Poems – Page 65 – hymnsandbooks

Holy Week – from Sunday to Friday

Holy Week from Sunday to Friday – 
see also separate posts for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday - appearing soon

SUNDAY - From Birth to Pentecost…

When Jesus came to Bethlehem there was no harsh a day, 
they say a census had been called, there was no place to stay;
this baby who would shake the world, would first lay down his head, 
not in a royal house or hall, but in a manger bed.
	
When Jesus went to Nazareth his father had a trade, 
a carpenter now had a son and business plans were laid;
but soon within the temple courts, this lad would have his way, 
dissenting from his parents' wish, they'd looked for him all day.
	
The path that he set out to tread from Jordan's crowded bank
would take him him through a wilderness with neither power nor rank; 
returning he would scourge the ones and verbally deride
a viper's brood, these hypocrites, who dressed themselves in pride.
	
Returning to Jerusalem, but not in regal dress, 
he's seated on a donkey's back, not here to rule or bless;
the temple tables were upturned, but more disturbing still, 
his challenge to authority would cause the air to chill.
	
That chill was in Gethsemane when he knelt down to pray, 
and all the pain of all the world  seared through him on that day; 
the time of crisis had arrived to turn from what was right,
or walk with soldiers on to what now looked like endless night.

The trial came and ones that he had scourged with words scourged him, 
and this was brutal vengeance now, not wondrous, simply grim:
his flesh was ripped, his sinews torn, his body hung to dry, 
and as the darkness gathered round the whole world seemed to sigh.
	
That ragged child that Mary bore was taken from the tree, 
the women waited through three days, covertly went to see:
they found the tomb was empty now, the one they sought had gone, 
and as they raced in fear away, the mystery lingered on.  
	
Yet through two thousand years and more the influence of that man
has rippled down through history from where it first began; 
his spirit stills inspires a faith that trusts to what is right, 
to seek for truth, to live in love, keep justice burning bright.

Metre: 14 14 14 14 
Tune: THE LINCOLNSHIRE POACHER
Words: Andrew E Pratt (born 1948) © 2015 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@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.
From: More than hymns Stainer Bell Ltd., Stainer & Bell Ltd., 2015.

MONDAY - If he had come …

If he had come as a king with a robe and jewels 
and a crown of gold, 
he would have been impressive.
But there would have been those 
who envied him his wealth, 
tried to steal his jewels, 
or attempted to rob him of his crown.

If he had come with a sword and shield 
and a following army, 
he would have demanded obedience.
But there would have been those 
who feared his sword, 
claimed he was hiding behind his shield, 
or accused him of using military force to conquer them.

If he had come as a priest with elaborate vestments, 
sanctimonious speeches and zealous religious rituals, 
he would have commanded respect.
But there would have been those 
who found his vestments ostentatious, 
suspected him of hypocrisy in his speeches, 
or felt unable to live up to 
the impossible regulation of his religion.

So, when Jesus came as a vulnerable baby, 
grew up in a carpenter’s workshop 
and walked around in everyday clothes, 
meeting and talking to people about God, 
it really was a revelation.

Jesus brought no threat of wealth, or force of might, 
or blocking of the pathway to God.
He was a man and of the people 
and though his robe was stained with blood, 
his crown made of thorns 
and his death an ignominious execution, 
the power of his life has everlasting authority. 

Words: Marjorie Dobson - © Stainer & Bell Ltd 2019 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@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 ©  Stainer & Bell Ltd., From Unravelling the Mysteries, Stainer & Bell Ltd., 2019

TUESDAY - Crowd control

Flag-waving crowds 
prefer winners to losers; 
feel cheated when their heroes are defeated; 
lose heart when officialdom tears them apart; 
drift away at the end of the day, 
when there seems no reason to stay.

Palm-waving crowds 
greeted their king, 
who said that even the stones would sing 
if the people were silent. 
But authority was defiant and jeering, 
even while the crowds were cheering. 
And by the end of the week, 
very few would speak in support 
of the king the crowds had sought.

