Crafted from wood - a hymn on the cross – Luke 9:23; 14:27
Crafted from wood, the grain of our decision,
where faith was hung, a challenge to God’s love,
the Christ had carried it to execution,
this then our choice – the wing of hawk or dove?
Some made the choice that led to their extinction,
their’s was a loss, but not of love or grace,
accepting in each place of human crisis,
this challenge that each Christian has to face.
Take up your cross each day was Christ’s suggestion,
if you would follow in the path he trod,
yet we would minimise the resurrection,
that love transcending death can lead to God.
Words 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: 11.10.11.10
Tune: O PERFECT LOVE (Barnby)
Some thoughts on this hymn to take us further.
I had in mind, as I wrote it:
Luke 9:23;14:27
23 Then he said to them all, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. (New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised)
14:27Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
Also:
Søren Kierkegaard
In Kierkegaard's view, the Church should not try to prove Christianity or even defend it. It should help the single individual to make a leap of faith, the faith that God is love and has a task for that very same single individual. Kierkegaard identified the leap of faith as the good resolution. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%B8ren_Kierkegaard)
And
Dietrich Bonhoeffer ‘The Cost of Discipleship’ – Bonhoeffer stood against Fascism and was ultimately sent to a concentration camp and he was hanged on 9 April 1945 during the collapse of the Nazi regime.
All these point for me to Jesus’ words and how others have seen them and sought to live by them.
Tag: choice
As an election approaches a hymn (poem,song) – If love is foremost in our faith
If love is foremost in our faith
we have a choice to make
on this and every other day,
for all else is at stake;
we see a world that’s broken down,
where poverty and fear
are trampelling the weakest ones,
with hatred lurking near.
‘Today’, God said, I give a choice
where life and death compete.
The chance is now for us to take,
to finish, to complete,
the turning of the tables here
as Christ, one time, had turned
the temple tables, scattering greed,
to free those power had spurned.
Where selfishness can cripple lives,
or love can set them free,
what happens from this moment on
rests now with you and me:
if our audacious words of grace
can frame what we would pray,
then from this moment, in our time,
let love infuse each day.
Andrew Pratt 22/5/2024 on the announcement of a General Election
Words © 2024 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: CMD
Tunes: ELLACOMBE; COE FEN; KINGSFOLD
A hymn for a time of decision – Two ways or more – Written for Comberbach Methodist Church
Two ways or more to risk or rupture faith,
this pearl, this gift, entrusted to our care,
Which way to take, the smooth way or the rough
a challenge and a question hover there.
We wonder and we wander through our thoughts
as all seems foreign, different from our hope.
The ground is shaken, all seems insecure,
where can we sow a seed that fosters hope?
Help us, good God, to see the way ahead,
to take the risk that leads us from the night.
To plant while not yet knowing what might grow,
surprising, thrusting, blindly into light.
Andrew Pratt 12/3/2024 For Comberbach Methodist Church at a time of decision.
© 2024 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
Metre10.10.10.10
Tune: MORECAMBE
A troubled soul – a hymn for Lent 5
A troubled soul, the Christ of God – inspired by John 12: 20-33
1 A troubled soul, the Christ of God,
humanity exposed,
with all the turmoil that we feel,
when choices are proposed.
The monumental choice he faced,
the crisis must be met,
to take the path of love to death,
or turn away, forget.
2 The riddle of the grain of wheat
was told with fear and dread,
yet mention of new fruit gives hope
that God might raise the dead.
The loss of life, the gain of life
are tangled in this game,
yet those who live in love of God
are held within love's frame.
3 So Jesus chose and we must choose,
which path we are to take,
the one which will deny God's love
or cause the earth to quake.
God give us courage to deny
the self that harbours hate,
to trust in your eternal grace,
before it is too late.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
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: DCM
Tune: ELLACOMBE
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?
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