25.09.05 Steve Philippians 2:1-13 - Community and Song
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The Christian scriptures are (like today's words to the Philippian church) full of appeals to the mutuality of love that is inspired by the sacrificial self-giving of Christ. In the words of the SEC marriage service - God’s Word reveals to us that the very nature of God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) and of all human experience (for we are made in the image of God), is to be understood as relationship. In the great stories of God’s people and in the coming of Jesus we are shown how God binds himself to us, in a relationship that we can only call love. Jesus himself gave us a new commandment, “that you love one another as I have loved you”. We grow through relationships, for they give human life its purpose and direction. This is why we reach out to others. Our life consists not only in being but in becoming.
Lord Carey, who was a tutor of mine at theological college, had a favourite doctrinal maxim - that we are not human beings, but 'human becomings'. It is in the dynamic of love, with God and with each other, that we live as those who are being transformed. We are not called to a life of love because that will be nice for us, but so that we and God's world can be transformed.
We could, and arguably should, spend every Sunday for the next 100 years thinking about ways that this might become more true for us. Today, I offer a few thoughts about my conviction that one way is in how we sing together. Not the most obvious expression of Christian love, you might think, but one that I suggest we should be more conscious of.
I've been pleased, if a little puzzled, over the last few years by how many times folk within our community, and especially by how often those who are visiting our community, speak of how the music and the singing are unusually evocative and enriching. By the standards of many church communities, our music is noticeably informal. We don't pay an organist, or a choirmaster. We don't have a choir that we robe and rehearse. Instead, we say that we don't have a choir, we are the choir. Not only does this save money on robes, but it is a hugely formative expression of mutuality and community.
In this model, we don't 'sing-along' with the choir, the organ or the praise-group - but 'become', in the offering of song a community of worship. In this community of song, we can all contribute (irrespective of how good or bad a singer we might think of ourselves). In this community of song, the contributions of all are acceptable - we hear the glories and beauties of skilled voices and of fragile, broken or childish voices. In this community of song, we share the confidence and commitment of a loud, feel-good hymn; we share the hesitancy and frisson (not croissant) of the discovery of something new and beautiful; we share the sadness of lament and loss, or of parting.
John Bell, in his book 'The Singing Thing' describes at length how communal song in the worshipping community enables religious memory (oral tradition), scriptural rendition, group identity, egalitarian participation and celebrates a creative dynamic of ritual event. What he articulates is the unusually inclusive potential of community singing (where no expertise or performance skill is required) to involve participants in a corporate creative act, as they transform the written or learned idea into experience:
When we sing we do something unique... when we sing and enliven the text through music, and enter into that music not just with our mouth and ears, but with our whole being, then we are doing something which is both personal and holistic... when these particular voices engage with their selected songs, it will be an unrepeatable event..... And so something extremely rare happens whenever a congregation sings to its Maker. For not only are there ten or fifty or five hundred individual voices giving their unique gift as they open their mouths and sing; there is also the unique blending of high and low voices, sharp and flat, sophisticated and rough-tongued, male and female, old and young..... if we can but sense it, every time a congregation sings, it is offering an absolutely one-time-only gift to its Maker.”
2:3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.
2:4 Let each of you
look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.
2:5 Let the same
mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
Biologists among you
will know that the human embryo consists of three layers, which will
later become the human body. They are the endoderm, the mesoderm and
the ectoderm. The ectoderm will develop into the skin, the ear and
the nervous system. The fact that the nervous system stems from the
same origin as the ear and the skin is a clue to the importance of
music and song in our experience of the world.
Embryologists generally agree that the ear is the first organ in the embryo to develop, that it begins functioning at 18 weeks, and 'listens actively' by twenty-four weeks. Sound, therefore, is the first functioning mode of perception. Because amniotic fluid fills the nose and mouth, and suspends the body, the foetus, has no sense of sight, smell or touch. Throughout its development therefore, it lives in an environment of heightened sound, with vibration as its principle sense. According to musicologist Robin Maconie:
In infancy our understanding of the world develops as a cooperative relationship of aural and visual perceptions, of which hearing is initially the superior sense, because it comes ready-made and fully functioning, whereas seeing has to be learned.
We know that the effects of audible and inaudible frequencies are traditionally associated with meditative states. The mantras and chants of many religious traditions are commonly believed to have a profoundly calming effect, just as some associated musical instruments (such as Tibetan thigh bone trumpets) resonate at the same frequency as some parts of the human body. Tibetan singing bowls are similarly thought to stimulate specific frequencies in the brain, and such ancient 'technology' may be expressed in the design of ritual buildings (tombs, burial chambers, cathedrals and temples) which amplify or modulate the resonances of rhythmic chants, singing or music.
We can say that the worshipping community that sings well together is engaged in a most embodied interaction, with each other and their physical environment and I suggest that the corporal demands of New Testament ecclesiology imply a commitment to participatory song. A glance at the scriptures shows that the ancient Hebrews were committed to the use of music, which maintains a central place in the historical, prophetic and wisdom literature. Every aspect of human experience is represented in the wealth of songs and psalms of a people who incorporated them seamlessly with their model of divine service.
When we sing together we unavoidably create community. You can't really sing with one another, without taking account of one another. This is especially true of part-singing. If we find it challenging, that is a good sign – because it means we're having to work hard to listen – singing and listening at the same time is much harder than just singing. If we think nothing else about our community experience of song, let us grasp that to be a community of Christ, is to learn to listen; to be a godly person is to learn to listen; to be interested in spirituality is to be interested in listening; to be a healthy society is to be a listening society; to be a democratic nation, or to exercise global citizenship is to be a culture characterised by its ability to listen.
2:1 If then
there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any
sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy,
2:2 make my joy
complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full
accord and of one mind.