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Come with Me...


Found myself in the embarrassing position on Saturday of noticing that our esteemed President, Heather Morris, had put this dialogue of mine on her facebook page... It shouldn't have been a surprise given that I had sent it to her a couple of weeks ago for her to use in whatever way she saw fit under the banner of her theme for the year "A People Invited to Follow..." But when I later shared the post I linked it to another dialogue which simply takes some of the invitations of Jesus from different gospels and stitches them together. I'm not very original in my writing...
And actually I had forgotten that it is for that very reason that I HADN'T published what follows on my blog, or indeed on Seed Resources where I send most of my stuff... It is actually based on a much longer piece by John L. Bell & Graham Maule of the Iona Community/Wild Goose Worship Group, the very first of their "Eh Jesus... Yes, Peter?" dialogues. My problem was that I didn't want to post this without a link to a place where one could purchase the original... But I still haven't found such a place - I suspect it is now out of print in all its forms, so the  only recourse is to go to the usual second hand sites where the authors receive nothing for their pains... If anyone knows better, please let me know.
Anyway, I had previously used this dialogue in an event in Dublin for the Home Mission's Department 9 years ago, but when I went back to it earlier this year looking for something that I could use in worship under president's theme, I wanted to develop something slightly shorter and punchier... That could be applied to everyone's life and not just the historic Simon Peter... this is the result:

JESUS:   Come with me.
VOICE:  Where are you going?
JESUS:   I'm not telling you.
VOICE:  Do you not know?
JESUS:   Oh yes, I've a fair idea.
VOICE:  Then... why won't you tell me?
JESUS:   You might not like it.
(A PAUSE)
JESUS:   Come with me.
VOICE:  Will there only be the two of us?
JESUS:   Oh no, there'll be plenty of others
VOICE:  Who are they?
JESUS:   I'm not telling you.
VOICE:  Why not?
JESUS   You might not like them.
(A PAUSE)
JESUS:   Come with me.
VOICE:  What will I need to bring with me?
JESUS:   You'll not need anything. Just bring yourself.
VOICE:  So you are inviting me to joint follow you with a bunch of people I don’t know and might not like to a place I might not like… I’m not sure I like that idea.
JESUS:   I'm going... Are you coming with me?

Selah
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