Tag: scandal

God loves a scandal…a hymn for our times…

1	God loves a scandal, look at Christ, 
	his crying indignation 
	will turn our tables round again, 
	infect our generation.

2	And those of us who hold some power, 
	our influence diluted, 
	will sense the end of all we love, 
	our treasured schemes uprooted.

3	What will we do? What can we say? 
	Bow down in adoration?
	Or rage with words, then crucify 
	the ground of our creation?

4	The crisis looms, the choice remains: 
	the cross or selfish grasping; 
	the denigration of the poor 
	or love that can be lasting?

5	God give us strength that we might take 
	the risk of Christ-like living, 
	this gracious way of selfless love,
	of sacrificial giving.

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: DOMINUS REGIT ME

Tangled in prejudice, lost in presumption – hymn inspired by John 9: 1-41


A hymn inspired by John 9: 1 – 41…As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned

Tangled in prejudice, lost in presumption, 
locked in our judgments, so sure of our ground; 
others are sinful, but we are the righteous, 
this is the truth we are sure we have found.
	
This is our blindness and now we must own it, 
owning suspicion of those we deride; 
painting them wrongly, unjustly with hatred, 
side-stepping honesty, trying to hide.
	
For like the Pharisees' we are self-serving,
gaining our wealth from the ones we oppress;
sometimes we bring down the ones who would challenge, 
this we have done and now this we confess.
	
In this confession we seek your forgiveness, 
God who has touched both the broken and frail. 
We were thought strong, but we plead for compassion, 
we, the successful, have found we can fail.
	
Yet you astound us, 'your sins are forgiven', 
words that have echoed down into our time.
How can we warrant such scandalous mercy?
Only through grace can you offer this sign.

Andrew Pratt (born 1948)
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.
Metre: 11 10 11 10
Tunes: EPIPHANY HYMH; IN THE BEGINNING GOD PLAYED WITH THE PLANETS