In the Revised Common Lectionary, this particular praise psalm appears on the big days. It highlights those moments when the truly amazing happens.

O sing to the Lord a new song, we hear in the celebration of Christ’s birth. It is repeated when we cannot quite fathom what happened on the mountain top when Jesus shimmers and beams with light. These are marvelous deeds. Big things that make holiness feel separate from our every day experience.

On the twenty ninth Sunday after Pentecost, when nothing all that grand seems to happen, Psalm 99 accompanies the glory revealed to Moses. Ok, it’s a little fantastic even if God is only showing their butt. That reading gets paired with the disciples quarreling about taxes. It feels trivial and meaningless except that it is a question about where and how they see God every day. This small action makes a difference. It reflects a bigger idea. It reveals what they dare to think is holy.

On Working Preacher, James Limberg suggested that holiness, from the Hebrew qadosh, means “apart or separate.” He notes that this word is used “three times in this psalm (verses 3,5,9)” which makes it feel like God is separate from our every day. Or at least, that’s how it hit me.

The big moments — where there is no doubt about that holy splendor — become the moments we sing. We burst into song like in the old hymn. You know the one? It was a favorite of one of my former church members who requested it almost every week. I might know it by heart now, which is maybe why it came into my reading of this psalm.

I want there to be some space for the kinds of songs we sing when we are not so certain, when faith is not exploding from inside us but shows up as a chant that we keep repeating in the sheer hope that it becomes the new creation.

Psalm 99

The really marvelous,
that true glory bursting 
with honor and majesty, 
that none of us can quite contain,
explodes as a high note
from deep inside us
singing up into the rafters.

The pigeons don’t like it.
They flutter about
but we keep singing.  

It is a song that flows 
through Earth’s lamentation,
rising above every sorrow 
until it becomes a new creation. 
Or so the old hymn goes.

Can we sing with that
gusto right now? Can you?
Do you feel that music ringing?

Maybe our song
right now is a little softer.
More quiet. Maybe 
a bit more determined
because we sure do
want to believe that
Love is lord of heaven and earth
but oh, how that darkness has gathered. 

Our song right now
isn’t bothering the pigeons.
The same words intoned 
from deep in our bellies, 
repeated as chant,
low and long. 

This is no Christmas 
Cantata. There is no 
jubilant celebration 
but a steady, urgent reminder
that there is still holiness.
It is still here. God is
up to something, even though
we might not have any idea
what that looks like today.
Still, hope trembles 
inside us. It is 
our new song.

I wrote this for the Living Psalms Project of the United Church of Christ. It is intended to be used on the Twenty Ninth Sunday after Pentecost on October 18, 2026. It comes just one month before the midterms. Make sure you are registered to vote.