make it permanently optional but not mandatory. As a musician, I am particularly annoyed by the changes made in the appointed Psalms: they are generally gratuitous (i.e. not evincing any of the purported ideological aims of the RCL), the selections are too long, and it wreaks havoc with long-published and adopted musical settings of the eucharistic Psalter. I wish I could wave a magic wand and make it all go away. (Indeed, the Diocese of New York has memorialized General Convention to allow the permanent optional use of the 1979 lectionary; a measure I will vote for it it comes to the floor.)

That said, I feel constrained to point out that, in some (many) cases, the RCL takes us closer to, not further from, the Roman lectionary. For example, in doing sermon planning, I was at first greatly perturbed to find that the gospel for this coming Lent IV was an entirely different passage from John than in the 1979 lectionary. Upon further digging, however, I discovered that we have now, in this instance, conformed to the Roman lectionary (the “lifting up” of Christ), and the new OT reading from Numbers establishes the basis for Our Lord’s comments about being lifted up.

One of the features of the Roman lectionary that 1979 never adopted, and which the Episcopal version (yes, we have not simply adopted the RCL in toto) of the RCL intentionally continued to avoid, is that Lent II is “Transfiguration Sunday” in all three years of the cycle. I appreciate having it on the Last Sunday after the Epiphany; it makes much more sense there.

Lent as a season—in Year B at any rate—is also idiosyncratic, in that the OT readings are not glosses on the gospel as they normally are (that is, on Sundays outside of Ordinary Time and in Track II in Ordinary Time), but even in the 1979 lectionary had their own proper thread, viz. that of “covenant.” Lent I sets forth the covenant with Noah (and the epistle selection from I Peter has always supported this theme rather than the omnipresent Lent I gospel theme of the Temptation in the Wilderness). Lent II is “Abraham Sunday,” and, as Michael aptly pointed out, the OT reading has always supported this theme, rather than that of the gospel pericope. The change made in the RCL, of course, is how this theme is supported, supplanting the Mount Moriah narrative with that of the re-naming of Abram and Sarai. I am not privy to the thinking behind this, but a mere desire to avoid redundancy is a plausible explanation, since the Isaac story is used just a few weeks later at the Easter Vigil, where its prefigurement of the resurrection is even more apposite. Lent III, then, sets forth the covenant with Moses, a theme that perdures in the RCL. Alas, the chain is now broken on Lent IV, where the 1979 reading from II Chronicles reminds us of the Lord’s covenant with Israel-in-exile is replaced by the Numbers selection that supports the gospel. This is doubly unfortunate, in that the ancient theme of “Jerusalem Sunday” on Lent IV, which could still be detected in Year B from the first reading, the Psalm, and even (through some creative eisegesis!) the gospel (5000 fed) is now totally eclipsed. No more reason to sing that Victorian warhorse, “Jerusalem the golden, with milk and honey blest…”. Makes the heart sad.

Father Dan,

Thanks for your insightful reply, clarifications, corrections, &cetera;. As someone who is just learning the deeper contours of the lectionary myself, I appreciate your seasoned eye, esp. the following:

Fr. Dan Martins - 13 March 2009 10:56 AM

That said, I feel constrained to point out that, in some (many) cases, the RCL takes us closer to, not further from, the Roman lectionary. For example, in doing sermon planning, I was at first greatly perturbed to find that the gospel for this coming Lent IV was an entirely different passage from John than in the 1979 lectionary. Upon further digging, however, I discovered that we have now, in this instance, conformed to the Roman lectionary (the “lifting up” of Christ), and the new OT reading from Numbers establishes the basis for Our Lord’s comments about being lifted up.

This point is well taken. I, of course, was not attempting a full scale analysis of modifications in relation to the RC lectionary (certainly my study would have benefited from this exercise, but time did not permit me to delve further).

Fr. Dan Martins - 13 March 2009 10:56 AM

Lent as a season—in Year B at any rate—is also idiosyncratic, in that the OT readings are not glosses on the gospel as they normally are (that is, on Sundays outside of Ordinary Time and in Track II in Ordinary Time), but even in the 1979 lectionary had their own proper thread, viz. that of “covenant.”

Ah, I see this now. Strange, given the highly Christological aims of the lectionary reform in Sacrosanctum consilium and Dei verbum. As you say, the Christological motion is focused not on an equivalence each Sunday, but on the endpoint in Jeremiah, and thus in the entire contour of the first lesson cycle. Very interesting also that Lent II B is Abraham Sunday. I still miss the aqedah here, not only for the reasons mentioned above (Mark 8), but for the very verbal and theological similarities between Gen 15 and Gen 22. In a way, they are theological twins (fraternal but not identical) expounding two key aspects of the covenant: grace and obedience.

On a more practical note, is there any chance that the BCP could become an option again, or is this pretty much a done deal?

