Tag: vocation

New Year hymn, a resolution, perhaps – Infectious faith

1	Infectious faith we demonstrate by action,  
	when words are lived and people feel God's grace,  
	when platitudes are kept in quiet abeyance,  
	and love expressed through every human face.  

2	This is the witness we are called to offer: 
	the smile of welcome and the touch of care,  
	when every neighbour frames the Christ we honour,  
	the angel that we're greeting unaware. 

3	My friend, we cannot claim to grace the Godhead 
	when those who stand in tatters at our door 
	are turned away without a moment's notice,  
	while others sleep upon a stone cold floor.  

4	Our faith and love are nothing, simply empty,  
	just words we fling against a cloud filled sky,  
	when those we see derided, disregarded, 
	are left, without our protest, just to die. 

5	Are we to be just noisy, clanging cymbals,  
	or signs of hope upon this cold, dark earth?  
	Ours is the calling now to re-imagine 
	the love of God, to sign each person's worth. 

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948) Words © 2016 © 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: INTERCESSOR

Wrestling with God – Genesis 32: 22-31 – a hymn

Genesis 32: 22-31 Tells the story of an enigmatic stranger wresting with Jacob by a brook called The Jabbok. It is a story of crisis and decision, of Jacob a meeting with God, finding his vocation. Charles Wesley told the story in the hymn ‘Come, O thou traveller unknown’. It runs to 12 verses! You may not have sung it in its entirety.

This hymn is somewhat shorter…

1          Wrestling stranger met with Jacob,
            struggled onward till the morn,
            struggled by the brook of Jabbok,
            heralding a different dawn.
           
2          Jacob met the task with courage,
            and it seemed he would prevail,
            but the stronger, wrestling stranger,
            made him limp, God could not fail.
           
3          What the struggle? Why the wrestling?
            Was it real or human doubt?
            Jacob gained self realization,
            how he’d work his purpose out.
           
4          Nameless God now blessing Jacob,
            Israel went on from that place,
            Holy ground, for this was special,
            here he’d met God face to face.

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: 8 7 8 7. Tune: ALL FOR JESUS

The calling of Jesus bids us to build peace – vocation

The calling of Jesus bids us to build peace,
the time is this moment, to cease to deride
the weak and down-trodden the world might despise,
to bury  our prejudice, pack away pride.

The people are waiting God’s offer of love,
the different, disfigured, untutored or poor.
The grace of the God-head should not be confined,
how could we discard those who wait at our door?

While failing together we follow the Christ,
with ones deemed as worthless, as cruel or unkind,
as carrying our neighbours we cease to condemn,
while finding the heaven to which we’ve been blind.
Andrew Pratt 18/10/2019

Words © 2019 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England, http://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.
Tunes: DATCHET