©Marjorie Dobson

WEDNESAY - Poem: Crowds are fickle - Mark 11:1-11 and 15: 1-39

Crowds are fickle – 
singing, shouting, 
clapping, waving, 
chanting, cheering, 
wildly blindly enthusiastic, 
brave and fearless, 
happy, noisy – 
on the winning side.

Crowds are fickle – 
shouting, swearing, 
spitting, screaming, 
chanting, boo-ing, 
wildly blindly condemnatory, 
fierce and fearless, 
spewing hatred – 
on the losing side.

Faced with judgement, 
weary, weakened, 
Jesus hearing 
chanting, cheering, 
blindly led by enemy action, 
knew the fickle crowd 
had failed him, 
by their verdict, 
‘Crucify!’

Words: Marjorie Dobson - © Stainer & Bell Ltd 2019 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@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 ©  Stainer & Bell Ltd., from Unravelling the Mysteries, Stainer & Bell Ltd., 2019

THURSDAY - Each groan of pain from tortured lips 

Each groan of pain from tortured lips,
each tear that falls from anguished eyes,
the slightest murmur of a sigh,
as yet another victim dies,
are nails into the hands of Christ
counting against the tyrant’s lies.

Each agony of starving death,
each haunted look of gaunt despair;
the scrabbling hands that search the dirt
although the earth is cracked and bare,
are echoes in the mind of Christ
of his last agonising prayer.

Each home destroyed by missile blast,
each terror of a war-torn land,
the crying of a frightened child
alone without a loving hand,
are spears pierced in the side of Christ
and pain which he can understand.

Each empty mind which sees no pain,
each ignorance of crying need,
the pleas of those who go unheard
while others wallow in their greed,
are thorns upon the brow of Christ
and open wounds that tear and bleed.

Each healing touch relieving pain,
each voice which speaks aloud for peace,
the giving hearts and willing hands 
working so poverty may cease
are living out the words of Christ,
striving to give his love release.

Metre – 8.8.8.8.8.8. – Suggested tunes – ABINGDON or VENI IMMANUEL
Words: Marjorie Dobson © Stainer & Bell Ltd 2004 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@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 © Stainer & Bell Ltd., From Multicoloured Maze, Stainer & Bell Ltd., 2004

FRIDAY - Afraid and alone and worn out with his praying 

Afraid and alone and worn out with his praying, 
his friends sleeping soundly and all unaware 
that out in the darkness arrest was approaching, 
and Jesus was frightened and full of despair.

Accused and alone and awaiting the judgement, 
surrounded by enemies out for the kill, 
with none to defend him and friends who’d betrayed him; 
yet Jesus stood resolute, silent and still.

Abandoned, alone and in agony dying, 
the torture and pain brought a cry of despair.
For then, as the crisis of death was approaching 
for Jesus, it felt as if God wasn’t there.

Now dead and alone, they would bury his body, 
those friends who found courage to deal with his death.
A stone sealed the tomb and with soldiers to guard it, 
his enemies thought they’d seen Jesus’ last breath.

Alone in a garden, a woman was weeping.
In spite of precautions, the body was gone.
But then through her tears, she could hear her name spoken 
and Jesus is living. The story goes on!

Metre: 12 11 12 11
Suggested tune: STREETS OF LAREDO
Words: Marjorie Dobson - © Stainer & Bell Ltd 2019 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@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 ©  Stainer & Bell Ltd., from Unravelling the Mysteries, Stainer & Bell Ltd., 2019

Lent 4 – Two poems and two hymns

John 3: 1-17

Poem: God so loved …

No complicated creeds,
or self-righteous rituals.
No holy huddles,
or raw judgements.
No insistence on conformity.

Only a call to turn around
to find forgiveness waiting.

For at the heart of all creation
and the core of our existence
there is the love of God
for errant people.

