THEOLOGICAL CLUE

The last three Sundays of the church year in the Lutheran lectionary focus on the "last things" - eschatology - as well as the end of the church year. In 1992, for example, this is the first of those three Sundays, but on two of those Sundays, the eschatological note will not be heard clearly in the readings for the day in churches using these lectionaries. In other Cycle C years, this will change depending on the calendar. The lectionary of the worship book of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, differs from these in that it follows an older Lutheran practice and mandates the annual use of three special readings for the last three Sundays of Pentecost. This means that the "last things" readings for the Twenty-sixth, Twenty-seventh, and the Last Sunday after Pentecost (Ch…