‘pilgrimage’ [08.04.01]

a service on themes of travelling and pilgrimage - to special places and in our everyday lives.

originally created for palm sunday and intended to give a flip-side to the triumphantalism sometimes associated with services on that day. we rather wanted to look at christs’ pilgrimage to jerusalem, the meaning of that event for the people present, ourslves and for christ. then to re-evaluate our beleifs in light of that.

the worship area had a path marked up the centre with gaffer tape. this led from the front of the worship area (in front of the video screen) to the back and end in a tray filled with sand containing footprints. placed along the path were passages from the gospels concerned with journyeing and pilgrimage. a lighted candle marked each passage.

The Service:

pre-worship chill
video of journeys, chilled out music

pilgrimage film
a film made to accompany john tavener’s piece ‘pilgrimage’

spoken meditation
extempore meditation encouraging thoughts on journeying - to this place to worship this evening, spiritual journeying, journeying to be with god

video (till end of service): a loop of traffic

welcome and introduction to the service

discussion on what pilgrimage means to us, our thoughts/experiences of pilgrimage. these were written down and then placed along the tape path with the bible passages, a lighted candle marking each.

story telling: based on the traditional palm sunday text. follwed by reading from ‘the message’

That day, things just seemed to explode. Sure – most of the crowd had turned up to gawp at the man who had raised Lazarus from the dead, probably hoping to see some act of magic for themselves. But Jesus was a wanted man by this point and we’d been staying away from anywhere dangerous. And yet, Jesus now decides we should go to Jerusalem, join the thousands of other pilgrims for the Passover festival.

And now here we were outside Jerusalem, parading down the hill towards the city, people shouting, singing, laying coats down on the road – it was amazing. Everyone was singing pilgrim songs, but not to God – singing them at Jesus. We were a band of political and spiritual rebels ready to reclaim Jerusalem. It was fantastic and scary all at the same time.

And for once, Jesus didn’t try and dodge the issue, didn’t object to the shouts or try and silence the crowd’s songs. He just sat there and lapped it all up.

The greatest moment for me was when the Pharisees demanded that Jesus should shut us up. I think they’d come to suss out this miracle worker for themselves, but the shouts of ‘Messiah!’ were too much for them.

There was a hush as Jesus turned and looked at them.

“Shut them up?” he replied,

then got off the donkey and picked up a fistful of stones – suddenly there was tension.

Then he laughed:

“If I told them to shut up – then these stones would break into song!”

We cheered as the Pharisees were swamped in a river of arms thrown up in celebration. I heard one turn to the other saying

“That’s it – we’ve lost. The whole world will follow him.”

I laughed out loud and danced along with the rest.

We were pilgrims dancing into the city.

Pilgrims with no idea that the path that lay ahead wasn’t covered with clothes and palm branches, but with pain and tears.

………..

Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never anything more than a grain of wheat. But if it’s buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. It’s the same with life – if you hold on to life just as it is, you destroy that life. But if you let go, be reckless with your love, you’ll have it forever – real and eternal.

If you want serve me – then follow me. You’ll be where I am, ready at a moments notice. And the Father will honour and reward you.

The world is in crisis. For a brief time still, the light is among you. Walk by the light you have so darkness doesn’t destroy you. If you walk in darkness you won’t have a clue where you’re going. As you have light – believe in light. Then the light will be within you, and shining through your lives. You’ll be children of light.

The choice is yours. You don’t have to take me seriously if you don’t want to. But if you do choose to walk away – you’re wilfully choosing rejection. I’m not making this up – the Father who sent me told me what to say and how to say it. And this path leads to eternal life. That’s all I say – and what the Father told me, I tell you. It’s your call.

hymn: in your hands

expected thoughts - real thoughts
some pre-prepared meditations/poems/rants on the theme of palm sunday
read one example - ‘king of kings’

confession
based on the jewish tradition of ‘the scapegoat’.

historians aren’t entirely sure on either the practice or theology of ‘the scapegoat’, but it seems that at this pre-new testament jewish ritual, the sin of the jewish nation would be transferred onto a goat. this would be led out into the wilderness (where presumably it eventually died) taking all the sin with it.

we took this idea with cobble stones. these were handed round the congregation and then we sat and thought of the things we wanted to confess. as we held the stones they got warmer, taking on something form ourselves - our body heat. then one by one we took our warm stone and placed it on the altar, symbolically leaving our confessions with god.

create pin-up creed
a large selection of words were scattered across the floor and pinned to the projection sheets. as a group we selected words that we would want to have in a creed and gradually constructed our own, then read it together.

hymn: new words to the tune of holy, holy, holy (from the eucharist instrumental CD by proost) that explored the nature of following christ.

meditation
on continuing the rest of our lives as pilgrimage

exit via the path marked with tape, words and candles, the final step being to step into the sand into the footprints.

Share This