Listening to the stones

Good Friday Night

When the alleluias fall silent
and the story comes to a stop
and the words fade out mid sentence
and even the stones keep quiet

and those who still find there is something to say
shout for the wrong side

then you know
the Lord of Life
has concluded the parable
with one final sentence
'It is finished'

and the tragedy bows its final bow in the world
and is entombed

all that remains
is the fear
that we may never find our voices again
and we will forget
how to speak of love
now the word
has been silenced
and the story
run out of endings

Leave the tomb alone

the hallelujahs are broken
they have been shattered on the cross
and buried in the tomb

the good news
has been folded away
and death
has filled the void

and when the void is filled
there is no space for hope
when the tomb is filled with broken body
there is no space for life

the tomb
needs to be empty
in order to make space for hope

and by lingering among the dead
filling the tomb with unsuccessful longing
and what might have beens
we mark a space where death has become the victor
a place that marks the success of death

but let us not linger here
let us tarry here no longer
among the gravestones
and the dead

we fill it with sorrow
and it needs to make room for hope
and our tarrying here
does not allow for that

let us go
and leave the tombs to the dead
and give God room
to make room
for life

Vigil

For those interested in coming to the Vigil through Saturday Night (you don't have to stay up all night, just a few hours), here's the programme along with some of the music to be played. Please do come along and experience the long wait for resurrection. It really does make you see things differently (usually from the back of your eye lids). Designed mainly for age 10 - age 18 but anyone can come along, or if you recognise some of the music here, then its you who has ben in my mind as it has been designed. Otherwise, come along and find yourself in a different space.

 

7pm        Palm Sunday - Hometown, Believe me, Mission Impossible,

7.10        Quiz Time

8pm        The Temple - True Colours, Death Wish

8.10        The Easter Cloot

9pm        The Anointing - Real Girl, Halcyon, There she goes, Holy Ground

9.10        Food

10pm        The Coins - Rainbow

10.10        Hide and Seek

11pm        Trial - Anything could happen

11.10        Easter Flags

12 midnight    Last Supper - Communion - Light up the world (lights), My Blood, Sancte, 23rd Psalm

12.30        Looking for the lost hour

2am        The Denial - Chasing Cars, Without you

2.10        Dream Time (stuff to do with the church)

3am        The Crucifixion - No bravery, Death Wish, The Reason

3.10        Hide and Seek

4am        The Tomb - One of Us, Hallelujah, I will survive

4.10        Games

5am        The Silence - Answer, Bring on the Wonder, Spirit in the sky, Love come piano, Sancte

5.10        The Walkway

6.30am

Easter Story

Here's a wee retelling of the Easter story we'll use on Sunday. One voice and one word at a time. Lots of pause. Speak each word deliberately.

Dawn.
Quiet.
Still.
Footsteps.
Running.
Disciples.
Gasp!
Empty!
Where?
Panic.
Whispers.
Shouts.
Scramble
Depart.
Fading.
Quiet.
Still.
Silence.
Breathing.
Woman.
Looking.
Gardener.
Asks.
Where?
Pause.
Waiting...
‘Mary!’
Stare.
Confound.
Hesitation.
Tears.
‘Jesus!’

Boredom and Faith

I caught sight of an article today that suggested that we should let children be bored in order that their have to begin to rely on their imagination. By constantly keeping them busy then their imaginations don't get the same chance to develop. It comes after interviews with Grayson Perry and Meera Syal who both said boredom in their childhood made them try activities they wouldn't normally have done.

Should we now expect an influx of children in the church!!

Church isn't boring but we really ought to think about how we let people be creative and try worship activities that haven't been tried before.

Discuss.

 

Chocolate Teapots (31st March 2013)

John 20:1-18

Read this first on Easter Day. Then hold silence. Go do something with it like put flowers on gravestones, or write out the word Alleluia in the biggest letters ever and run it up a flag pole, or leave a footprint in the mud and wonder if Jesus did too.

Hold silence and then chose to believe into the empty tomb. In other words, take all that is empty in life, and choose to trust what Jesus said about life to be true, and what he said about justice to be true, and what he said about healing to be true. Where there is emptiness, like the stone-rolled tomb, decide for life, err on the side of possibility and choose to live life anew, trusting Jesus words.

You don't need a body for this to be true. you don't need a body for resurrection to be true, unless you want resurrection to be a magic trick with a body. Surely its it far more profound and real than that. Bodies just die again, but faith doesn't and love doesn't. When everything seems empty, be like the first disciples, and choose to believe in the possibility still, in Jesus.

How would you retell the story...?

Palm Sunday

Always interested in feedback from services especially ones like today which try to be both adult and child-friendly at the same time. You have the story of Holy Week playing out (it's not exactly a children's story) with all-ages present for some of the time. So trying to find the balance between story telling and reflection on our entire theological framework can be 'interesting'.

It is interesting that the foundation of all we believe is focused mainly on this one Sunday (given not many come to the holy week services) and the celebration of next week. At the same time we've made Palm Sunday a children's service often when in truth that is the last thing we ought to make it. Too much goes on in this week and you have to roll it all out in one service.

So it is always good to know how we might get the balance right between story telling and theological reflection on this hugely important week.

The image is the cloth we've been weaving together trough Lent which, each strand a different story over the last 5 weeks, which have been becoming a cross. The Sunday School made purple crosses during the service and came in with them today and made a circle round the lenten cross.

Wait till next week...

May this cross...

A prayer we'll use on Sunday. It comes after a whole lot of paper crosses have been paraded in and stuck to a table cloth that has had strips of cloth added to it throughout Lent shaping a cross.

Loving God
each cross is a prayer
a prayer for you
as you turn towards the cross

each cross is a hope
a hope for the world
as easter comes close

each cross is a person
a person in this world
hurt as you were by others

each cross marks a place
a place where love is given
for the sake of others

each cross is a mark
a mark of where God is
with those who need God

each cross is a signature
a signature of God
that says ‘I love you all’

May each cross
we place in this world
be a place of new life for all

So be it
Amen

Session Meeting

Not the most exciting title, but we had a fabulous one tonight - session meeting that is - and you don't often hear the word fabulous in the same se ntence as session but they came together beautifully tonight.

Susan Bradbury was with us who is a stained glass artist and she's fantastic. She talked through the combination of art and faith, glass and belief and it was great to see the many levels of what goes on in her glass, the colours, imagery, shapes, textures and light.

It's what you do to the light to make the images speak and say more than just a flat surface that fascinated me, of drawing your eye to concentrations of light in prisms and specially made glass and use that to tell the story of the window.

Lovely.

Budget

I don't understand much of what the chancellor did today. I just hope he does.

The whole thing seems so fickle and is a balance between what sounds right (spun in such a way as that's all that seems right about it) and growing a right relationship with the people in communities and neighbourhoods throughout the country. It's never going to be easy and I am surprised he hasn't got greyer hair. And perhaps there is no solution to it at all. There is just the mucking through and the acceptance of circumstances outwith your control.

My comment is the line he has spun 'I'm going to level with people'. I know it's not and I am naive suggesting this but should that not be the first priciple of any politician to be honest? What have you been doing up to now if you haven't been level with us? I think we already know its always been a whole lot worse than you've been telling us. We're not daft. Why do politicians think we are daft and that we believe their propaganda. We're not and we don't.

But the church is in the very same situation and never ought to be found pulling the wool over people's eyes and be quite level with everyone about the faith and it isn't qute as straightforward and clear cut and certain as we'd have people believe. There is nothing black and white in faith. It is all grey.