Brian Wren: Poetry of the Passion

Brian Wren’s hymns are amongst the freshest, at times the most provocative, of contemporary offerings. His book What language Shall I Borrow, sets the benchmark for deconstructing the masculine, power-based language of many traditional hymns. Wren would not subscribe to any theory of the feminisation of the church, simply because the church in its classic traditions continues to marginalise women. The church has achieved this, Wren argues, by cultural default and deliberate intent, by using language of power shaped by male oriented images, and many of these borrowed uncritically from earlier patriarchal societies – though Wren has no illusions about the patriarchal nature of much contemporary church life and assumptions. As a result, historically the church has largely been theologically resistant to a biblically informed revision of imagery and metaphor, which would provide a more balanced approach to human gender as a theological implicate of the imago dei. Wren’s academic study was on the poetry of the Hebrew prophets – he knows about poetry, images and their theological payload.

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The hymn below is one of my favourite expressions of worship that takes Jesus seriously as the One who reveals God, and that takes just as seriously human failing, guilt and aspiration to recover the sense of being reconciled through love to the living, loving God. The penultimate verse is made for Maundy Thursday, but the whole hymn is replete with Easter themes. Sung to the tune of the Sussex Carol it combines resurrection confidence with the costly work of Good Friday.

“Love is making all things new”

Great God, your love has called us here

as we, by love, for love were made.

Your living likeness still we bear,

though marred, dishonored, disobeyed.

We come, with all our heart and mind,

your call to hear, your love to find.

...

We come with self-inflicted pains

of broken trust and chosen wrong;

half-free, half-bound by inner chains;

by social forces swept along,

by powers and systems close confined;

yet seeking hope for humankind.

...

Great God, in Christ you call our name

and then receive us as your own

not through some merit, right, or claim,

but by your gracious love alone.

We strain to glimpse your mercy seat

and find you kneeling at our feet.

...

Then take the towel, and break the bread,

and humble us, and call us friends.

Suffer and serve till all are fed,

and show how grandly love intends

to work till all creation sings,

to fill all worlds, to crown all things.

...

Great God, in Christ you set us free,

your life to live, your joy to share.

Give us your Spirit's liberty

to turn from guilt and dull despair

and offer all that faith can do

while love is making all things new.