A journey through Lent: Palms and Passion – the Fife Pilgrim Way

MUSIC: GHOSTS performed by Lau.

Kris Drever, Aidan O’Rourke, Martin Green.

Record label: Reveal Records

SALLY FOSTER-FULTON
Welcome to Sunday Worship as we trace the footsteps of thousands of pilgrims here in Fife. I'm Sally Foster Fulton, a former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

This was one of the most important pilgrim routes in mediaeval Europe, leading towards veneration of the relics of St. Andrew in the now ruined St. Andrew's Abbey on Scotland's east coast. Our exploration of parts of the route starts here in the beautiful village of Culross, on the northern shore of the River Forth.

On Palm Sunday, those journeying through Lent step into Holy Week. Lent is a sacred pilgrimage, personal reflection, and public proclamation of our intent to stay with Jesus.

When the sky darkens like an angry mood, after the palm branches dry up and blow away, as the worshipful shouts of Hosanna turn towards wayward whispers, we will walk with him to the end. The question Palm Sunday always asks - can you stay with him?

I am joined on my walks along some of the Fife Pilgrim way by historian and theologian Gilbert Markus.

GILBERT Márkus

Conversation about Culross’s Cistercian Abbey, pilgrimage in the village’s past, a Hungarian phrase meaning ‘God sent you’, the meaning of ‘peregrinus’, Christ in the stranger.

The promontory on the Forth and St Serf’s crozier or ‘bachall’.

MUSIC: LAUDA JERUSALEM DOMINUM, Performed by The Sixteen directed by Harry Christophers.
Track 7

Composer: Orlande de Lassus

Album: Masters of Imitation, Record label; CORO, COR16203

SALLY

A pilgrimage calls you to journey with intent, connecting the movement and the moment with deeper questions, deeper meaning you cross a bridge and consider, aren't there bridges you've burned that need to be rebuilt? Are there vast expanses keeping you from someone or something precious? Is there troubled water or dangerous territory underneath that needs reckoned with? You reach a crossroads and conjure with choices made, paths chosen. What will your next step be? Where might it take you? Who will it impact, for better or worse? You notice the aches associated with a steep climb, a long stretch. A scramble over scree or stones big enough to cause you to consider every next step.

And you remember those times in your life when you looked back and thought, whew, made it. You reach a vista, a thin place that opens your vision wide and you see clearly where you've been and the winding wild paths you've weathered. You're given a glorious glimpse of what lies ahead.

Roads your feet may never travel, but are waiting for others who will come after your journey has ended. You slow down and wonder who walked this way before. Wondering - what an underestimated verb. We wonder. So pilgrimage is more than a wandering, it is a wondering.

GILBERT

Christ, you keep asking us to be still to listen for your voice, to think before we act or speak, to keep our feet firmly on the ground so they have a chance of staying out of our mouths.

SALLY

But we go racing ahead, blithely ignoring your call for caution or calm. Far too often, instead of abiding in you, we go it alone and end up with a lot of backtracking to do.

During this most holy time, help us to stay near you.

Earlier I spoke with Mairéad Nic Craith. What are we doing when we walk as a pilgrim? Is it wandering or is it that wondering?

SALLY’S CONVERSATION WITH Mairéad Nic CraitH

Movement across the land; time out and time in; the Lough Derg pilgrimage.

MUSIC: YOUR GENTLENESS, O GOD OF GRACE Performed by The Rodolfus Choir directed by Ralph Allwood.

Composer: Paul Mealor

Album: The Flowers Have Their Angels

Record Label: Signum Records

SALLY

Let's hear the reading from Matthew's Gospel. Where the Palm Sunday story of Jesus' journey is told.

GILBERT

When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples saying to them, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you'll find a donkey tied and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. And if anyone says anything to you, just say this. The Lord needs them. And he will send them immediately.’ This took place to fulfil what had been spoken through the prophet, ‘Tell the daughter of Zion, look, your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’

The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, ‘Hosanna to the son of David.

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest heaven.’

When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil asking, ‘Who is this?’ The crowds were saying, ‘This is the prophet, Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee’.

SALLY

What will it be? Choose.
In this vast whirling world we wake up in for a few brief decades, what do our minute decisions matter? Aren't they simply swallowed up in the strong tide of time? We are so very temporary. So is there a temptation to be seduced by what pleases the moment over what nurtures the spark of eternity nestled deep inside our souls?
Isn't it right to focus on what is right in front of us, there for the taking, instead of stretching for the intangible connection of humans to humans becoming?
What'll it be? That's a question echoing through the streets of this story. It was Passover, the most sacred week of the Jewish year, and pilgrims flooded into the city.

They celebrated Exodus, the liberation of the Jewish people from foreign domination. But they were still under foreign domination. Only now it was Rome. Jerusalem was a tinder box, simmering with unrest. To suppress any dissent, every year, just before the Passover, Pilate came with 600 soldiers to reinforce the temple garrison.

Imagine the procession entering the city, the spectacle of empire; soldiers, horses, armour, weapons, banners, flags, golden eagles mounted on poles.
And the sounds, marching feet, creaking leather, clinking bridles, beating drums, raw power pounding down the street.
And on the other side of town, Jesus organises a different kind of procession. It was carefully planned. Then he rides into Jerusalem on this donkey with his followers cheering him all the way. It was a parody. A deliberate send-up of Pilate's procession.

