Lent 1 – The temptation of Jesus
1 Jesus met supreme temptation,
countered subtlety with skill;
ever faithful to one purpose,
still committed to God's will.
2 With no food he soon was famished,
hunger racked him, filled his mind,
then a voice had come to taunt him,
'bread is there for you to find'.
3 Each illusion he would parry,
each temptation run to ground;
all the world was for the asking,
yet his faith was strong and sound.
4 Every miracle and wonder
he was tempted to perform
he rebutted, held the tension;
he would live beyond this storm.
5 And when we meet with temptation,
save us from each trial and test;
strengthen faith, God, give us courage,
help us strive toward the best.
Andrew Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2010 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: CROSS OF JESUS
Tag: Lent
Lent & Holy Week – Looking ahead – A calendar will call us…other hymns will follow on this blog
A calendar will call us to share with Christ in Lent,
to walk within the darkness: some drawn, yet others sent;
and here we sense contrition, an ashen cross we bear,
reminder that the fire of love of God is everywhere.
In many different places God’s people bear the strain
of human expectation as cruel norms constrain;
for each convention sealing another person’s fate,
forgive, release, give freedom before it is too late.
We witness acts of hatred dressed up as self-defence,
where vengeance is the motive hid deep in self-pretence;
great God, forgive those moments, when hate and human pride
lead to the domination of those we might deride.
As Christ you suffered torment, the torture and the hate,
yet on the cross forgave them, the ones who sealed your fate,
so as we kneel confessing complicity, we pray,
great God, forgive humanity when selfishness holds sway.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2020 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: 13 13 13 13
Tune: CRUGER
Seas, stars and sunsets – a reflection preparing for Lent
As we head towards Lent my mind has gone into reverse!
Rather than what I might give up, I’ve started to wonder what I want to cling to, what I really value. Is there anything I never want to let go of? I suppose for many people the first thing to come to mind will not be a thing but a person. And I begin to reflect. Of all the people I know, or have known, who have loved me and whom I have loved… and I’m brought up short. Immediately I’m conscious of our humanity. Every day we form memories – good and bad. What we do today will be what we remember tomorrow. We may remember some things for a lifetime. But all of us have been born. All of us will die. Some people we love have already already died. Life, for all it holds is transient. Yet we hold memories. We share grief. A poem written some years ago began:
All my life I've had acquaintances.
And some friends.
A varied tapestry of faces,
none permanent,
born and dying.
Parents gave me birth,
both now dead.
Child born
and laid to rest.
Life has taught me to expect loss, sooner or later. I owe so much to so many. I hold memories, and they are invaluable. But if this is a bit bleak for you, for me it is realistic. So what will I hold to? Let me share three memories:
I looked out on the sunset. The sky, deep red, but fading, could not be captured by a camera’s lens, held for eternity. I mused. Different wavelengths of light refracted by the atmosphere, received by a retina, passing through a tangle of neurones, conducted by chemical and physiological interactions, perceived by something we might label consciousness. And is this all? Later I played with water colours, fluid, wet on wet, running into one another out of control, unpredictable.
This was nearer to what I believed I saw. But this did not explain or make sense of what I saw, of what felt. And a realisation rose rather than forced itself on me of something ‘other’. Call that conversion if you will. It was a glimpse of the ‘other’, I will go on calling it that for want of anything better, that changed the direction of my life. To that I will hold.
Then with my first real telescope. Marvelling at the myriad of stars in which our sun and the tumbling planets surrounding it are set.
There yesterday, today and forever. This will outlast me.
Even if climate change is ultimately catastrophic those stars will be there. Beyond the point when our sun dies, compressed in a black hole, stars, light years from ours will burn brightly. Sheer wonder.
But I began the title of this reflection with ‘seas’. And that poem to which I’ve referred ended with these words:
Left again to my earliest memories,
to the rising of the sun
and its setting;
to waxing of the moon
and its waning;
the movement of the waters,
the crashing of the waves,
the constancy of stars;
to the generation of my faith.
In this dynamic patchwork
I find my safety,
lodge securely;
and so,
in death,
I will return again
to the friendly sea
and the sky.
The seas lap round the continents. I was born within 400yards of the sea. I long for the sea. And whenever I can go near it the swell, the movement, the scent, the changing light, constant, yet infinitely varied feels like home.
And as I reflect on this creation in which I have been placed, nurtured, grown I return, as some of you will already have guessed, to two passages of scripture. Seas, stars and sunsets remind me of that something, that ‘other’ that we name God, that is LOVE…
‘You, LORD, are all I have, and you give me all I need; my future is in your hands’(Good News Bible, Psalm 16 verse 5) and ‘…I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God (Romans 8: 38-39). Amen to that.
To these things, to this, I will cling, through Lent and beyond.
