If at times you feel a bit dissatisfied with our hymn choices – don’t worry; you’re in good company. About 350 years ago, a boy once complained about church music so much that his father gruffly retorted, “write your own then.” This is what my own kids hear whenever they don’t fancy their dinners, and it reminds me of my own parenting faux pas of contradicting the rules set earlier. For in his annoyance, this father forgot that he had prohibited his child from writing poetry altogether, offended by the tone and content of his preschool-age compositions. Such parenting mistakes are common; yet, at times, they result in incredible things. As for this offhand remark, it has shaped both the course of the boy’s life, and the future of English worship! 

Clearly, Isaac Watts took his dad’s advice, since he wrote “his own” 1000 hymns and psalm paraphrases, including “Joy to the World” based on Ps 98 we heard today. Ps 98 opens with the line, “sing to the Lord a new song”, and Watts did this quite literally! Before his time, psalms were chanted or set to music as anthems, but always exactly as they appear in the scripture. In contrast to this, he began to create paraphrases; at times, leaving quite little of a psalm in the hymn lyrics, as you can see by comparing Ps 98 and “Joy to the World”. Our liturgy today includes two other paraphrases of Ps 98, which are both examples of modern hymn writers applying the approach Watts pioneered. In doing so, an American Jesuit Daniel Schutte and Scottish minister John Bell, both born in the 1940s, created “new songs” about concerns missing from the hymnals of their own denominations (e.g., poverty, child abuse, unemployment, etc.).

But the truly unique facet of Watts’ approach was that he not only changed the words to fit new tunes, but interpreted the psalms through the NT lens – an excellent preacher and theologian that he was. He said, “where the Psalmist describes religion by the fear of God, I have often joined faith and love to it… Where he talks of sacrificing goats and bullocks, I rather mention the sacrifice of Christ… When he attends the ark with shouting into Zion, I sing of the ascension of my Saviour into heaven, or His presence in His church on earth… [The] abundance of wealth, honour, and long life, I have changed… for grace, glory, and life eternal”. A “new song”, indeed!

This line has really spoken to me today. It opens not only Ps 98 but also 96. In fact, psalms 93, 95 – 99 form a special group called “the enthronement” or “royal” psalms, which proclaims God as King of the universe and Israel, and traces Israel’s return from exile to Zion, the mountain that is God’s “throne”. Ps 100 (Jubilate Deo) then serves as a word of “welcome back”. Now, Ps 96/98 are always used at Christmas; and, of course, “Joy to the World” implies that the King whom the earth receives arrived as baby Jesus. But, neither the hymn nor the psalm mentions his birth, so over the Eastertide, we also use it to celebrate the King’s victory over evil (1 Jn 5:4) and the New Creation he achieved not only as a baby, and certainly not as a warrior, but as a shepherd, winegrower, and friend (Jn 15). 

But sometimes, life is too hard to find new evidence of such victory, or even to muster a voice to sing. Isaac Watts was born in 1674, a decade after the last known plague outbreak in England and in the middle of discovering the post pandemic “new normal” – a context familiar to us, but on a totally different scale. At that time, London alone had lost a ¼ of its population, and as the last reported plague case was not until Watts turned 5 (yes, learning Latin and composing his cheeky verses already!). In his smaller town Southampton “only” 1700 died; yet, I wonder if it was this tragedy that clouded his parents’ ability to discern his gift: his dad didn’t like his poems, but his mom thought he plagiarized them! His struggle to belong never ceased: he never married and suffered chronic illness; as a nonconformist to the church of England, he couldn’t attend Oxford or Cambridge. This reminds me how hard it is for many “new songs” to become accepted. Daniel Schutte – the author of today’s setting of Ps 98 – once had to switch his concert to an episcopal church because his own Catholic bishop had banned it. Yet, creativity always prevails. By age 28 Watts became a pastor of a large independent chapel in London, trained preachers, and became a prolific writer on many subjects from surprisingly ecumenical theology to psychology, astronomy, philosophy, and pedagogy. The universities that once rejected him as a non-Anglican went on to adopt his treatise on logic as a standard textbook, as did Harvard. Lewis Carroll parodied his children’s poems, also as an example of a “new song,” of a humorous sort. 

I see two strategies that enabled Watts to create, despite the rejection: 1) he found his muse (i.e., nature), and 2) he is said to have written a hymn or paraphrase to accompany every sermon of his. I try to stick to a humbler goal of sketching an illustration whenever I preach. What inspires you, and helps you persevere in good habits? Would you like to take on a challenge of reflecting on every Sunday’s scriptures by journaling, poetry, sketching, singing, cooking, etc? Might it be that our creativity is just one aspect of being made in the Image of God, rather than a gift reserved for the truly “talented” people? Consider joining our contemplative art group, where no experience is necessary, no instruction happens; yet, time is spent fruitfully and peacefully, and a wonderful sense of trust enables us to share not only our creations, but also our stories. I believe that apart from practicing art, God calls us all to become creative in worship and relationships. In doing so, may we join the full orchestra of creation – the clapping sea, singing mountains, and creatures — in prayer and praise, and continually encourage each other to “go and bear fruit, fruit that will last” (Jn 15:16). 

Reflection Questions

1. What are your modes of creativity apart from traditional art forms (maybe cooking, gardening, home improvement, leadership, or parenting?) 

2. What inspires you to be creative in traditional and non-traditional ways?

3. What helps you to embrace and maybe even enjoy change?