Singing from the Same Hymn Sheet

Text:  Philippians 2:1-11

            Would you do an experiment with me?  I’m going to start singing some songs and if you know them join in.  I’ll only sing the first couple of lines and then we’ll move on to the next song.  Sing some children’s songs…Wide, wide as the ocean, Jesus wants me for a sunbeam, Deep and wide.  Then sing some Gospel hymns…When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound, Blessed Assurance, What a friend we have in Jesus. 

            Every visit to Jesse’s home involved singing hymns.  She had grown up in the Salvation Army and knew all the toe-tapping, tambourine jingling Gospel songs.  Jesse was a prisoner of Parkinson’s disease.  It meant that she couldn’t get out of her home and depended on others to do everything for her.  Stepping over the threshold and sitting in her lounge involved the usual pleasantries but before long we were both singing our hearts out.

            Walking through the corridors of the hospital I felt uncertainty.  Jesse was dying and I was going to be with her and pray.  It is an immense privilege to accompany people near the end of their lives and yet there was always the nagging question as to whether I was really up to it or not.  Praying for wisdom I walked into the ward.  This was somehow holy ground.  Jesse was not conscious.  Her whole body wracked with tremors.  I took her hand and told her who I was and that I was here.  Again, it seemed as if the conventions of conversation were necessary even though I wasn’t sure she could hear me.  I felt sacred music rise up between us and I began to sing the hymns we had always sung together.  Somehow the music and the Lord’s Prayer penetrated her consciousness and, for a time, the shaking eased. 

            Hymns say something about our theology.  Hymns shape our knowledge and experience of God.  Music and words brand our souls and minds with truth felt and experienced.  The hymns of childhood stay with us through our lives.  That’s why the hymns we choose to sing matter so much.  If we indiscriminately embrace good and bad theology in hymns it is internalised for a lifetime.

            It was one of the last lectures he ever gave.  It was at the University of Chicago Divinity School.  Without a doubt Karl Barth was one of the most influential theologians of the 20^thcentury and perhaps the greatest.  His health was failing him.  After the lecture was over, the president of the seminary announced that Dr. Barth was not well and would not be able to handle the strain of answering too many questions.  “Therefore, I’ll ask just one question on behalf of all of us.”  The president turn to Barth and put this question to him, “Of all the theological insights you have ever had, which do you consider to be the greatest of them all?”  It is said that Barth closed his eyes and reflected on the question for a time.  With a smile he opened his eyes and said to the seminarians, “The greatest theological insight that I have ever had is this:  Jesus love me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so!”[1]

            Hymns of praise welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem.  They welcome Jesus as Messiah who will defeat Rome.  What will happen when Jesus does not fulfil their expectant hopes?

            On this day of Palm Sunday praises we listen to Paul quoting an early hymn of the Christ followers (2:5-11).  The words and the music tell of a deep harmony emerging from the being of God…of Jesus’ humility and his Father exalting him.  It is a hymn dissonant with the horrors of the cross.  It is a hymn of hope.  Why, in the middle of his letter to the Philippians, does Paul break into song?

            Writing this letter Paul the memories of that night in Philippi were strong (Acts 16:16-40).  It was “Songs of Praise” belted out from the centre of his pain.  He and Silas had just cast a spirit out of a slave girl.  The mob and magistrates had them stripped and beaten.  Flesh in ribbons from the flogging, Paul and Silas are locked up in a high security cell in the heart of the prison.  Feet in stocks, bodies throbbing with pain, and enveloped in darkness, they struck up a sing song at midnight.  Could it be that Paul and Silas sang a duet of this hymn which he now quotes in his letter?

            Paul knows that the Philippian Christ followers are down hearted and so he encourages them by letting them in on his own situation.  He has plenty of reason to be discouraged.  He is under lock and key.  Rivals are trying to undermine his ministry.  Yet he chooses to “Rejoice in the Lord always” (4:4). 

            Paul urges them to live lives worthy of the gospel of Christ - to behave as citizens worthy of Christ’s gospel.  Philippi was a colony of Rome and all her citizens had the privileges and prerogatives of Roman citizens.  To be a worthy citizen of the gospel of Christ is to be a colony of the kingdom with all the rights and responsibilities that this entails.  They are not to be intimidated by opponents nor discouraged in their struggle.  They shared it with each other and with Paul.  He expresses his confidence in their resoluteness in facing the enemy as they stand shoulder to shoulder as a Roman phalanx, single minded “for the faith of the gospel.”

            The Philippian church is one of Paul’s success stories.  Despite his flogging and imprisonment the gospel message had been received and a generous, caring community had grown up.  Have you ever noticed that when good things are happening in the church that tensions begin to develop as people try to claim credit and vie for power?  Not only did Paul have his rivals but two prominent women in the church, Euodia and Syntyche were not singing from the same hymn sheet (4:2-3). 

