Two very different items for Mothering Sunday
Vulnerable presence of God in creation
Vulnerable presence of God in creation,
fragile, yes broken, in order to be;
cracking the egg of existence in birthing,
mothering God who is setting us free.
Vulnerable God source of nature, will nurture,
sharing our pain in the process of birth;
bloodied, yet beautiful, changed, yet unchanging,
passionate partner of love on this earth.
Vulnerable God found in human relations,
held as a baby, yes, suckled and fed;
yet an enigma, creating and feeding,
God is our parent, while being our bread.
Words Andrew Pratt © 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: 11 10 11 10
Tune: STEWARDSHIP
God, you hold me like a mother – inspired by Psalm 131
God, you hold me like a mother,
Safely on her knee;
God, you hold me like a mother,
Close to you but free.
God, you watch me when I wander,
Keep me in your sight.
God, you watch me when I wander,
Hold me day and night.
God, you hold me like a mother,
Teach me to be free.
God, you hold me like a mother,
Show your love to me.
Words Andrew Pratt © 1995 Stainer & Bell Ltd & The Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes 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. Published in Big Blue Planet (1995)
Metre: 8 5 85 Trochaic
Tune: GOD YOU HOLD ME (George Bexon)
Category: worship
A Hymn for Lent 2 – All the pain and hurt and horror
Mark 8:31
8:31 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
Hymn: All the pain and hurt and horror
1 All the pain and hurt and horror,
loss, denial and mistrust,
hovered round as Jesus waited
for his friends to re-adjust.
Lost within misunderstanding:
thought that love was just a dream,
knew that it would be so easy,
they're confounded by Love's scheme.
2 Jesus taught that love would conquer
only through integrity,
that the way his life was pointing
tested his humanity.
Jesus felt that Peter's challenge
undermined his purpose here,
spoke quite harshly, underlining,
made his need both plain and clear.
3 Death was now the final action,
Jesus spelt out to his friends.
To them this was not expedient,
not the way Messiah ends.
Love would be denied if actions
led to violence or defence,
Jesus, lamb led to the slaughter,
death the cost of Love's expense.
Andrew Pratt 8/2/2012 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
Tune: LUX EOI
Metre: 8.7.8.7D
A laser like tongue – A hymn inspired by Jesus baptism which might be used as a dramatic reading
A laser like tongue – A hymn inspired by Jesus baptism which might be used as a dramatic reading.
A laser like tongue used when speaking God's word,
an arc-light to shine through the crass or absurd.
The prophet had spoken of just such a voice,
embodied in John who would offer God's choice.
A preacher from Galilee joined in the crowd,
not hidden, John pointed and called him out loud.
The lamb, God's anointed, Messiah had come,
the Spirit confirming that this was God's son.
The world and God's people spun round by this man
discovered that grace had a limitless span;
and this, while offending the pious, the priest,
brought joy to the ones once regarded as least.
Some soon caught the essence, the crisis, the power,
the challenge of Jesus to twist or devour
their present conceptions, their life-long deceit,
to turn them, re-focus, and make them complete.
And so those around heard both challenge and choice,
the sense of authority rang through his voice.
The call to leave everything seemed so absurd
and yet they responded to Jesus's word.
That word is still rippling, extending through space,
it reaches through time and it tells of God's grace;
it sharpens perception, it rings in each ear,
the spirit is moving, the Kingdom is near.
Andrew Pratt (born 1948) based on Isaiah 49 vs 1-7; Mark 1: 9 – 15; John 1 vs 29-42
© Stainer & Bell Ltd.
Metre: 11 11 11 11
Tune: PADERBORN (Paderborn Gesangbuch 1765) Perhaps this text could be read dramatically rather than sung?
Once transfiguration blinded – a hymn
Some of you will remember the hymn, ‘Stay, Master, stay upon this heavenly hill’.
As the disciples want to continue in the purer air of the mountaintop, to stay eternally, Jesus
rebukes them:
No, saith the Lord, the hour is past, we go;
Our home, our life, our duties lie below.
While here we kneel upon the mount of prayer,
The plough lies waiting in the furrow there.
And the disciples respond:
There we must do it, serve him, seek him still.
The following hymn continues this theme of being lost in such wonder that we forget the needs that
we are called to meet:
Once transfiguration blinded
1 Once transfiguration blinded
those who climbed to follow Christ,
seeing through a mist of glory,
just a glimpse at once sufficed;
just a glimpse of holy heaven,
earth and heaven neatly spliced.
2 Light can blind us to the sorrow,
to the pain of poverty,
light of holy exaltation,
or the light of being free:
free of fear of want or hunger
resting in complicity.
3 Lost in thunder, bathed in wonder,
hands uplifted should we praise,
while, in destitution, neighbours,
wait for weeks, not merely days,
for the crumbs dropped from a table
that austerity displays.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2018 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 7 8 7 8 7
Tune: WESTMINSTER ABBEY (Purcell)
A hymn in a shattering, divided world…perhaps?
Reflecting on the world in which we live, what can we, should we sing?
Hymns should at least allow for the expression of everything to which the Psalms give voice. And I am including those words over which we tend to be rather squeamish. This interpretation of Psalm 137 was attributed to John Donne but was probably written by Francis Davison (circa 1633-69):
Happy, who, thy tender barnes
From the armes
Of their wailing mothers tearing,
'Gainst the walls shall dash their bones,
Ruthless stones
With their braines and blood besmearing.
[Donne, J., The Poems of John Donne, Edit. H.J.C. Grierson, Oxford 1912, p426].
And why should I want to sing this or anything even distantly emotionally related to it? Because sometimes that is how I feel and the Psalms testify to the fact that God can cope with us feeling like that.
Not finding such a hymn in my own denomination’s hymn book at the turn of the millennium, and reflecting on the plight of refugees, I wrote these words. And are they, perhaps, redolent of those of opposing opinions, experiencing hatred and fear, in our world, in our countries today?
1 When anger is our highest creed,
revenge the motivating force;
God, understand our depth of hurt,
our need for action, not just thought.
2 Ejected from what makes us safe,
familiar ground and well-known names,
we sicken for the things we've seen,
all sense of hope and courage drains.
3 We cannot celebrate our faith,
and faith lacks meaning, all is lost;
for nothing is as it once was,
we cannot ever bear the cost.
4 So, God, what should we do or say?
What is there left of love or life?
What mitigating cause or plea
will rid us of this pain of strife?
5 Amid our sense of grief and loss
where nothing now can be the same,
stand in the midst of shattered faith;
rebuild, renew, and raise again.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2001 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: LM
Tunes: PLAISTOW; KEDRON(Dare)
hymnsandbooks 