Grace & Peace, Andrew
Text, Watercolour Painting and iPad Painting all copyright Andrew Pratt. This reflection first used in the Mid-Cheshire Methodist Circuit 2024
Palm Sunday – Two hymns, a poem and a monologue
Mark 11: 1-11 First the cheering, then the jeering First the cheering, then the jeering – crowds can change their minds at will. First they hail him, then condemn him; aim to please, or aim to kill. First the anger, then the whipping, clearing out the Temple court. First the traders, then the money – space for prayer cannot be bought. First the perfume, then the poison – money should not go to waste. First anointing, then annoyance – do not judge her deed in haste. First the trusting, then betrayal – Judas seeking cash in hand. First he loved him, then provoked him, daring him to take a stand. First the kneeling, then the serving, showing deep humility. First bread breaking, then wine sharing – ‘Do this as you think of me.’ First the garden, then the praying – sweating blood, then traitor’s kiss. First the trial, then denial – Peter, has it come to this? First the nails and then the hammer piercing flesh and splitting bone. First the sighing, then the dying – Jesus on the cross, alone. First the grieving, then the praying, agonising through your death. First we share your desolation - while you wait to take new breath. Marjorie Dobson © 2005 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 © Stainer & Bell Ltd From Unravelling the Mysteries, Stainer & Bell Ltd., 2019 Tune: STUTTGART – Singing the Faith 225 Poem: Palm Sunday Don’t know much about horses. Don’t know much about donkeys for that matter. Do know that colts can be nervous and jumpy. Know they need to be trained for a rider. Know they have to get used to noises. Know they shy away from sudden movements. Know they need careful handling by experienced riders. So what was Jesus doing taking a young colt, never been ridden before, not familiar with strangers, let alone one who usually walked everywhere, into a crowd of people waving and shouting, throwing strange objects right into the path of the animal, and riding it on a public highway, through a darkened arched gate into crowded city streets, lined with excited and sometimes hostile figures? Was he out to get himself killed? He was certainly going the right way about it. Marjorie Dobson - © 2019 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 © Stainer & Bell Ltd From Unravelling the Mysteries, Stainer & Bell Ltd., 2019. A strange kind of king When that king comes riding on a donkey, will he be noticed among the finery and glitz and glamour of a ceremonial state occasion? When, through God’s peacemakers, arms and armoury are decommissioned and weapons of mass destruction are immobilised, will anyone believe that peace can be permanent, or that God can have anything to do with it? When those imprisoned by warfare, neglect and poverty are freed into peace, hope and equality, will anyone credit God with being the inspiration behind many of the activists who helped to achieve those aims? Or will the donkey wander through rejoicing crowds and the man on its back be taken for a fool again? © Marjorie Dobson; May be used freely locally with acknowledgment, for wider use please contact the author. To bring a city to its sense To bring a city to its sense, a nation to its knees, they welcomed Nazareth's carpenter, waved palms cut from the trees. Hosanna filled the quiet air, they strained to glimpse a view; 'Messiah' they acclaimed this man whom Pharisees would sue. He turned the tables upside down, he spun their world around, he challenged preconceived ideas, flung hatred to the ground. This man had learnt too much, it seemed, knew ways of right and wrong, his ear attuned to righteousness sensed discord in their song. The politicians and the priests were threatened by this choice; the hypocrites would silence him, and still we shun his voice. Andrew E Pratt (born 1948) © 2002 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 © Stainer & Bell Ltd. From Whatever Name or Creed, Stainer & Bell Ltd., 2002. Metre: CM Tune: FINGAL (Anderson); FORGIVE OUR SINS
LENT – POEMS AND SONG TO SET THE SCENE – THINK AGAIN; EMPTY WORDS; SPIRITED DANCER
Think again If the extent of our sacrificial content is to give up chocolate for Lent, what kind of a sacrifice is that? If the inclination of our celebration is for a self-centred commemoration for the current congregation, what good is that to God, or anyone else? If a Holy Day becomes a holiday with the holiness left out, where has the significance gone? God sighs for the real sacrifice of working to eliminate poverty and injustice. God craves for the genuine celebrations of people set free and of changed lives. God holds out hope for those who make holiness their aim, however far they still have to travel. God asks us to think again. © Marjorie Dobson Empty words Empty words from those who live in luxury and despise the poor. Empty words from those who enquire after the sick, but never visit them. Empty words from those who offer hollow sympathy, but never weep with those in sorrow. Empty words from those who are severely critical of local and national governments, but refuse to vote, or to become involved in politics. Empty words from those who proclaim themselves to be Christians, but only take care of themselves and their own kind. Empty words from those who preach of suffering and sacrifice, but have never challenged themselves to experience either. Empty words from those … … Empty words … … Empty … … And God, who knows our hearts, looks on and asks us to look again at the sacrificial love of Jesus and to fill our empty words with love and action. Marjorie Dobson Words © 2019 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.
Spirited dancer Spirited dancer, a pantomime figure, comic, distorted, misused and abused; never expedient, yet working with rigour, seemingly foolish yet never confused. Crying the wilderness down on your shoulders, offering pedants the cool time of day; I would dance with you, by paths or rough boulders, willing to enter the fun or the fray. Now in my cowardice, fear, apprehension, sharing the life that you've given to me; help me to put away pride and pretension, learn in your footsteps the way to be free. Andrew E. Pratt (born 1948) Words © 2003, 2006 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: WAS LEBET, WAS SCHWEBET; QUEDLINBURG
hymnsandbooks 