Thanks,
MBC

MIchael,
I appreciate your discussion here.  But I want to point out that what I found most breathtaking was the premise underlying the whole discussion that being more Roman is not just an aim, but the aim. I experience it, quite candidly, as a polite and civil hostility to the Protestant stream that is a major part of the Episcopal Church. Your perspective, and that of Fr. Dan, strikes me as one that is unaware of or insufficiently concerned with the goal of fellowship with Methodist, Presbyterians, and others of the Reformation stream.  The premise seems to be that to be properly Anglican is to be properly Roman, and therefore, for something to be good, it must imitate Rome.  And beneath the surface of this seems to be the underlying assumption that ecumenism consists of moving Anglicanism back to Rome. 

More on this core concern below.  But first, I must also note that you seem to presuppose a theology of preaching the lectionary that is from a similarly Roman/Anglo-Catholic liturgical perspective that is by no means the way that many of us from the Protestant stream approach the task of preaching.  This last is quite significant, perhaps, because most of us from the Protestant stream consider preaching to be sacramental (if not necessarily a sacrament).  As a Christian preacher, my goal is to open up a particular text, often the gospel lection, but I have the entire Bible - our entire story - at my disposal to help me do that.  In this hermeneutics and homiletics into which many Protestants are indoctrinated, the lectionary is not in any way the limitation that you imply that it is.

The limitations that you lament in the example of March 8, a lection for which I have posted my own sermon on this site, are not real unless you embrace a particular theology of preaching that constrains a preacher in ways that are alien to the canonical-linguistic hermeneutic and homiletics I have witnessed in my life as a Protestant and in my training at Duke.  You seem to believe that there is a single aspect of a lection that must be preached on a particular Sunday, as though every word in that lection is not available as a resource stimulating the preacher’s creative imagination.  And so you state that Gen 17 means that the preacher will be preaching on “the narration of God’s changing the names of Abram and Sarai to Abraham and Sarah” and then posit that there is a problem with the RCL here. 

Well, no.  First of all, as a preacher, opening up Mark 8:31-38, our entire story is always available to me and it’s my duty to use whatever part of it is needed for me to lift up the Word the Spirit gives me in my exegesis of that text and in my exegesis of my congregation.  Secondly, the pericope includes 17:1-4, which has nothing to do with the renaming, and, in my own exegesis of text and parish, is the essential part in terms of what I perceive to be the Word my own parish - in this moment of time - needs to wrestle with, for it proclaims the purpose of the people of Abraham, and it proclaims the word of a covenant.  So to me, your concerns about the lection that you use in your example make no sense UNLESS you presuppose constraints that I don’t think are real.  And, as I said, that brings us back to a specific theology of preaching and of how the liturgy must be limited by the lectionary (as Fr. Dan has mentioned in his lamentations about music), that is quite alien to someone on the Evangelical side of Anglicanism, and certainly to those reared in the other parts of the Reformation stream who use the RCL.  I am not suggesting that it is inappropriate to limit oneself in this way, but trying to surface the reality that you are projecting an anglo-catholic way of viewing the lection, the task of preaching, and the liturgy onto the whole of the Church and seeking, implicitly, to universalize it.

It is always a bit of a shock to me when I encounter this thinking because I come from a different world - the world of Protestantism.  This thinking, of which you might not even be conscious, is alien to me.  Yet, just as you implicitly do,  I very much buy into the priority of healing the wounds of our divisions.  But from my perspective, this has always consisted - in order of priority - of the reunion of the Protestant streams that share so much in common that I mentioned above - in which I locate TEC also - followed by the more distant goal of having this reunited Reformation stream reunited with Rome and the Eastern Orthodox.  Ecumenism, as I think of it as one from the Reformation stream, is not about becoming more Roman; it’s about both streams moving away from their self-constructed enclaves, each giving up that which is not holy in order to achieve a unity that is holy. 

Whenever I encounter this deep beneath-the-surface anti-Protestantism animating arguments about things as seemingly innocent as the lectionary we preach, it becomes clear to me that, for some anglo-catholics, the notion of ecumenism has been distorted; it does not really reflect a quest for unity in which both give up that which is unholy in order to find unity, but merely has become a polite code that points to a future in which all of us finally become Roman.  And if that is really the agenda, then it seems important to me that we be transparent about it and not obscure that factor by presenting our proposals as animated by or appropriately categorized as ecumenism.

As a Protestant who has lived almost always in the southeastern United States, I have lived usually in a world where post-Christendom is encountered principally in the form of the dominant Methodists, Presbyterians, and Baptists, with a smaller but substantial presence of Lutherans and Episcopalians.

And I take great joy in the RCL, for I know that, when we Anglicans worship on Sunday using the RCL, we are proclaiming the same texts as all of these streams of the Reformation who have already migrated to that lectionary.  Almost every Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and many Baptist churches in North America are proclaiming that same Word, and so too are Anglican and global sister churches throughout the world. And on many Sundays, our Roman brethren are proclaiming the same texts. 

