There’s a lot going on in this passage and at its heart is singing. It’s Paul’s antidote for unwise living, a
prescription for drunkenness, a way of redeeming time, and a means of understanding the will of the LORD. All of it connected to singing. Why? Given the difficulties of our world, the struggles we endure, the spiritual change that we long for but find so elusive singing can seem so, I don’t know, frivolous, silly – why sing? It hardly feels like something that would change anything, do anything. Yet, of the 5 participles describing life in the Spirit, 3 involve singing. Participles are verbs that function like adjectives attributing a quality of action to a noun. It’s a verb that describes. We are a people who sing. In that light, what I want to ask today is “What is at stake when the people of God sing?” What are we doing when we sing and how might it accomplish what Paul argues it does – actually being instrumental in “filling us with the Spirit”?
1. When we sing, we declare that truth is a beautiful and joyful thing. There is an interesting connection that Paul is making between alcohol and drunkenness and worship and singing. More than a mere moralism what strikes me is that both drunkenness and worship share elements rather than reflecting polar opposites. In other words, I suspect that drunkenness relates less as an oppositional image of black and white and more like what a counterfeit bill is to real currency. And so we worship and sing not only because it is right and proper to give thanks – but because alcohol and drunkenness despite their potential pleasures don’t go far enough – can’t bring enough joy, aren’t celebratory enough, don’t fulfill our dreams, or engage our body and mind like singing does. When we sing we remember that we are not a religion of “just the facts” or “just say no” or “turn or burn.” No, we have a faith that is cinematic and orchestral, melodious and gorgeous, that is beautiful and inspiring, that plays with words, that frolics with metaphors, that thrills our hearts and imaginations rather than simply satisfying our heads [All Creatures of our God and King]. The Bible’s admonishment for singing reminds us that we have a faith that clearly understands what it means to be human because it acknowledges the beauty of being human – and that’s a truth in and of itself. Because of that, we understand that the beauty of song can break a heart and make it think about truth more than words alone and that faith is better expressed in the choir stall than the courtroom. Singing reminds us that we are an imaginative creation and that imagination is a stealthy way in to people’s souls. This is what commercials exploit because advertisers understand what it means to be human – to have a beautiful vision of life that carries our hearts – their vision is false but their anthropology is not. The Great Christian reformer Martin Luther understood this. He argued that singing opened the hearts and minds of God’s people enabling them to receive and embrace the beautiful eternal Word which brings life to the soul. During his lifetime Luther composed more than thirty five hymns and published a total of nine hymnals. “The riches of music are so excellent and so precious that words fail me whenever I attempt to discuss and describe them. In summary, next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world. Music controls our thoughts, minds, hearts and spirits. The precious gift of music has been given to man alone that he might, thereby, remind himself that God has created man for the express purpose of praising and extolling God. But Luther was no musical snob and understood that simple, singable songs were also powerful means of touching people’s lives – they are truth incarnate. So what are we doing as we sing – we are remembering that our God, creator of the world and all that is in it, the God of Truth is a beautiful God, a melodious God, a singing God and this God gives us a song to sing. That the truth that that God gives us is beautiful and public, even raucous and joyful, intoxicatingly truthful, better than any pleasure that alcohol can give. As the Band U2 was starting out many years ago, Bono wrote the following letter to his father, who has now passed away: “[God] gives us our strength and a joy that does not depend on drink or drugs. This strength will, I believe, be the quality that will take us to the top of the music business. I hope our lives will be a testament to the people who will follow us, and to the music business where never before have so many lost and sorrowful people gathered in one place pretending they’re having a good time. It is our ambition to make more than good music.”
