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?
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.
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.
‘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.
A hymn reflecting on Hebrew scriptures – In the silent stillness
1 In the silent, stillness, listen, God is calling will we hear? All too often faith has foundered, grace is muzzled by our fear. In our rush and haste and hurry we have lost the time for prayer; lost the time for conversation, then we think God is not there.
2 Yet our forebears grasped a promise of a covenant of grace; God is faithful to that promise in this present time and place. Limitless in application, boundless in its scope and span; grace is wide enough for thousands, here there is no 'also ran'!
3 Spoken to a chosen people for the nations of the earth, see God's love is offered freely, recognising all have worth. More than milk, than wine or honey, God has offered, God will give bread that all may feast, and freely, all rejoice, that all may live!
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