URC Daily Devotion 8 September 2024
Psalm 47
All peoples, clap your hands,
cry to God with shouts of joy!
For the Lord, the Most High, we must fear,
great king over all the earth.
He subdues peoples under us
and nations under our feet.
Our inheritance, our glory, is from him,
given to Jacob out of love.
God goes up with shouts of joy;
the Lord goes up with trumpet blast.
Sing praise for God, sing praise,
sing praise to our king, sing praise.
God is king of all the earth,
sing praise with all your skill.
God is king over the nations;
God reigns on his holy throne.
The leaders of the people are assembled
with the people of Abraham’s God.
The rulers of the earth belong to God,
to God who reigns over all.
The Psalms: An Inclusive Language Version based on the Grail translation from the Hebrew © 1963, 1986 The Grail (England) GIA Publications
Reflection
“Does God have favourites? If not, in the Bible, why is he so nice to the Israelites and so nasty to the Egyptians?” That’s the question a teenager posed to a URC ministry student thirty years ago. I clearly remember their question, though I can’t recall my answer. I doubt if they found it convincing.
The Psalm writer doesn’t seem to share that teenager’s concerns, or my qualms. God is being re-acclaimed as sovereign of the people. Like Machiavelli’s “Prince” God is a sovereign to be feared – the great king over all the earth. The Psalmist’s people are to be joyful, however, because God has given them land (‘our inheritance’) and subjugated other nations to them.
Yet, even as this Psalm’s self-confident songs of praise sound out, along with their musical accompaniment, other notes can be heard. God is the ‘great king over all the earth,’ not just over (our) one nation. All the leaders of the people, all the rulers of the earth (and so their nations) belong to God. Those who assemble before God are ‘people of Abraham’s God,’ and Abraham’s descendants are constituted by more than one nation.
When you know God loves you it can be easy to forget or fail to recognise that God loves others just as much. Groups of people, such as nations and churches, are just as prone to seeing things that way.
Perhaps unintentionally, today’s Psalm warns against such tendencies. God is as much the God of other nations as your nation (whichever one yours might be). God is as much the God of those who never darken the doors of church as of those who are there every week. They (and we) are all God’s favourites.
Prayer
O God of all the earth you are truly awesome
in your power and in your love for everyone.
So may we clap our hands with joy
and sing to you with thanksgiving.
Amen.