Rev Dr Graham Adams, of the Luther King Centre, has written a book entitled Holy Anarchy. Graham summarises the book here. The heart of Jesus’ vision is a reality he called the kingdom of God - 'a realm in which all dynamics of domination, not least in the church, are subverted'. So this is Holy Anarchy of which Adams writes and in this hymn/poem I have been inspired by this vision. Out beyond our understanding Out beyond our understanding, holy ‘truths’ that have us bound, Holy Anarchy is waiting: shakes, disturbing what we’ve found. Strands beyond our human measure test what’s certain, where we stand, draw us out beyond our treasure to an unknown holy land. Far from what we thought was certain, bound by darkness, hid by light, dare we risk this strange adventure, dream-like drifting, endless flight? Might we yet glimpse sense and purpose, seeming distant, yet so near, here within our present context, such a love as casts out fear? More than we at first envisaged, broader than our widest scope, challenging our firm conceptions, thoughts on which we’ve placed our hope: this will strain imagination, take us from our comfort zone, seem like some incarnate chaos, nothing like we’ve ever known. Andrew Pratt 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. Tune: DIM ON IESU (a Welsh tune to reflect Graham's background) Words inspired by Holy Anarchy, SCM, Graham Adams (2022).
Category: worship
Wrestling with God – Genesis 32: 22-31 – a hymn
Genesis 32: 22-31 Tells the story of an enigmatic stranger wresting with Jacob by a brook called The Jabbok. It is a story of crisis and decision, of Jacob a meeting with God, finding his vocation. Charles Wesley told the story in the hymn ‘Come, O thou traveller unknown’. It runs to 12 verses! You may not have sung it in its entirety.
This hymn is somewhat shorter…
1 Wrestling stranger met with Jacob,
struggled onward till the morn,
struggled by the brook of Jabbok,
heralding a different dawn.
2 Jacob met the task with courage,
and it seemed he would prevail,
but the stronger, wrestling stranger,
made him limp, God could not fail.
3 What the struggle? Why the wrestling?
Was it real or human doubt?
Jacob gained self realization,
how he’d work his purpose out.
4 Nameless God now blessing Jacob,
Israel went on from that place,
Holy ground, for this was special,
here he’d met God face to face.
Andrew Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2011 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. Tune: ALL FOR JESUS
Jesus heals a leper – a hymn
Jesus heals a leper – a hymn
One of this week’s lectionary readings Luke 17: 11-19 tells of Jesus meeting some lepers. He heals them…
17:14 When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean.
17:15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice.
Only one offered thanks and so…
1 Strange how those, the least expected,
offer thanks for acts of grace;
while so many take for granted
costly gifts as common place.
2 Children take the care we offer,
never know what love has cost,
soon they grow in independence,
soon the bonds of birth seem lost.
3 But are our lives any better?
God has many things to give,
yet we also take for granted
all that feeds the lives we live.
4 Let us learn to grasp the treasure
that is given to our hands,
life and healing, joy and pleasure,
all that loving understands.
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
8 7 8 7 Trochaic
Tune: LOVE DIVINE (Stainer)
Creator God: in lightning, clouds and thunder – a new hymn
Creator God: in lightning, clouds and thunder,
I hear your voice, I sense the mountains shake.
But love is greater, causes me to wonder,
and in this moment faith begins to wake.
So I will sing in praise of all I see,
and in God's grace, I place my trust;
and through our lives may love confound our fear.
Sing praise to God, for God is love.
I look to stars, foundations of creation,
reflections gleam from streams as I pass by,
from mountain pass to shingle by the ocean,
the breath of God is moving with each sigh.
Within this world a human once embodied
a depth of love beyond what had been known,
a love that gave forgiveness once in dying,
that we could find in life, that all could own.
And when my breath is ceasing as I’m dying
may grace confirm the hope that faith has given,
this human love that I have known in living
grows firmer, deeper in the love of heaven.
© Andrew Pratt 29/9/2022
Reclaiming ‘How great Thou art’
When Carl Boberg wrote the hymn that we know as How great Thou art’ it was, I believe, written in Swedish. Some of the wonder and beauty of that hymn has survived in the English translation which is most widely used. Sadly, for me, some of that English version has unaccountably veered into a penal substitutionary mode. Having lost a son aged 22 I cannot sing verses which speak of a God as ‘great’ who has sacrificed his son. If this is how a ‘Father God’ behaves I want none of it. In addition it rides light to the incarnation, to God dying, Jurgen Moltmann’s crucified God.
I am aware of the theological gymnastics that people employ to get round this, but why when Atonement theories, are just that. Why not simply return to a translation that more clearly reflects Boberg’s original? Thanks to Hymnary.org for offering E. Gustav Johnson’s translation
When I behold His Son to earth descending,
to help and heal and teach distressed mankind;
When evil flees and death in fear is bending
before the glory of the Lord divine,
With rapture filled, my soul Thy name would laud,
O mighty God! O mighty God!
With rapture filled, my soul Thy name would laud,
O mighty God! O mighty God!
When, crushed by guilt of sin, before Him kneeling
I plead for mercy and for grace and peace,
I feel His balm and, all my bruises healing,
He saves my soul and sets my heart at ease.
Author: Carl Boberg; Translator: E. Gustav Johnson
Translation by E. Gustav Johnson (1893–1974) From Hymnary.org http://www.hymnary.org/text/o_mighty_god_when_i_behold_the_wonder accessed 9/6/2014.
hymnsandbooks 