And one special human,
whose presence in the world
changed all our perceptions
of our relationship
with the God who loves us
so much that he gave …
Marjorie Dobson - from Unravelling the Mysteries © Stainer & Bell Ltd 2019; London, England copyright@stainer.co.uk . Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns where appropriate. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd

John 3:14-21

Hymn: Trust that God, who lit the cosmos

Trust that God, who lit the cosmos,
source and ground of all we are,
demonstrated love's dimension,
dying like the evening star,
softened, shaded, so diminished,
then extinguished, gone from sight,
yet the third day rose in glory,
bringing hope and shedding light.

From that day the crisis beckoned,
those who saw that light must choose
where to stand: with Christ in suffering?
To accept or to refuse?
Still that challenge stands before us,
God has given love and grace.
Will we take the love that's offered
or deride God in this place?

All our songs are crass and empty,
all our worship hollow praise,
if we do not love our neighbours
that we live with in these days.
Simple acts of loving kindness
signal where we place our trust;
faith without these simple actions
slowly moulders, turns to dust.

Andrew Pratt
Words © 2012 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@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.
8 7 8 7 D
Tune: DIM OND IESUS

Poem: Light came …

If light is good
and darkness is bad,
why do we have such a longing
to run to the dark
when we see the light of God
entering the world?

Could it be
that we need to hide
and the darkness
is our only refuge?

Yet God persists
in flooding the world with light
and focusing its intensity
through Jesus.

Is it any wonder
that a new flame
burns in our hearts
and fires our enthusiasm
when we emerge from the shadows,
as we finally recognize
how much God loves us?
©Marjorie Dobson

Ephesians 2:1-10

Hymn: Into darkness and disaster

Into darkness and disaster,
swept along by what we’ve done,
making choices that determined
things we’ve lost and things we’ve won,
sometimes we reflect and wonder
at the people we’ve become.

Sometimes lost, sometimes despairing,
feeling there is no way back
to the way we wish we’d taken,
knowing all the things we lack,
we can feel so God forsaken,
prayer is dry, resolve is slack.

Yet within the depths of sorrow,
when there is no way ahead,
God will reach us, grace will show us
life beyond the tears we’ve shed;
God will lift us, heal, forgive us,
shield us from the things we dread.

God will build a bright tomorrow,
light a dawn of wider scope,
where our human strength has faltered
God will sow the seeds of hope.
Know that, even now, God holds us,
and will show us how to cope.

Wounded Healer

I heard the term Wounded Healer attributed to Ahmed Hankir in a BBC Radio broadcast – Start the Week – today 8th March 2021. I am not sure where the term ‘Wounded Healer’ came from originally but I quoted it in a poem/hymn written before 1993 and published in 1997 in my book Blinded by the Dazzle.

1	Will you join the wounded healer,
	Crucified upon the cross,
	Rising to the human challenge,
	Offering love through utter loss?

2	Will you live for liberation,
	Or, if need be, will you die,
	Not deflected from God's purpose,
	All deceitful art defy?

3	Wounded healers, men and women,
	Offer their humanity,
	Share God's mission: living, loving,
	Lifting, holding, setting free.

3A	Wounded healers, men and women,
	Offer your humanity,
	Share God's mission: living, loving,
	Lifting, holding, setting free.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 1993, 1997 Stainer & Bell Ltd., London, England copyright@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. 
8 7 8 7 Trochaic

An extraordinary new hymn for the Passion/Easter season by Graham Adams – The people wanted soldiers

This hymn, by Graham Adams, arose from an ‘Empire’ module at Luther King House in Manchester last week. Graham says, “feel free to use as you wish!’ It connects with the Passion/Easter season. It was particularly stimulated by a discussion around whether ‘the alternative realm’ (God’s basileia/kingdom/empire) is ‘a quaint dream’ or something more ‘threatening’ – and the destabilising language of poetry spoke to this”.

The people wanted soldiers
so hope might come as curse,
to smash the occupation – 
but change turned up as Verse:
the poetry of yeasting,
the parabolic sword,
no match for Pax Romana* 
and yet this Lamb still roared.
 
