Category: Theology

Reflection for 2025 – Pentecost

Reflection for June 2025 – Pentecost – Andrew Pratt – originally written for the Mid- Cheshire Circuit

An image of fire in darkness

As Pentecost dawns the central image is of tongues of flame. But wait a minute.

To many people fire equates with fear, can be a trigger to post traumatic stress. Think Grenfell Tower, or the plethora of images of recent times of war torn, tumbled towns and cities or ravaged countryside.

How can we use this image of power and destruction for good? As part of our Christian celebration?

Think for a moment of giant redwood trees, apparently decimated by annual infernos. Witness the regrowth which follows – enlivened, fresh new growth, impossible without this devastation.

‘Deep within the trees are stored sugars from photosynthesis. They can use it for growth or metabolism … or they can store it for later. They have these really old, 50-to-100-year old carbon reserves that have accumulated for many decades that they can draw upon to build new leaves and do new photosynthesis.’[1]

Hold that image for a moment.

The prophet Joel looked forward to a time when God’s spirit would be poured out on all people. The expectation was a universal one. It was rooted in the understanding that at creation God’s Spirit moved over the face of the waters, that it had always been present. Joel sought to open people’s minds to this.

And now, at this time of Pentecost, we reflect on dispirited disciples being anointed in such a way that it seemed that flames came down among them, not of destruction, but of renewal, releasing possibilities deep within them which had been dormant, ever-present, and believe it, this same Spirit is within us.

And what was the new growth? A realisation that God’s Spirit was not exclusive, but inclusive as Joel had anticipated, would be poured out through them for all creation.

But all this is metaphor, pictures to open our minds. Our painting moves from darkness to fire and light. And, at best that illuminates the truth of the sacred worth of all humanity, and all creation. Yet to realise this our selfish inclinations must be destroyed to be replaced by the seeds of love such as we see in the person of Jesus which, if we have eyes to see, is there before us in every living person,

God, open our eyes to see with your eyes of love, warm us with the fire of your love, until we love one another as you have always loved us. Amen.

[1] https://www.science.org/content/article/ancient-redwoods-recover-fire-sprouting-1000-year-old-buds (accessed 28/5/2025)

Image © Andrew Pratt 2025

A challenge to the church to change – ‘When the church, afraid of changing’

A challenge to the church to change – ‘When the church, afraid of changing’

Hymn writers sometimes ask questions of the church and then flesh out the consequences of the actions they have described. Fred Pratt Green’s - ‘When the Church of Jesus shuts its outer door’ is one such hymn (perhaps too challenging, or near to the bone, to be in Hymns & Psalms or Singing the Faith?) As we live out the time through lectionary readings from resurrection to Pentecost we have a chance to reflect on what the church is, and what it might be expected to be. Remember that Jesus death was partly a consequence of his challenging people to change their perspectives of faith.

When the church, afraid of changing,
clings to glories of the past, 
holding fast to long lost memories, 
sure that it will always last, 
lost in time, devoid of spirit, 
know this truth, its fate is cast.

When the church no longer welcomes 
people other than it's own, 
when it thinks its understanding 
stands complete, is fully grown, 
love is rarely seen in action, 
grace is only, thinly, sown.

Jesus challenged expectation, 
turning tables upside down, 
those who once were thought as holy 
he confronted with a frown.
When, then, will we learn the lesson,
own that cross, that thorny crown?

Andrew Pratt 3/5/2025
© Words Andrew Pratt © 2025 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: 87 87 87
Tunes: PICARDY; RHUDDLAN

Persistent God, your gracious understanding – God’s grace at Easter

Persistent God, your gracious understanding  

1	Persistent God, your gracious understanding 
	returns the love that often we with-hold. 
	When met with our resistance and denial 
	you greet with peace and draw us from the cold. 
	
2	Three times you challenged Peter's frail commitment, 
	that stemmed from reasoned nervousness and fear. 
	Three times he answered that he really loved you, 
	you held him though he'd seemed so insincere.
	
3	You see beyond our actions and our motives, 
	you read the hope that's written in each heart, 
	and in this knowledge welcome home your children 
	by showing each and all a place and part.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)  
Words © 2013 © 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: 11 10 11 10
Tunes: HIGHWOOD; INTERCESSOR

God hung and died upon the cross

God hung and died upon the cross
 
        God hung and died upon the cross,
 	and there he suffered wild abuse,
	the ones who held religious power
	had offered an oblique excuse:
	denying love their greatest crime.
	We see this echoed in our time.
	 
	For when we worship week by week
	while poor are trampled, made more poor;
	when those in need are turned away,
	or sent off to another shore;
	our silence signs complicity
	and signals our iniquity.
	 
	But if we walk beside the ones
	that others curse, berate and blame,
	share in their stark reality,
	their ridicule, pernicious pain;
	then know that God has walked this way,
	with them we'll live another day.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948) based on 1 Peter 2: 19-25
© 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: 8 8 8 8 8 8
Tune: ABINGDON

‘Right here in the presence of loving and grace’ – a hymn inspired by  Mary anointing Jesus’s feet.

‘Right here in the presence of loving and grace’ – a hymn inspired by  Mary  anointing  Jesus's feet.

1	Right here in the presence of loving and grace, 
	see Judas is scowling, a sneer scars his face.
	Anointing with perfume is costly and rare;
	this gift could be sold, giving substance to care.
	
2	What need this affection that Jesus received? 
	It seemed to go counter to all they believed. 
	The sale of the perfume could go in the purse, 
	some pieces of silver, not seen as a curse.
	
3	Yet this would foreshadow for Judas and Christ,
	a scene of betrayal, for greed had enticed 
	this zealot to grasp for much more than his lot,
	through misunderstanding, he'd scheme and he'd plot.
	
4	For Jesus, anointing would speak of his death, 
	as love of humanity took his last breath, 
	but now in this moment a woman knelt down, 
	her wisdom, perception, would lead to a crown.
	
5	This act of extravagance, worldly yet wise, 
	offensive to some, was now opening eyes  
	to love without measure, to infinite grace, 
	that minds cannot fathom, nor custom displace.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
© 2015 Stainer & Bell Ltd., London, England, 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 11 11 11
Tune: ST DENIO