No one who had watched Pilate enter the city would've missed the point. Years before the prophet Zacharia had spoken about two different kings entering Jerusalem, the warrior king, riding on his warhorse, and the king of peace who would enter on a donkey. People remembered Zacharia and they knew exactly what Jesus was doing, and they knew what it meant.

Pilate proclaimed the power of empire, the oppression of occupation. Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God, the coming of peace and justice. One was a massive display of force. The other was a vulnerable but determined collection of peasants. One arrived from the west, the other from the east. They were coming from opposite directions, heading for a collision.

John le Carré, the novelist, was once asked how to create an exciting story. He said, you take one character, you take another character, and you put them into collision, and the collision arrives because of how different they are. That's how you get the essence of drama. The cat sat on the mat is not a story. The cat sat on the dog's mat - well, that's a different matter altogether.

MUSIC: TRAVEL THESE WAYS Performed by Karine Polwart, Dave Milligan (Piano), Harmony vocals; Stephen Deazley

Composer: Karine Polwart

Album: Still As Your Sleeping

Record Label: Hudson Records

CONVERSATIONS AT DUNFERMLINE ABBEY

St Margaret’s Shrine

MUSIC: GILBERT SINGS ‘SALVE REGINA’ in the Abbey.

SALLY’S CONVERSATION WITH Mairéad

Facing up to death; Palm Sunday – Holy Week – Easter; Humility

MUSIC: ‘SALVE REGINA’

Mairéad - PRAYER

Christ, you rode on through riotous cheers and menacing, uneasy whispers. You rode on toward a place no-one could imagine, and you asked those who loved you to follow.
And Christ, that is frightening because all these centuries later you ask the same thing. Stay with me. Follow me,

SALLY

But all too often we have a sit-down strike in the middle of your moving day. Instead of staying with you, we choose to stick to what's safe and familiar.

During this most holy week, help us to change direction. Help us to take up our lives and follow you.

MUSIC: LAU, AS BEFORE

CONVERSATIONS AT LOCH LEVEN

St Serf’s island; Portmoak; Scottish spittals.

Mairéad reads poem

’The Road Not Taken’, by Robert Frost.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveller, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less travelled by,

And that has made all the difference.

SALLY

So what'll it be? Choose.
The wielding of power that hurts people and our planet. The impulse to consume that robs the powerless. Today's embodiments of Pilate daring anyone to object. Or - a collection of vulnerable, but determined followers of justice and peace. Whose hope will we throw our weight behind? Whose path will we follow? Which road do we take?
Robert Frost calls this poem tricky and warns readers not to fall into his trap. He wrote The Road Not Taken for one of his regular walking companions. A friend who always struggled to decide which path to take. Whenever they approached a crossroads or a fork in their road, he would haver and hesitate agonise over the decision until they arbitrarily ambled on. For the rest of the walk, he was wistful and worried. Where would the other road have taken them? He was so preoccupied with what they might be missing, that he missed the gift that unfolded at his feet. Frost found this behaviour of amusing and so very human. Invariably there will be variables, there will always be paths not taken, people not met, adventures not had joys, that slip by like quicksilver. All bittersweet, but perhaps part of the beauty.

It made me think that maybe how we choose to travel the road - what we carry with us, what informs our steps, is as important as which road we take. This Palm Sunday. As we step into Holy Week, we see that our life is a sacred pilgrimage, with paths that offer us holy places for personal reflection and public proclamation of our intent to stay with Jesus.

And the sky darkens like an angry, silky mood. After the palm branches dry up and blow away, as the worshipful shouts of Hosanna turned towards wayward whispers, we will carry his forgiving peace, his love, his incessant support for the most vulnerable, with us wherever we journey. We will choose his way in how we spend our money, our energy, our time, our love.
The question, Palm Sunday always asks, can you, will you stay with him? So what'll it be?

GILBERT

Christ, you keep asking us to go the extra mile to walk with others, share our provisions, veer off and visit the prisoner, or feed the hungry, or carry your cross.

But all too often we give up halfway, we run away or amble slowly, or do an impressive sidestep.

During this most holy time, help us to keep trudging on, dancing or limping.

SALLY

Christ as you ride on through the riotous cheers and the menacing, uneasy whispers. As you ride on toward a place we struggle to imagine, help us to stay.
Help us to follow, for we are the body that has come after you. We are the answer to your prayers. Idle watchers would call that foolish. Hesitant wavers would call that frightening.

ALL 3

We, with audacious hope, call that a blessing. Amen.

MUSIC: HE WHO WOULD VALIANT BE Performed by The Choir Of Jesus College, Cambridge, directed by Richard Pinel.

Composers: Words: John Bunyan adapted by Percy Dearmer / Music: Ralph Vaughan Williams

Album: Praise My Soul: Favourite Hymns from Jesus College, Cambridge.

Record Label: Signum Records

SALLY

A blessing as we step into Holy Week.
Blessings as you walk, as you work, when you're weary, when you wonder.

Blessings, when you stop; to wait for a friend, to pray for your enemy, to respond rather than react, to listen to the spirit song all around you.
Blessings when you stay with those who are frightened, forgotten, forever pushed to the margins.
You'll find Jesus waiting for you there.