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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

Amanda Udis-Kessler has produced two items, one for Palm Sunday, the other for Easter

A Palm Sunday Hymn – Two Processions, by Amanda Udis-Kessler.

An Easter Extravaganzer – Love had a dream, by Amanda Udis-Kessler.

Clicking the links will take you to YouTube to watch and hear her work. More information can be found at here.

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 2 – Two poems and two hymns

Mark 8: 31-38
Challenge
‘You don’t need to do that!
Why do you put yourself through it?
It’s totally unnecessary!’
Wise advice?
Maybe – in some circumstances.
Self-inflicted suffering
doesn’t seem to make sense
in the everyday world.
But there are times
when we have to face the facts –
‘no gain without pain’,
is the old saying.
Yet Jesus,
making his future clear to his followers,
discovered that even the best of them
had no idea of what he had to face.
And, for all the best possible reasons,
Peter wanted to spare his friend
the horror of the predictions
that were being set before him.
‘Don’t tempt me, you devil!’
What a response to give.
One that rocked Peter on his heels
and made him feel hurt and guilty.
Only time would heal that wound,
but only as the wounds that Jesus suffered
were made evident to them all.
The challenge to suffering for the faith goes on.
And when asked,
‘Why do you put yourself through it?’
is our answer tinged with the temptation
to turn and creep away in another direction?
©Marjorie Dobson, This may be used personally or for local worship, but not published elsewhere without permission.
All the pain and hurt and horror
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.
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.
Death was now the final payment,
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 E 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
Metre: 8.7.8.7D
Tune: LUX EOI

Determination
Nothing could deter him.
Not religious opposition.
Not the wily Herod.
Not the prophetic predictions.
Not the Pharisees with their plotting,
nor the teachers with their testing,
nor the disciples and their doubting.
Nothing could stop him.
For as Jesus wept over Jerusalem,
saw their persecution of prophets
and their future of desolation,
he saw his own destiny of death
at the hands of those
who set out to destroy him.
Yet he moved on.
And those who walked with him
could only fear for his life
and try in vain
to shield him from his enemies,
but knowing deep within their hearts
he was determined to go on.
©Marjorie Dobson, This may be used personally or for local worship, but not published elsewhere without permission.
Infectious faith
Infectious faith we demonstrate by action,
when words are lived and people feel God's grace,
when platitudes are kept in quiet abeyance,
and love expressed through every human face.

This is the witness we are called to offer:
the smile of welcome and the touch of care,
when every neighbour frames the Christ we honour,
the angel that we're greeting unaware.

My friend, we cannot claim to grace the Godhead
when those who stand in tatters at our door
are turned away without a moment's notice,
while others sleep upon a stone cold floor.

Our faith and love are nothing, simply empty,
just words we fling against a cloud filled sky,
when those we see derided, disregarded,
are left, without our protest, just to die.

Are we to be just noisy, clanging cymbals,
or signs of hope upon this cold, dark earth?
Ours is the calling now to re-imagine
the love of God, to sign each person's worth.

Andrew E Pratt
Words © 2016 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: INTERCESSOR