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Year C After Pentecost Proper 27

Year C After Pentecost Proper 27
Year C After Pentecost Proper 27 (grayscale)

Scripture

Testament: Old

Book: Psalm

Chapter: 98

Verse: 1

Lectionary

Year: C

Season: Season After Pentecost

Week: Proper 27

Church bulletins by Ronn Kerr

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Lectionary Meaning

Theological Focus

As the Season after Pentecost draws toward its close, the lectionary lifts our gaze toward the horizon of Christian hope, where the promise of resurrection and the promise of God's righteous judgment meet. In this week's gospel, Jesus stands in the temple courts responding to the Sadducees' question about marriage and the age to come, declaring that the children of the resurrection are accounted worthy of that world and that God is God of the living, for to God all are alive (Luke 20:36, 20:38). The verses from Psalm 98 answer this teaching with joyful acclamation, summoning the whole earth to sing a new song to the Lord who has done marvelous things (Psalm 98:1) and imagining the floods clapping their hands and the hills singing together before the Lord who comes to judge the world with righteousness (Psalm 98:8-9). As the church year nears its end, these readings gather the long journey of ordinary time into a single confident expectation: the God who has been faithful in history will be faithful beyond death. We are invited, therefore, to listen for the resurrection's promise and to join the whole creation in its song.

Scriptural Connection

In Luke 20:36 and 20:38, Jesus explains that in the resurrection, all are children of God, no longer subject to death but like the angels, and thus "children of God, being children of the resurrection." This profound assurance, echoed in the call of Psalm 98:1 and 98:8-9 for all lands and waters to sing with joy to the Lord, reminds us that our faith anticipates a future where all creation is redeemed and we are eternally part of God’s beloved family.

Sermon Ideas

Here is where the week's readings turn from proclamation to practice: if God is not the God of the dead but of the living, and to God all are alive (Luke 20:38), then the community gathered under this word is summoned to live as children of the resurrection now. Such living means holding grief honestly but not hopelessly, trusting that death does not have the final word over those who belong to God's family. Psalm 98 extends this vocation beyond the sanctuary, for if the seas roar and the rivers clap their hands in anticipation of God's righteous judgment, then our works of justice and mercy become small rehearsals of that coming equity. Preachers may therefore invite hearers to ask what it would mean to sing a new song with their lives—in courage amid loss, generosity toward neighbors, and steadfast hope in the God who redeems all creation. The resurrection promise, in the end, is not merely a comfort reserved for the future; it is a commission for the present.