Although it claims possession
of mind and heart and soul,
the Empire’s grip has limits – 
it can’t control the whole:
the surplus lives as Poem
for those with ears to hear,
resisting final closure,
declaring what is near:
 
This dream of re-creation,
this threat of life set free,
disturbing tame religion,
confounding how we see:
it won’t succumb to cliché
where purities abound,
but glimpsed in seeds’ potential,
it ruptures solid ground.
 
Where empires grow by violence,
where systems blame the last
and close down other futures
by editing the past,
the Poem can’t be silenced,
though quietly it dies,
and dances through the fissures
to teach us how to rise!
 
Graham Adams (2021) … prompted by the conversations during the Empire module   
Potential tunes: THORNBURY, CRUGER…
*Pax Romana is ‘the peace of Rome’ secured through military violence; if it’s easier to replace this with ‘crucifixion’, the meaning still works.

Lent 3 – Two hymns a Meditation and a Poem

Lent 3

1 Corinthians 1: 18-25
Poem: One Big Question
When worldly wisdom
and superior knowledge
and intellectual snobbery
and informed atheism
have died the death
of earthly flesh
and fragile brain,
will God be quietly
weeping over the waste,
even as the cross blazes out
its triumphant foolishness?
© Marjorie Dobson. This may be used personally or for local worship, but not published elsewhere without permission.
John 2: 13-22
We play at church
We play at church, one long charade,
a trite religious game,
and all the time the world goes by,
Christ dies again in vain.
The down-and-out wish for our tithes,
the homeless plead and pray,
while we enact our sullen rite,
our crass religious play.
We watch defenceless ones denied,
the ones we should defend,
we keep the best place for ourselves,
self-righteous to the end.
O God forgive our self-deceit,
hypocrisy and pride.
God, bring us down to dine with you
and those we would deride.
God, give us hearts of gracious love,
to look beyond our greed,
to live and love with those you call,
at one in hope and need.

Andrew E Pratt
Words © 2015 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@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: CM
Tune: AULD LANG SYNE
Poem: Anger
Whip in hand
and uncharacteristically angry,
Jesus swept through the temple courtyard.
Tables were smashed,
money scattered;
pigeons found freedom in flight
and sacrificial animals fled to safety.
His voice boomed
across the rapidly emptying space –
‘this is desecration!
How can strangers worship here
in a place over-run with commerce and greed?
My Father’s house is for prayer,
not for profit!
How dare you do this to it?’
And traders huddled in corners
and tried to keep their eyes on their vanishing possessions.
And priests flocked
to witness the devastation
and to gather in consultation
and to plot their revenge.
And strangers came out of the shadows
to wonder at the nerve of this man
who had said exactly what they wanted to hear,
but so powerfully
that he was bound to create new enemies for himself.
And as Jesus turned to leave,
the accused robbers spat at his departure;
the opportunists gathered all the loot they could
and disappeared into the shadows;
and the self-righteous Jewish believers
could only ask for proof of authority
for his actions.
They didn’t like his answer.
It was completely unrealistic.
But in the end it proved to be true,
although not in the way they were expecting.
Three days they had succeeded in destroying him,
but in three days he was back.
Indestructible!
© Marjorie Dobson. This may be used personally or for local worship, but not published elsewhere without permission.
Our vulnerable God suffered pain and temptation
Our vulnerable God suffered pain and temptation,
rode lightly to wealth, saw the greedy as flawed.
And we, as disciples, who walk in Christ's footsteps
are challenged to follow, to love, not defraud.

Transparent in action, confronting injustice,
upbraiding the rich, while upraising the poor.
He called us to welcome the outcast, the homeless,
by giving, not taking, by opening each door.

Let taxes revalue the lost and discarded,
ensuring the powerful will equally share;
until all the world is redeemed for all people,
until inequality ends as unfair.

And now as we look to the world let us value,
each person, each neighbour of infinite worth,
through sharing and stewardship to lift up the lowly,
to raise out of poverty all upon earth.

Andrew Pratt
Words © 2019 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@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 © Stainer & Bell Ltd
Metre: 12 11 12 11
Tune: STREETS OF LAREDO; ST CATHERINE’S COURT