Meeting at the Presbyterian Center, the Consultation on Common Texts approves a pair of measures

LOUISVILLE — Meeting at the Presbyterian Center in Louisville, Kentucky, this week, the Consultation on Common Texts approved a measure that will address anti-Judaism during Lent and Eastertide and recommended readings for a new feast day celebrating God the Creator.

Image

The CCT is an ecumenical consultation of liturgical scholars and denominational representatives from the United States and Canada who produce liturgical texts and curate a three-year lectionary for common use by Christian churches worldwide. The CCT is part of the English Language Liturgical Consultation, a larger international ecumenical body. Read more about the history of the CCT and its member church bodies, which includes the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

The Rev. Dr. David Gambrell, the PC(USA)’s Associate for Worship, is a denominational representative and officer for the CCT. He said addressing anti-Judaism began with a change.org petition CCT received a few years back.

The consultation’s statement notes that references to “the Jews” in the New Testament and the subsequent history of the church “are often problematic for Christian and Jewish people alike.” The relationship of Christians to other Jewish groups “is less clear in John’s Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles,” the report says. The use of the word “Jew” in John and Acts “has contributed to a common misreading of the Gospel story — that Jesus died because of the behavior of non-Christian Jewish people, rather than because of the decisions of Roman officials or the sinfulness of all humanity. This misreading has in turn been used to support discrimination and violence against Jews. It still inspires anti-Jewish actions to this day. This is something for which Christians need to repent.”

The lessons of Lent and Holy Week “should be handled with care to avoid this harmful reading,” the report states. Possible actions worship planners and leaders can take include:

• Acknowledging with confession and lament the centuries of history of reading the Holy Week texts in ways that have fostered discrimination and violence against Jewish people.
• Using the passion narrative from Mark’s Gospel or a shortened version from John (chapter 19) on Good Friday.
• Exercising care about the translations of the texts that are used, especially for the passion narrative.
• Recognizing that our concerns do not end with Holy Week. The Consultation recommends alternative readings from the Hebrew Scriptures during Eastertide.
• Delaying the use of readings from Acts until after Pentecost as a substitute for the Epistle readings. The Consultation proposes a new set of readings from Acts for this purpose.
• Worship planners and leaders should provide brief commentaries or explanations of problematic lectionary readings in printed worship materials, especially around the issues addressed above. The CCT provides a sample statement on the lectionary readings for Holy Week and Easter.

“The statement includes acknowledgment that Christians have, at times, used the text in ways that are hurtful to Jewish people and are not particularly faithful to the Gospel,” said the Rev. Dr. Robert Prichard, who represents The Episcopal Church and chairs the CCT.

Gambrell said churches and denominational bodies are invited to provide feedback on their use of the materials around addressing anti-Judaism. Feedback can be provided on the CCT’s website here.

A new feast day

A feast day celebrating God the Creator, proposed around the fall equinox, is under development by a worldwide ecumenical gathering of religious leaders representing Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox churches. The movement draws inspiration from Pope Francis’s 2015 statement, Laudato Si’. It’s “an attempt to create a feast day that all Christians everywhere might choose to celebrate,” said the Rev. Taylor Burton Edwards, an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America pastor who is a CCT member-at-large and former chair. What’s still unclear is what the feast day will be named, he said. “It’s a new feast day on the calendar for the denominations that choose to adopt it,” he said.

CCT was asked to develop the list of readings for the three-year lectionary cycle by the ecumenical partners creating this proposed feast day. A subcommittee was established to provide readings for Years A, B and C “that coincide with the aims and themes of the Feast of God the Creator.”

The subcommittee noted that “God acts in multifaceted ways as Creator in scripture — God creates, God un-creates, and God brings forth the new Creation. “In addition, God sustains and provides for Creation, even as God’s creating is a mystery and a gift.” “The focus is theological, not ecological,” Burton Edwards said.

If adopted, the feast would become the first addition to the ecumenical liturgical calendar since Christ the King Sunday, which was adopted by the Roman Catholic Church about a century ago and gradually accepted by many other churches in the last quarter of the 20th century.

The ecumenical partners developing this feast day will meet in Assisi in May to continue their work. CCT will have two representatives at the meeting, one from Canada and one from the United States.