Songs Of Praise
Sermon
Most people learn their theology from the hymns they sang as children. Thus many people have quite a well-developed creation theology because they sang so often, "All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all." The hymn goes on, "He gave us eyes to see them and lips that we might tell how great is God almighty who has made all things well." So that's quite a good bite-sized and easy to digest statement about God and his relationship to the world and to human beings.
However, in the original version there's also a verse which says, "The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate, God made them high and lowly and ordered their estate." That was popular theology in Victorian times, but is now seen to be an embarrassing distortion of God's love. Unfortunately therefore, some of the people who absorbed the hymn and its sentiments from multiple repetitions in their schooldays, still tend to instinctively feel that wealth is earned through God's favour, and that it's right and proper for some to be poor.
Another Victorian hymn which is now considered to give the wrong message but which generations of schoolchildren learned, is "There's a friend for little children above the bright blue sky." That notion was popular until the advent of space travel. I remember newspaper headlines proclaiming there was no God because the astronauts who traveled above the bright blue sky hadn't found God! But the idea of God being somehow "up there" has been very slow to dispel. Many people still have a Sunday School picture of God in their minds, as an old man with a long white beard sitting on a cloud.
But it isn't only Victorian hymns which have questionable theology. Some of the modern hymns are equally dubious, and because the current trend is to sing the same few lines over and over again, are at the least, thin on theology.
For instance, what are we to make of "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, your love has melted my heart; Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, your love has melted my heart" sung ad nauseam? Or, "Wind, wind, blow on me; wind, wind set me free! Wind, wind my Father sent the blessed Holy Spirit"?
And what does this one say about the omnipresent God, "Reach out and touch the Lord as he goes by, you'll find he's not too busy to hear your heart's cry. He's passing by this moment your needs to supply; reach out and touch the Lord as he goes by"? What does that say about the God within?
On the whole, hymns are a great Church tradition, although through the ages some churches banned the singing of hymns altogether on the grounds that they produced too much emotion! But most churches have seen a certain amount of emotion within Christianity as a good thing and so have enjoyed their hymns. Hymns can be infantile and even offensive, but at their best have a delightful melody, and contain solid yet memorable theology, essential for those who were mostly unable to read or write.
I've seen elderly people suffering from senile dementia or Alzheimer's disease who are quite unable to communicate in any way, but who have suddenly begun to sing along to well-known hymns which they remember from their childhood. And millions of people across the country who would never dream of attending church, regularly tune in to 'Songs of Praise' on the television on a Sunday evening. So it would seem that hymns are still a very good way of getting across the Christian message.
Today's reading from Philippians contains one of the very first Christian hymns. We don't know the tune after all these years (if indeed there was one), but the hymn not only holds the kernel of Christian theology, but even contains a very early Christian creed.
The Creed as we know it didn't come into force until the fourth century, in AD 325 at a great council of all the bishops. The Creed came into being to refute certain heresies which were popular at the time and were gaining a lot of ground. So the Nicene Creed was put together as a basic statement of Christian faith. And despite years of arguments and wrangling, all but two of the bishops signed it. But the Nicene Creed is relatively long with some complex ideas, and it's couched in rather obscure language. The earliest Christian creed was much simpler. It was a very basic statement of faith indeed, and it simply said, 'Jesus is Lord'.
Today's Christian hymn from Philippians claims quite explicitly that Jesus was God, but that he emptied himself of divine power in order to become not just a human being, but the lowest form of human being, a slave. Then he humbled himself even beyond that, he accepted the worst form of death as it was thrust upon him, death on a cross. The worst form of death not only because of the physical torture involved, but also because anyone who died on a cross was known to be dying under God's curse.
So God himself died as a slave under God's curse in order that we human beings might be free from all that enslaves us and separates us from God - wealth, status, dishonesty, lack of love, and so on.
Because Jesus accepted that terrible death, God exalted him like no-one has ever been exalted before. He raised Jesus after death into a new kind of life so that everyone should worship him and everyone know that Jesus Christ is Lord.
And so the hymn ends with a glorious shout of the simplest statement of faith, the very earliest form of creed, "Jesus Christ is Lord!"
