Sunday, 4 January 2015

I am no Longer My Own

From my old church, with love to our Methodist friends this first Sunday of the calendar year.


(Modern Version)
I am no longer my own, but yours.
Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will;
put me to doing, put me to suffering;
let me be employed for you, or laid aside for you,
exalted for you, or brought low for you;
let me be full,
let me be empty,
let me have all things,
let me have nothing:
I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things
to your pleasure and disposal.
And now, glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
you are mine and I am yours. So be it.
And the covenant now made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven.
Amen.

6 comments :

  1. We went back to Wesley Mem for our son's wedding two years ago for the first time since we were undergraduates in the seventies. It was a shock to discover that the covenant prayer had been moved from the right-hand to the left-hand side of the church, but also quite a surprise that it was still there when so much else wasn't.

    We'd defected to Cowley Road in our second year, in protest at the amount that the church was planning to spend on ripping out the pews and replacing them with chairs. Over the last couple of decades, we've watched most of the churches in our current circuit go through the same process - I hope at much less expense. As local preachers, we don't mind what people sit on, but please would churches remember that preaching is much, much easier from a pulpit than from a tiny, unstable lectern with nowhere to put anything and nothing to hide your feet!

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    Replies
    1. The pulpit is still there; though it is on castors, and I last saw it used by a Pharaoh. Do you perceive any liturgical significance to the translation of the Covenant Prayer to the left?

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    2. I find a good lectern beats a bad pulpit for practicalities....

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  2. A wonderful prayer, if only we could live up to it.

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  3. Oh! Memories!! This prayer was part of the ceremony that was used when I (and others) were 'elevated' to 'Red Badge' status (fully fledged members of Community) at the Lee Abbey International Students' Club in London in the late 1970s (I don't know whether they still use it, but I hope so!) It was the first time I'd come across it, and it has meant a great deal to me ever since, and I've used it on occasions in Anglican and Ecumenical services. What a great idea to have it hanging on the wall as a reminder, as well. And I totally agree with my dear friend Perpetua's comment - maybe we all need that reminder as well. Our 'Methody' brethren & sisters have the right idea (& I'm married to one!)

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  4. Oh! thanks for this, from an old Methodist gal.

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