2. Like Luther, the powerful Methodist preacher John Wesley considered singing invaluable to the Christian life and called hymns a “body of practical divinity” [practical theology; theology that applies to everyday life] but the Apostle Paul goes farther than that because if the content of our songs was simply the issue then why not just read them together or recite them aloud? My second point for why we sing is that when we sing as a church we ARE a body of practical divinity. We are reminded that we share belief and life together and what kind of community we are. We don’t gather every week because of a shared political vision, shared tax bracket, similar hobbies, or a group past time. We gather and sing because we have been called out by God – high voices, low voices, incredible voices, can’t-carry-a-tune-in-a-bucket voices, women, men, children, single, married, doubters, depressed, content, joyful, despairing, and we sing our song aloud together. Moreover, we have been called together and all of us are invited to sing – not called to be the audience, sit passively, or even submit to experts, but fully to sing. We sing individually – in different registers, with different emphasis and breathing, and with different recognitions and associations be we also sing collectively – sharing words, rhythms, etc. We are expressing both our own personalities as well as our solidarity. We sing with many stories and experiences but one truth. Singing articulates a shared theology; its spirituality aloud and embodied and remains one of the unique ways that we reveal HOW we are to be One body in Christ. More than simply worship being about God – which of course it is – like everything in the Christian life Paul also connects how we relate to God with how we relate to one another. So we sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs – “to one another” the NIV translates. What does it mean to sing to one another as well as to the LORD? Two practical suggestions: First, it means that when I sing I remember that I am not alone, that my faith does not rest always on my own feeble belief - that Paul’s musical admonishment is to the Church in all its plurality – the near and the far, the local and the foreign, the living and the dead. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in his book Life Together, “It is not you that sings, it is the church that is singing, and you, as a member . . . may share in its song. Thus all singing together that is right must serve to widen our spiritual horizon, make us see our little company as a member of the great Christian church on earth, and help us willingly and gladly to join our singing, be it feeble or good, to the song of the church.” So when we sing a song – never forget to look at who wrote the song and when. Our hymn Holy, Holy, Holy was written by Reginald Heber who was born in 1783, died while preaching and serving in India, and never heard his own hymn sung in his lifetime. He is your brother. When we sing to each other we remember that the Church is big and wide, old and deep, ancient yet relevant. Second, as you sing don’t be afraid to look around and be present with those you sing with – they are your spiritual body. Whose head is lifted high and whose head is bowed low? Who sits and seems troubled, who raises their hands in joy, who seems at peace. This isn’t voyeurism – it’s body life. So don’t be afraid to pray for others as we sing, to sing for others who cannot, to use your joy wrap the sorrowful, or bring your sorrow and despair into this place and sing a lament to God. We sing together.
3. Third, when we sing as a church we remember we are Spirit-filled instruments – that we have a purpose, that our bodies are spiritual things, and that faith is a life to be lived in and through our bodies. I asked my daughter Emma why she thought that Christians were admonished to sing. She said, “singing is the most full bodied response we can give to a God we cannot hug.” It reminds us that worship and the Christian life is more than what we think. Singing aims our hearts as well as our heads – “making melody in your hearts” or as the NIV states, “Sing and make music from your heart to the LORD.” Heart refers not to some inner disposition alone – this is not a sing quietly to yourself sort of remark – but a referral to your whole being. Sing with your whole being is Paul’s point. Singing taps into our joints and muscles, pulls us into dance, works our lungs and tongues – and serves as an affirmation of who we are. Singing is, in some way, a packed microcosm of what it means to be human. Thus being “filled with the Spirit” is not some mental arrangement, not some intellectual assent, nor some condition of individual self-satisfaction but a full bodied “yes” to the One who created our minds, voices, hands, and feet. Singing reminds us that “spiritual” can never simply mean ethereal, ghostly or immaterial. Partly because of cadence and rhyme, partly because of the rhythms of music, song seems to get implanted in us as a bodily memory. Music is a way of getting truth “in” us in ways that other practices rarely do. The song seems to have a privileged channel to our imagination, to our hearts, because it involves our body in a unique way even bypassing our own rational response – nothing can me cry like music. Perhaps this is why Paul juxtaposes it with drinking alcohol seemingly as a remedy of sorts for drunkenness as a means of being filled with the Spirit (cf. Col. 3:16). Perhaps it is by singing in worship that the word of Christ “dwells in us richly.” By singing beliefs and virtues like gratitude, trust, joy, hope, become knit in our bodies. This knitting of song is why memorization of Scripture through song is often so effective. How I learned the books of the Bible, for example. Songs soak us to the very core of our being which is why music is an important element of our identity. In worship, music functions like God’s language school – a way of performing faithful speech to God.
Henry with Alzheimer’s disease [Youtube clip of Alive Inside] When he listens to music, Dr. Oliver Sacks, the preeminent Neurologists, observes, "Henry is restored to himself." As we conclude in singing may you be restored to yourself – that you are an exquisite creation of a magnificent, musical God who desires to fill you with His Spirit.
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