O sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things. His right hand and his holy arm have gotten him victory. The Lord has made known his victory; he has revealed his vindication in the sight of the nations. He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises. Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre, with the lyre and the sound of melody. With trumpets and the sound of the horn make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord. Let the sea roar, and all that fills it; the world and those who live in it. Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills sing together for joy at the presence of the Lord, for he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.
(Psalm 98:1-9)
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I truly dislike hyphens - with a passion. Yes - hyphens. Sometimes known as dashes. That little line that gets inserted between two words. Sometimes they serve a purpose, I suppose - but most of the time they just irritate me, and I really, really dislike them. Why, you may ask, do I dislike hyphens so much? Well, it’s because by their very nature hyphens place all the attention on the adjective rather than on the noun - but shouldn’t the noun really be the foundation of what it is that’s being talked about? One example of what I dislike about hyphens is illustrated by nationality. The hyphenated nationality seems to me to be an opportunity to identify yourself by your past rather than by your present. I’m a Canadian. That’s how I self-identify in terms of nationality. On those census forms you get every few years when you’re asked to identify your ethnic origin, and there are all sorts of options given, I’m one of those radicals who simply checks "Canadian." I have nothing against people being proud of their heritage, but as far as I’m concerned a Canadian is a Canadian. But hyphenated Canadianism is all the rage. So, a lot of people don’t call themselves Canadian. They’re English-Canadian, or French-Canadian. Or Polish-Canadian, or Ukrainian-Canadian, or Indo-Canadian, or Chinese-Canadian, or African-Canadian, or Italian-Canadian. The list goes on. To me, the emphasis seems to be on the adjective rather than the noun - but what unites us as a nation should be the fact that we’re Canadian first. At least as far as I’m concerned.
What really bothers me is that the same thing happens within the church. We should all be Christians. That should be the fundamental identity we have - Christian; follower of Christ; disciple of Jesus. But we choose to differentiate ourselves and divide ourselves up. Denominations are a problem in that regard, but I’m thinking of something that’s become all the rage in recent decades. More and more, it’s not even denominationalism that’s separating Christians. Now we have hyphenated Christianity. You almost have to use an adjective to identify yourself. Now we have liberal-Christians and conservative-Christians. We have evangelical-Christians and fundamentalist-Christians. We have charismatic-Christians and mainline-Christians. We have progressive-Christians and even post-theistic-Christians (and that last one is double hyphenated!) We put the emphasis on the adjective to define what we believe rather than on the noun. And by doing so, it’s no longer Christ who holds us together as his one body - it becomes what we choose to believe about Christ, or how we choose to follow Christ, or in what manner we choose to worship Christ that becomes the key. For me - no. Christ is quite sufficient as the centre of who and what I am. I’m a Christian. I reject the labels. I reject the adjectives. The noun is sufficient. I’ll be simply a disciple of Jesus - and let others make of that what they will.
Why bring all this up today? What does it have to do with the Psalm we just read? How does it tie in with a Sunday on which we celebrate the idea of family, reflected in Mother’s Day, or Christian Family Sunday as we call it in the church? Well, the Psalm is about the unity of God’s people, and it’s about where the centre of that unity was found - in God; in God’s works and in God’s nature. It was God who was the defining element in the identity of Israel as the people of God. Israel was the people of God because Israel was the people of God. It was that simple. It’s not that the community wasn’t diverse - it was that neither the community nor the individual members of the community decided to be the people of God. They were the people of God because God made them the people of God. And so Psalm 98 becomes a celebration of God and of God’s works among his people. The people of God didn’t always agree - they fought a civil war against each other - but in the end, regardless of the nature of the disagreements or the passion that marked them, they were the people of God. For them, this identity as the people of God was their salvation. They would not let it go. They would disagree with and fight and sometimes, tragically, even kill one another. I’m not justifying any of that, nor do I think God approved of it, but in the end, for all that, they were collectively the people of God. It’s something, unfortunately, that’s been lost in modern-day Christianity, which has come to be plagued with labels and hyphens, with every group thinking that they have the truth to themselves, and that to be a "real" Christian you have to agree with them.
The Psalm says that "all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God." Salvation means basically being saved from the natural consequences of our actions. It doesn’t mean being let off the hook and given a free pass, but it does mean that we can live without fear and put our faith to work as best we can. The people of God in the psalmist’s day understood that. They weren’t always in agreement on everything - but they were the people of God; they lived as the people of God; they were known as the people of God - and "all the ends of the earth" saw a difference in them because they were the people of God.
"All the ends of the earth." That’s where we make the linkage to Jesus and to the children of God who are the Christian family today. Jesus came for the world. Jesus came to ensure that the salvation of God would, indeed, be seen by "all the ends of the earth." Jesus came to give his followers a common identity as a family, as children of God and as brothers and sisters to one another. Christians who claim that they have all the answers and that everyone else better do things their way and believe everything they believe (or else!) have missed the point. Our only identity as Christians is in Christ. As long as we’re in Christ all other things are secondary at best. And that can’t be limited to any one group or anyone people. It does extend to "all the ends of the earth." It is, indeed, salvation without limit!
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