If love could be the centre of the lives we seek to live – inspired by Luke 11: 4 (The Lord’s Prayer) - 'forgive us our debts' Lectionary 26-7-2025
1 If love could be the centre of
the lives we seek to live,
if we could learn to measure wealth
by debts that we forgive;
then Christ would be incarnate in
all love that we could give
2 Our lives would then be measured by
our depth of love and grace,
the way in which we looked on Christ
in one another’s face.
Then Love would come to live again
within this time and place.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2014 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 6 8 6 8 6
Tune: SHELTERED DALE (used in the Methodist Hymn Book[1933] to set 'Awake, awake to love and work')
Tag: grace
A challenge to the church to change – ‘When the church, afraid of changing’
A challenge to the church to change – ‘When the church, afraid of changing’
Hymn writers sometimes ask questions of the church and then flesh out the consequences of the actions they have described. Fred Pratt Green’s - ‘When the Church of Jesus shuts its outer door’ is one such hymn (perhaps too challenging, or near to the bone, to be in Hymns & Psalms or Singing the Faith?) As we live out the time through lectionary readings from resurrection to Pentecost we have a chance to reflect on what the church is, and what it might be expected to be. Remember that Jesus death was partly a consequence of his challenging people to change their perspectives of faith.
When the church, afraid of changing,
clings to glories of the past,
holding fast to long lost memories,
sure that it will always last,
lost in time, devoid of spirit,
know this truth, its fate is cast.
When the church no longer welcomes
people other than it's own,
when it thinks its understanding
stands complete, is fully grown,
love is rarely seen in action,
grace is only, thinly, sown.
Jesus challenged expectation,
turning tables upside down,
those who once were thought as holy
he confronted with a frown.
When, then, will we learn the lesson,
own that cross, that thorny crown?
Andrew Pratt 3/5/2025
© Words Andrew Pratt © 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: 87 87 87
Tunes: PICARDY; RHUDDLAN
Persistent God, your gracious understanding – God’s grace at Easter
Persistent God, your gracious understanding
1 Persistent God, your gracious understanding
returns the love that often we with-hold.
When met with our resistance and denial
you greet with peace and draw us from the cold.
2 Three times you challenged Peter's frail commitment,
that stemmed from reasoned nervousness and fear.
Three times he answered that he really loved you,
you held him though he'd seemed so insincere.
3 You see beyond our actions and our motives,
you read the hope that's written in each heart,
and in this knowledge welcome home your children
by showing each and all a place and part.
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: 11 10 11 10
Tunes: HIGHWOOD; INTERCESSOR
How soon Palm Sunday prayers and praise – a Palm Sunday hymn
How soon Palm Sunday prayers and praise – a Palm Sunday hymn
1 How soon Palm Sunday prayers and praise,
that could have held love's fusion,
were spun around: the same ones cried
aloud for execution.
2 Such loud hosannas! Yet our praise
has many different faces;
how soon our love is turned around,
we lose our airs and graces.
3 And see how those who waved their palms
with shouts of exaltation
at once had changed both minds and ways
to bless annihilation.
4 How soon commitment melts or fades,
and hope becomes illusion;
and so our love transmutes to hate,
our order to confusion.
5 God help us at this present time
to act without pretension,
to hold on fast to gracious love,
to live out your intention.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
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
Metre: 8 7 8 7
Tune: DOMINUS REGIT ME
‘Right here in the presence of loving and grace’ – a hymn inspired by Mary anointing Jesus’s feet.
‘Right here in the presence of loving and grace’ – a hymn inspired by Mary anointing Jesus's feet.
1 Right here in the presence of loving and grace,
see Judas is scowling, a sneer scars his face.
Anointing with perfume is costly and rare;
this gift could be sold, giving substance to care.
2 What need this affection that Jesus received?
It seemed to go counter to all they believed.
The sale of the perfume could go in the purse,
some pieces of silver, not seen as a curse.
3 Yet this would foreshadow for Judas and Christ,
a scene of betrayal, for greed had enticed
this zealot to grasp for much more than his lot,
through misunderstanding, he'd scheme and he'd plot.
4 For Jesus, anointing would speak of his death,
as love of humanity took his last breath,
but now in this moment a woman knelt down,
her wisdom, perception, would lead to a crown.
5 This act of extravagance, worldly yet wise,
offensive to some, was now opening eyes
to love without measure, to infinite grace,
that minds cannot fathom, nor custom displace.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
© 2015 Stainer & Bell Ltd., London, England, 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.
Metre: 11 11 11 11
Tune: ST DENIO
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