Pilgrim's Tales: Lent 5

Like Chaucer's travelers to Canterbury, a company of folks are heading to Jerusalem with Jesus in the 40 day pilgrimage Christians call Lent. Each week during Sunday worship, Crescent Fort Rouge United will meet one of that company in a monologue. This Sunday, we hear from Lazarus, raised from the dead (John 11:1-44; John 12:1-11).

Thank you, God, for the grave digger who made the hole and sealed me up. And thank you that I do not need the grave he made, at least for now. But bless his work anyway.

Thank you for my sisters.

Thank you for my sister Martha with her sharp tongue and blunt ways – 

she was the one who told off Jesus for coming too late, 

and for telling him that after so long in the earth I would stink to high heaven.

Thank you for my sister Mary the dreamer, the soft one. 

She cannot be relied on to get a meal, 

but will always bring a flower to grace the table.

Thank you for the funeral food I now enjoy.

Thank you for olives, for the tree that grew them.

Thank you for lemons, and the farmer who tends them.

Thank you for lamb and barley,

and the smell that fills the house, mingling with my own smell,

the smell of the earth, the smell of the grave.

Thank you for wine for celebration.

Thank you for friends with food in their beards

and rejoicing on their lips.

Thank you for life.

Thank you for life!

I who stumbled through my days,

carrying my life like a heavy burden instead of a treasured gift.

I did not have a life before my death, but now…

Thank you.