Tag: injustice

Once transfiguration blinded – a hymn

Some of you will remember the hymn, ‘Stay, Master, stay upon this heavenly hill’.
As the disciples want to continue in the purer air of the mountaintop, to stay eternally, Jesus
rebukes them:


No, saith the Lord, the hour is past, we go;
Our home, our life, our duties lie below.
While here we kneel upon the mount of prayer,
The plough lies waiting in the furrow there.


And the disciples respond:


There we must do it, serve him, seek him still.
The following hymn continues this theme of being lost in such wonder that we forget the needs that
we are called to meet:

Once transfiguration blinded 

1 Once transfiguration blinded 
those who climbed to follow Christ, 
seeing through a mist of glory, 
just a glimpse at once sufficed; 
just a glimpse of holy heaven, 
earth and heaven neatly spliced. 

2 Light can blind us to the sorrow, 
to the pain of poverty, 
light of holy exaltation, 
or the light of being free:
free of fear of want or hunger 
resting in complicity.

3 Lost in thunder, bathed in wonder, 
hands uplifted should we praise, 
while, in destitution, neighbours, 
wait for weeks, not merely days,
for the crumbs dropped from a table
that austerity displays.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2018 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 8 7
Tune: WESTMINSTER ABBEY (Purcell)

Cities of sanctuary – hymn for refugee week

Cities of sanctuary, places of safety, 
here where all strangers are welcomed and blessed, 
we stand with Jesus in love of our neighbour, 
here in our actions his love is expressed.
	
We will act justly while offering mercy, 
nurturing humbly a gospel of peace, 
welcome all people regardless of status, 
counter celebrity, value the least.
	
Here in a world that is cruel and unyielding 
God's hospitality values the poor; 
this is the scandal of love without limits, 
loving the unloved, then loving them more.
	
We will not rest till each migrant is welcomed. 
We will share bread till the hungry are fed. 
We will confront each injustice that greets us, 
loving with vigour till hatred is dead.

Andrew Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2008 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: STEWARDSHIP

With thanks to Inderjit Bhogal for his work, example and inspiration

A tension stalked the stage – another Advent/Christmas hymn

The gospel reading of the Fourth Sunday in Advent tells of the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth and Mary’s prophetic song which we know as the Magnificat (Luke 1: 39-55). This Sunday’s hymn reaches further than this. It has for its background an occupied country, a census involving a journey and the song of a young woman which anticipates the birth of a child who will bring radical challenge and change to the world – if only we would hear and follow him…

A tension stalked the stage, 
an occupying force, 
and in this context Mary sang. 
The world could alter course.
Once humbled by her God, 
demeaned, yet she felt blessed, 
her life now mingled joy and pain, 
from now she'd never rest.

And those in every age 
are challenged by her song, 
the paupers free to pray again - 
for those who did them wrong;
while princes are appalled,
for those who once held power 
will find their status racked right down, 
and that within this hour.

For where injustice meets 
with worship lived and prayed, 
the social order swings around, 
the powerful are dismayed;
and that includes us all, 
our power is sapped away, 
while genuine humility 
at last will have its day.

Andrew E Pratt 
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: DSM
Tune: LEOMINSTER

Paulette Wilson has died – Nadine White on Twitter

Paulette Wilson has died. She moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1968, but was stripped of her rights by the home office and left destitute as the Windrush scandal unfolded. While awaiting compensation, Paulette selflessly campaigned for justice for others.

Part of her story – Paulette Wilson