I love the RCL because I think it is the fruit of true ecumenism.

The goal of teaching the Hebrew Bible to congregations in a more linear and holistic fashion is a noble one. It is our suggestion, however, due to the Christocentricity of the Mass, that this endeavor be undertaken in parish Bible Studies and Sunday School. A community cannot be adequately formed and saturated by Scripture during the Mass alone.

While I appreciate this comment and the goal of Cover’s essay, let’s be honest.  It’s a far half to full decade’s journey since Morning Prayer was the primary Sunday service at most Episcopal churches.  And today most people show up to church on occasional Sundays at best.  There are a few more intentional communities that have reasonable extra-Sabbath/extra-Eucharistic gatherings.  But I would be happy ensuring a core group made it to church regularly on Sunday, first, before worrying about the adequacy of the lectionary we use or trying to start new Bible studies.

Once they are demonstrably committed, however, they will need to eat from the manna of the Word and the manna of the Table. There’s no such thing as a Eucharist without the Synaxis.  Your need Scripture and Sacrament to form the complete celebration.  That means the OT should not be neglected as though it really were not part of Scripture, or a lesser part.  So the goal to teach the OT is not simply laudable, it is necessary, especially when it is the primary vehicle your parish engages for spiritual formation.

Though, on the whole I think we ask too much of our lectionaries.  No Sunday’s-only Eucharist lectionary has ever been comprehensive in its presentation of the Scripture, nor could it be.  But insofar as during Ordinary Time the RCL attempts to allow for sequential Scripture lessons (OT and NT), I am much appreciative.  Let’s make the most of it since we have it.

At the same time, we need better a representative sampling from the OT.  Joshua and Judges are just two of the books severely underrepresented (I mean c’mon, you should at least have one Sunday when you can sing Josh Fit the Battle of Jericho! That’s right, it’s missing from the RCL.  Check the Scripture index yourself.).  Some supplement for or alternative to the RCL as it currently is structured should be permitted for parish use to fill in those gaps.

I also do not agree with Cover’s assertion that because Eucharist is Christocentric, it makes sequential OT exposition unduly difficult.  I was under the impression that we accept the OT precisely (yet not exclusively) because it bears witness to Christ (albeit in an “undercover” fashion).  Thus, whether one “cherry-picks” or follows through the OT in order, Christ is progressively attested to in the OT, and we read the OT in the light of that mystery once hidden now revealed.  Let’s nip that argument in the bud before it leads us on an inadvertent neo-Marcionite path.

Lenny,

I agree with you on this point: “I also do not agree with Cover’s assertion that because Eucharist is Christocentric, it makes sequential OT exposition unduly difficult.”  Since we (ought to) read the OT christocentrically anyway, I don’t see this as an issue.

I find some of the changes in the lessons puzzling (e.g. Isaiah 6 on some other Sunday than Trinity); however, I cannot pretend to have the kind of education or experience to criticize these in detail. The use of the psalter, however, is simply wretched. Particularly vexing is the way it chooses to chop up and skip around within a psalm; in practice it makes reading directly from the BCP next to impossible.

I guess this illustrates why I don’t blog very much: I get involved with other things, and don’t respond to posts until months later (in the meantime, Craig and I met at a retreat and had a very nice conversation).

I appreciate Craig’s and Lenny’s comments; however, I do take some umbrage at my comments being labeled crypto-Marcionite (as a rule of thumb, it’s neither eirenic nor complimentary to call someone else’s arguments materially heretical, unless you’re sure they are). It is precisely because of the high regard with which I view the Old Testament/Tanakh that I wrote the article that I did. Moreover, if you’re concerned about my arguments, you might also call the pre-Vatican II Episcopal and Roman churches Marcionite because neither of them had OT lessons. But let me clarify further.

The Eucharist is Christocentric, but perhaps I should have said that the Liturgy of the Word is “Gospel-centric,” by which I mean the four canonical Gospels. The Liturgy of the Word is composed of three theologically equal (i.e. equally inspired) readings, which nonetheless have a hierarchical order (kind of like the Trinity, wherein the Son is second to the Father, although the analogy is obviously imperfect). To a casual observer, the reading of the Gospel is clearly the central moment. The Gospel is the crown.

My point is simply that when you revise a lectionary, you have the choice of aligning the OT text with (1) the Gospel; (2) a theme which relates to the Gospel (such as “covenant” in Lent B); (3) with the overall sequence of the OT book, regardless of the Gospel; (4) with the Epistle; or (5) with none of the above. (1) and (2) are fine by me, and as Fr. Dan points out, (2) is particularly artistic. (3) is okay, I suppose, but it cuts against the grain of the liturgy; unfortunately, I often have the sneaking suspicion that (5) is at work. Does this make sense?