            Paul announces the hymn after the ‘sermon’, a sermon in which he appeals to them to make his joy complete.  Paul wrote, “If there is any encouragement in Christ - and there is - make my joy complete.”  We often seek encouragement in all sorts of different places and people.  We want approval and so we forever seek it from others.  We want to feel better about a stressful situation and so we drive fast cars, drink too much, or go thrill seeking.  We think that all will be well once we’ve made a certain business deal or if we have enough money.  Christ alone is the source our encouragement.

            “If there is any consolation from love - and there is - make my joy complete.”  Love is the being of God.  To be consoled by love is to be consoled by God.  We have been created in love and created to love others.

            “If there is any sharing in the Spirit - and there is - make my joy complete.”  We have been created for relationship.  God is a being of relationship.  There is no developed Trinitarian theology here and yet we see that there is intimate fellowship between God the Father, Christ Jesus and the Spirit.  The relating of God, Father, Son and Spirit, shows us our relatedness.  His fellowship is our fellowship.

            “If there is any compassion and sympathy - and there is make my joy complete.”  These attitudes focus on the ‘other’.  These are not self-centred positions towards others.

            The cracks appearing in relationships and the gospel success story at Philippi is being threatened by division.  Paul longs for them to make Christ the centre.  As they enter into union with Christ their love for others will flow naturally from this intimate relationship.

            Paul’s joy in the ‘good work’ begun (1:6) will be complete only when the Philippians live with one another in a way that is consistent with being united with Christ:  being of the same mind…having the same love…being in full agreement and of one mind.  This doesn’t mean there are no disagreements.  Paul certainly had his conflicts (take Cephas in Galatians 2:11-14).  It does mean that in our disagreements we share a common purpose and we have the best interests of others at heart. 

            The opposite of these attributes is selfish ambition or conceit.  The opposite of pride and selfishness is humility.  Humility is regarding others as better than yourselves.  This does not mean having a low opinion of self but instead our high opinion of ourselves is exceeded by our high opinion of others.  Self-interest is replaced by ‘other-interest’.

            Encouragement ‘in Christ’ means singing and living and believing the hymn which takes us deep into his mind.  Let his mind be in us.  Let his mind be united with our minds.  Paul sings this hymn because it takes us into the heart of God.  Being a follower of Jesus is not about following in his footsteps it is about being in him and he in us. 

            Christ Jesus was God but did not grasp after or exploit his equality with God.  Unlike Adam who tried to be like God, the second Adam was God and was content with his relationship within God.  Christ Jesus emptied himself.  He became a slave.  Slaves had no rights.  He gave up his rights and was born in human flesh.  If that wasn’t enough, he humbled himself further by being obedient to his Father to the point of death…death on a cross.  For the ancient world humility was anathema and the cross was total alienation.  The cross was reserved for non-Romans…traitors…criminals…a sign of the extent of the Empire’s brutal subjugation.  Christ Jesus gives up his rights to become subject to human flesh and be crushed in humiliating death at the hands of the Empire.

            The double forte of Christ Jesus’ existence as God becomes a decrescendo of humiliation into darkness and silence.  From his last breath on the cross there slowly emerges a crescendo of hope as the empty cave swells with angel announcements of resurrection, victory and exaltation by God.  The hymn rings out in triumph.  It sings the name of Jesus.  Jesus is the name above every name, yes, even of the Emperor.  His name spoken:  Jesus.  And every knee will bend in heaven, on earth and under the earth.  Jesus.  There is no Emperor or Empire that will not be humbled.  Presidents and Prime Ministers, dictators and terrorists, all will fall at the name of Jesus.  Caesars may be adored as son of god and acclaimed lord but at the name of Jesus all other names will slip off of the pages of history.  Jesus.  No other name will be uttered.  All will confess that “Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father!”

            The hymns we sing are our theology.  Our hymns express our personal faith in Christ but must never become individualistic.  This earliest hymn of praise invites me to be careful of singing ‘me’ songs and hymns…to be careful of a faith that says I can be a Christian on my own…that says I don’t need anybody…I’m self-sufficient…it’s me and Jesus and no one else matters.  This hymn calls us to be encouraged in Christ…to be other-centred, humble…the mind of Christ united with our mind.  His way of behaving and thinking is our way of thinking and behaving.  Citizens who are worthy of the gospel of Christ enter into his “obedience to the point of death.” 

            What are our favourite hymns?  Are we singing from the same hymn sheet, the song of the crucified, risen, exalted Christ?  Will our Palm Sunday praises be sustained in Good Friday faithfulness?  Will our Palm Sunday praises carry through to Easter choruses?