The tentacles of wealth and domination
On the 9th November 2025 at 00:33 I wrote these words in response to David Olusoga’s first episode of his series on BBC television – Empire – where he tells the story of the British Empire, from its origins under Elizabeth I to the establishment of colonies in America, the Caribbean and India.*
The tentacles of wealth and domination
exploit the poor and elevate the rich,
the seats of power are turning in an instant
are sliding, twisting, now about to switch.
We mirror history in each word and action,
again we turn our values upside down.
If this is love we're cynical and empty,
the face of God is creased into a frown.
God's people what has happened to the gospel,
the grace that we accepted, now refused,
the love in which God holds us lies polluted,
the neighbours with Christ's face we have abused.
When will we turn again toward the beauty,
accept the loving kindness of God's care,
before us lies the world and all its riches,
sufficient for our needs if we would share.
© Andrew Pratt 9/11/2025
*https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002hytj
Christians may compare what Olusoga has depicted with the
Magnificat -
Luke 1: 51-53
51 He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
Tag: Gospel
Not pushing for favours – hymn
Not pushing for favours – a hymn reflecting on Luke 6: 20 – 22
Not pushing for favours, nor craving acceptance,
but waiting in line for our moment to come,
and then love exalts us, affirms and promotes us,
yes this is gospel the, the source and the sum.
God raises the humble, the poor and afflicted,
the ones that society longs to despise.
God's values are different from those we might cherish.
God sees the down-trodden and wills them to rise.
And this is our calling, to set the example,
the gospel imperative lived out through grace,
to turn the world over till those who are hungry
can feast at the banquet prepared in this place.
The table is open, all people are welcome,
the children are dancing, the frail have found care.
The world and it's bounty is here for all people,
with no one excluded, where all learn to share.
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
Metre: 12 11 12 11
Tune: WAS LEBET WAS SCHWEBET
As published in The Seed now https://www.theworshipcloud.com/
Abram set out on a journey – the call of Abram/Abraham – Genesis 12 and onward…
Abram set out on a journey – Inspired by the call of Abram
1 Abram set out on a journey,
joined this new, uncertain, game.
Challenges bring new excitement,
no two days will be the same.
Life was settled, now it's shaken,
preconceptions turned around,
every day a new beginning,
every place uncommon ground.
2 Now it felt God moved the goal-posts,
playing by some other rules,
life and work had been uprooted,
staying home seemed just for fools.
Still today God calls the dreamers,
those with visions charged by grace,
those who move and travel onward,
bringing hope to each new place.
3 Will you join this pilgrim people,
finding new and different ways;
trusting God will walk beside you
now and in your future days?
Will you walk into the darkness,
trusting God and trav'ling light,
setting out to live the gospel,
always keeping God in sight?
Andrew Pratt (born 1948) based on Genesis 12 vs 1-4
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.
8 7 8 7D
Tune: BETHANY
Hymn for Jesus Manifesto – Luke 4: 14 – 21
In Nazareth it happened, folk heard with bated breath, the good news Jesus offered of life instead of death. This was the manifesto: a charter for the poor, a welcome for the stranger who’d waited at the door. Within a cell the captive would hear the freedom call, and those who felt injustice know healing was for all. Oppression would be banished. Yet hypocrites recoiled, drove Jesus from their presence, but he would not be foiled. And in this time and context will we still have to wait, or dare we risk and follow, before it is too late? Andrew Pratt 17/1/2022 Words © 2022 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: 7.6.7.6 Tune: THE CHERRY TREE CAROL (repeat last two lines of each verse) Based on Luke 4: 14 – 30 (the Lectionary for this coming Sunday is Luke 4: 14 – 21) An alternative version below follows a slightly different rhythm. Alternative words: In Nazareth it happened, the folk held their breath; the good news Jesus offered was life instead of death. And this was the promise: a gift for the poor, a welcome for the stranger who’d waited at the door. Within a cell the captive would hear freedom call, and those who felt injustice know healing was for all. Oppression would be banished, hypocrites recoiled, drove Jesus from their presence, but he would not be foiled. And in this time and context we still have to wait; or dare we risk and follow, before it is too late? Andrew Pratt 17/1/2022 Words © 2022 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,
Incarnation and all that…
If we believe the idea of incarnation, if we sense that people saw God, or something of God in Jesus, and I do, we set ourselves a problem. We raise questions.
People want to know how can that be? If we are content with the mystery of not knowing there is no problem. We create the problem by running with the question. The consequences are multitudinous.
Mark just says, in effect, this is the beginning of the good news. My feeling is that, when he was writing the question hadn’t arisen.
John uses logos to get round the problem of God becoming flesh, human. To my mind the most easily acceptable answer in 2022.
Matthew and Luke construct myths. In their time the nature of these accounts would have been seen for what they were I believe, largely fictional, yet true as a novel is true, a sort of, ‘look, it could have happened like this, not saying it did, but’. Then pulling in all the scriptural ‘prophecies’ to justify the assertions. It worked then and becomes less plausible now.
More worrying is that it sets train the whole plethora of myths – Trinity, Fatherhood, divinity over against humanity, virgin birth, Ascension, which become dogma which ‘we must believe’ some would say, in order to be saved.
How much simpler, less arrogant and more exciting to say, IT IS A MYSTERY, I don’t understand it but here in this person called Jesus, I glimpse something of what I think God would BE like as a person. I’m agnostic as to the details but that doesn’t matter one jot! Best of all is God is with us – ‘give me the Good News in the present tense’ – as Sydney Carter put it.
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