No wonder the early Christians knew their faith so well. They recited the bones of it regularly in the early Christian hymns. Perhaps we too need more modern hymns which actually tell us about our faith. Then we too shall know deep in our hearts what Christianity is all about.
However, in the original version there's also a verse which says, "The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate, God made them high and lowly and ordered their estate." That was popular theology in Victorian times, but is now seen to be an embarrassing distortion of God's love. Unfortunately therefore, some of the people who absorbed the hymn and its sentiments from multiple repetitions in their schooldays, still tend to instinctively feel that wealth is earned through God's favour, and that it's right and proper for some to be poor.
Another Victorian hymn which is now considered to give the wrong message but which generations of schoolchildren learned, is "There's a friend for little children above the bright blue sky." That notion was popular until the advent of space travel. I remember newspaper headlines proclaiming there was no God because the astronauts who traveled above the bright blue sky hadn't found God! But the idea of God being somehow "up there" has been very slow to dispel. Many people still have a Sunday School picture of God in their minds, as an old man with a long white beard sitting on a cloud.
But it isn't only Victorian hymns which have questionable theology. Some of the modern hymns are equally dubious, and because the current trend is to sing the same few lines over and over again, are at the least, thin on theology.
For instance, what are we to make of "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, your love has melted my heart; Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, your love has melted my heart" sung ad nauseam? Or, "Wind, wind, blow on me; wind, wind set me free! Wind, wind my Father sent the blessed Holy Spirit"?
And what does this one say about the omnipresent God, "Reach out and touch the Lord as he goes by, you'll find he's not too busy to hear your heart's cry. He's passing by this moment your needs to supply; reach out and touch the Lord as he goes by"? What does that say about the God within?
On the whole, hymns are a great Church tradition, although through the ages some churches banned the singing of hymns altogether on the grounds that they produced too much emotion! But most churches have seen a certain amount of emotion within Christianity as a good thing and so have enjoyed their hymns. Hymns can be infantile and even offensive, but at their best have a delightful melody, and contain solid yet memorable theology, essential for those who were mostly unable to read or write.
I've seen elderly people suffering from senile dementia or Alzheimer's disease who are quite unable to communicate in any way, but who have suddenly begun to sing along to well-known hymns which they remember from their childhood. And millions of people across the country who would never dream of attending church, regularly tune in to 'Songs of Praise' on the television on a Sunday evening. So it would seem that hymns are still a very good way of getting across the Christian message.
Today's reading from Philippians contains one of the very first Christian hymns. We don't know the tune after all these years (if indeed there was one), but the hymn not only holds the kernel of Christian theology, but even contains a very early Christian creed.
The Creed as we know it didn't come into force until the fourth century, in AD 325 at a great council of all the bishops. The Creed came into being to refute certain heresies which were popular at the time and were gaining a lot of ground. So the Nicene Creed was put together as a basic statement of Christian faith. And despite years of arguments and wrangling, all but two of the bishops signed it. But the Nicene Creed is relatively long with some complex ideas, and it's couched in rather obscure language. The earliest Christian creed was much simpler. It was a very basic statement of faith indeed, and it simply said, 'Jesus is Lord'.
Today's Christian hymn from Philippians claims quite explicitly that Jesus was God, but that he emptied himself of divine power in order to become not just a human being, but the lowest form of human being, a slave. Then he humbled himself even beyond that, he accepted the worst form of death as it was thrust upon him, death on a cross. The worst form of death not only because of the physical torture involved, but also because anyone who died on a cross was known to be dying under God's curse.
So God himself died as a slave under God's curse in order that we human beings might be free from all that enslaves us and separates us from God - wealth, status, dishonesty, lack of love, and so on.
Because Jesus accepted that terrible death, God exalted him like no-one has ever been exalted before. He raised Jesus after death into a new kind of life so that everyone should worship him and everyone know that Jesus Christ is Lord.
And so the hymn ends with a glorious shout of the simplest statement of faith, the very earliest form of creed, "Jesus Christ is Lord!"
No wonder the early Christians knew their faith so well. They recited the bones of it regularly in the early Christian hymns. Perhaps we too need more modern hymns which actually tell us about our faith. Then we too shall know deep in our hearts what Christianity is all about.
