Sermon: Great God your love has called us here

From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

Talk No 4: Great God, your love has called us here CP 133

Jenny Wilkens

The second hymn I have chosen today is a hymn of the twentieth century, 'Great God, your love has called us here', written by Brian Wren, born in 1936, a British hymn-writer now resident in the United States. He is an ordained minister of Britain's United Reformed Church. Brian Wren is an internationally published hymn writer whose work appears in hymnals from many denominations and traditions. Our hymnbook contains four of his hymns, including a Communion hymn we sing from time to time: 'I come with joy, a child of God' (CP 305).

Brian Wren sees himself as called to be a poet for the church. He sees this as a double calling - firstly to write poems of faith which people will pick up and sing and say, 'Yes, this is exactly the way I think,' or 'Yes, this is what I believe, although I've never put it this way.'

The other vocation of the poet is to try to speak truth by stepping beyond the church's limits of comfort and convention. Wren has done this particularly by exploring the images of God used in worship. He has written a number of books about this.

He begins from the premise that we have many hymns with images of God as Almighty, King, Father, Protector. He then goes on to explore other images of God found in the Scriptures - God as midwife, bird, lover, sister. He describes Jesus as the "Welcome Door," the "Welcome Guest," the "Wind of Change," the "Worker Friend," the "Light of Love," the "Travel Guide," the "Rock of Care."

Some of these images may appeal to you, others you may find a bit startling, he is pushing beyond our comfort zone, both in our thinking about God, and our exploring of the canvas of images of God and Christ found in the Scriptures.

The hymn we have here starts with a conventional description, 'Great God', but firmly earths God's greatness in his love for humanity - 'your love has called us here, as we by love for love were made.' Our good creation in God's image is affirmed - 'your living likeness still we bear' - while not denying the reality of life in this world, that our likeness to God has been 'marred, dishonoured, disobeyed'. Yet we reach out for God in spite of all this - 'we come with all our heart and mind, your call to hear, your love to find.'

The second verse unpacks for us further the state we humans have got ourselves into, firstly at an individual level - 'we come with self-inflicted pains of broken trust and chosen wrong, half-free, half-bound by inner chains'.

But then Wren adds into this how we are implicated like it or not in the bigger picture of the world's sin ¬'by social forces swept along, by powers and systems close confined'. This is realistic, but all a bit depressing, so again he affirms our good intentions: 'yet seeking hope for humankind'.

So often we only look at the cross as an individual conscious of my sin, but this verse reminds me that there is something bigger going on here at the cross than just Jesus dying for my sin. As Paul said to the Colossians, "When you were dead in trespasses ... God made you alive together with Christ, when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it." (Colossians 2:13-15)

How does Jesus disarm the rulers and authorities, the powers and systems who wield their violence and injustice and oppression against him? By absorbing all that they throw at him on the cross, by meeting it with the power of love, a love which is not conquered by death. 'For 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 in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39)

Verses 3 and 4 of our hymn illustrate, I think, just how the love of God is revealed in Jesus, as one who eschews the power of violence and retaliation, and sets forth another way forward, a way of self-giving and service.

This hymn was written for Maundy Thursday and Wren pulls heavily on the imagery of John chapters 13 to 15, some of which we heard last evening.

I love the final lines of verse 3 which show us reaching out to God and finding God meets us more than half-way: 'we strain to glimpse your mercy-seat, and find you kneeling at our feet'. It reminds me of the father in the Prodigal Son story, lifting up his skirts and running out to meet the prodigal son as he plods his way wearily up the road home.

Here is Jesus kneeling at our feet, taking the towel, washing our dusty feet, and then feeding us in that great meal of fellowship, welcome and acceptance - 'break the bread, and humble us and call us friends.'

The second half of verse 4 and 5 then expands the picture for us. Just as in verse 2 we saw the consequence of sin affecting the whole world and its systems, so now we see how the ministry of Jesus, and our own ministry following in his footsteps, can bring new life and new hope to God's creation: "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."

This is a huge vision and we are called to be part of it. 'Great God, in Christ you set us free, your life to live, your joy to share'. This is what is done for us at the cross, and through the hope of the resurrection. So then we have a job to do: '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.' The God of love calls us to be part of building God's new creation in Christ.