Category: Hymns

Great God we need your present grace – a hymn at the time of the resignation of Boris Johnson

Great God we need your present grace,
for honesty’s been shaken.
We need integrity and truth,
enliven and awaken
a seam of trust, a sense of faith,
while life is so uncertain,
the future hidden from our sight,
opaque behind a curtain.

God give a calm and steady hand,
unshackled by ambition,
to challenge hatred and distrust,
yet not employ derision.
Give us the time to act and learn,
to unify this nation,
a place where all might live as one
in spite of rank or station.

Is it too much for us to build
in gracious love and living,
a place to care, not built on greed,
but generous in giving,
where children grow in peace with hope,
as sister and as brother,
that, hand in hand, within this world
we’ll live with one another.
Metre: 8787D iambic
Tune: CONSTANCE (Sullivan)

Andrew Pratt 7/7/2022 – Responding to the resignation of Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservative Party
Words © 2022 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England, http://www.stainer.co.uk.
Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider
and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.

The Good Samaritan …and then some…a hymn

The parable of the Good Samaritan points us to an unexpected neighbour (Luke 10:25-37). Elsewhere Jesus explains that whenever we greet the least of our neigbours we welcome him. And what if instead of seeing the Samaritan as the model of Jesus we turn the parable around…that it is Jesus in the person of the one left injured? It is not just angels that we entertain unawares…

1 Anonymous you come among the nations,
outside the door of synagogue or church,
and what you say will shake the world’s foundations,
will make the sinner sing, the righteous lurch.

2 You come with grace, not seeking any favours,
except a cup of water for your thirst,
and those dismissing you with other ravers
will find that they are last and others first.

3 The ones who offer you a share of shelter,
or visit you when you are locked inside,
who pause a moment on life’s helter-skelter,
will be rewarded for their lack of pride.

4 The ones who care, not simply for your beauty,
who hold you in the sickness of your age,
who walk with you beyond the call of duty
are ones who share the true Messiah’s stage.

5 ‘You clothed me in my nakedness and squalor’,
said Christ to those who fully understood
that love cannot equate with pound or dollar,
is found in acts of simply doing good.

Andrew Pratt, Words © 2015 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England, http://www.stainer.co.uk.
Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.
Metre: 11 10 11 10
Tune: INTERCESSOR

Amos 7: 7-17 A pertinent passage… a pertinent hymn… a Prophet and a plumb-line

1	The prophet saw a plumb line simply hanging 
	to sign God's love amid the sons of men, 
	then, with the women, everyone is singing
	that God will never turn away again.
	
2	Yet Amos blew the whistle on God's people, 
	a prophet in a time of greed and need, 
	self-righteousness as high as any steeple, 
	spoke of abandonment of law and creed.
	
3	The powers that be would have him leave the country, 
	yet Amos stood as firm as any rock, 
	the words that he had spoken, quietly, humbly,  
	had power to break the proud, to shake and shock. 
	
4	The judgment was quite plain, for God had spoken, 
	a time for present challenge and for choice; 
	and as words echo through a world still broken, 
	we hesitate to praise or to rejoice.

Andrew Pratt, Words © 2015 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England, http://www.stainer.co.uk.
Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.
Metre: 11 10 11 10
Tune: INTERCESSOR




 


Used By Permission. CCL Licence No. 0000
Copied from HymnQuest: Copyright Licence Users' Edition
HymnQuest ID: 14320
CCLI#: null

A hymn reflecting on Luke Chapter 10 appropriate for a divided world.

Jesus sent out his disciples in pairs to places where he would go. Where they were greeted with hospitality, there they were to rest. Hospitality of welcome was the key hope. I wonder who would welcome us today – if we arrived with ‘no purse, no bag, no sandals’ – destitute? And who, like this, would we welcome?

1	We cannot make an easy, safe distinction,
	all people are our neighbours, none denied;
	the voices of all nations heard beside us:
	all sisters, brothers, none we should deride.
	
2	The wall between the peoples has been broken,
	in love of God divisions disappear;
	as seen in Christ we recognise our neighbours
	We greet unusual faces without fear.
	
3	We celebrate each difference God has given;
	each nation, black and white, both straight and gay;
	the able and the challenged God has offered
	that we might share together, learn and pray.
	
4	We  meet with those who paint a different picture,
	who value God in words not yet our own,
	in dialogue we offer one another
	a vision we could never find alone.
	
5	This God we seek is greater than each difference,
	the source and ground of all variety,
	the centre and the soul of all creation
	erasing hate with love to set us free.

Andrew Pratt, Words © 2008 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England, http://www.stainer.co.uk.
Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.
Metre: 11 10 11 10
Tune: INTERCESSOR

Idyllic beaches break the waves – a hymn relating to migration and asylum – sadly still pertinent..

These images will not be diminished by persecuting migrants, nor by making a false distinction between those seeking asylum and so called economic migrants. We need to welcome as fellow human beings people coming to our shores who are fleeing fear or poverty and to provide them with safe passage to our shores and a humanitarian reception.

1	Idyllic beaches break the waves 
	as bathers line the shore
	This view of peace is now disturbed:
	an aftermath of war.
	The ones who fled from lives they knew 
	have gone in fear and dread, 
	the ships that offered hope to them 
	are sunk with many dead.
 
2	And where is God amid the swell 
	where tides still ebb and flow,
	unfeeling of this loss of life,
	as others come and go?
	The commerce of the world goes on. 
	Can we ignore the pain?
	It is as though we're blind to see 
	Christ crucified again.
 
3	The ones who drown are ones we own 
	as neighbours we should love;
	how can we turn our eyes away, 
	avert our gaze above?
	For when our politics conspires 
	to shut the door to grace 
	it is as though we turn away 
	from Jesus' tortured face.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2015 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England, http://www.stainer.co.uk.
Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.

CMD
Tune: KINGSFOLD