In the fourth century AD, a woman named Egeria travelled from the Western Roman Empire to Jerusalem to visit the holy sites of the Christian faith. Her diary of that pilgrimage provides us with an astonishing record of worship in Jerusalem, including the elaborate services marking holy days and seasons.

So we know that on Palm Sunday, the people gathered in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher for the usual service, went home for a quick lunch, and then regrouped at the Eleona Church on the Mount of Olives. They sang hymns and antiphons and recited readings and prayers until five o’clock, when they read the text of the entry into Jerusalem. Then the whole assembly of people would follow the bishop down from the summit, waving palm branches and saying, “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” Egeria writes,

“The babies and the ones too young to walk are carried on their parents’ shoulders…They go on foot down the Mount to the city and all through the city to the Anastasis [building over Christ’s tomb], but they have to go pretty gently on account of the older women and men among them who might get tired. So it is already late when they reach the Anastasis; but even though it is late they hold Lucernare [evening prayers] when they get there, then have a prayer at the Cross, and the people are dismissed.”**

When I first read this, I felt an uncomfortable twisting in my gut. I wondered if I would have been so hospitable had I been in charge of this worship experience. Here was this great dramatization, a ritualized retelling of one of the pinnacle stories of Scripture. It’s literally a mountaintop religious experience. Would I have felt the pressure to ensure it was well-orchestrated and moved at a certain pace, closely mirroring the events it recalled? Would I have been impatient, fearing that if things took too long people would lose interest, or the experience would lose its meaning? I’ve certainly felt the compulsion before, when crafting and leading worship services, for things to be “just so,” a desire that expects people to be able to participate in a certain way, just as I imagine it. When I first read Egeria’s diary, I put a big star next to these lines, moved by this priority of hospitality and accessibility.

This last month I’ve gotten to experience worship where hospitality and accessibility is the foundation of life together. I’m covering a friend’s parental leave at our local L’Arche community. L’Arche Hamilton is a community of people with and without disabilities, composed of five homes, two day-programs, and an inclusion café. I’m serving as the Spiritual and Community Life Coordinator, and one of my tasks is to lead Connect and Reflect, a mid-week gathering where we sing, learn, and pray together.

It is without doubt my favourite part of the week. The liturgy of our hour is the same week to week, and it was crafted years ago. We celebrate birthdays and anniversaries. We highlight upcoming events. We sing a couple songs. I offer a brief reflection on a Scripture passage. And then we enter a time of silence. One of our core members (people with disabilities) rings a singing bowl to mark the beginning of this time. It’s a grand production as he hushes the room and twirls the stick before clanging it against the bowl. Someone lights a candle, and we sit in silence for a couple of minutes.

Then we go around the circle, and each person is invited to pray. Not everyone at L’Arche is a Christian, so this takes different forms – sometimes words of gratitude or expressions of hope or concern. But everyone gets to share, and we do so in different ways.

Jason*, our bell-ringer, usually starts, muttering to himself and rubbing his nose for a few minutes before barking out a couple of names and “AMEN.”

Louis speaks slowly and softly from his wheelchair, reciting a litany of names and then looking around the room for inspiration.

Alfred is our resident theologian. Last week he prayed that the church would know the meaning of baptism and understand that unity with Christ calls us to live in love and harmony with one another.

A few core members are non-verbal. They have pages of pictures of their friends and family, and point to those they want to pray for, as an assistant reads the name. Jocelyn always prays for her housemates, signing “at home” as she points to each picture, unless they’re present, and then she beams at them as she points. Roger often flips to the back page that depicts all his favourite things and usually ends up only praying for pancakes. Sometimes twice.

As we go around the circle, no one gets impatient or tells someone to hurry up. Each person gets to participate in their own manner, in their own time. The community knows each person’s rhythms. And for that twenty or so minutes, I find that I can rest. There’s no where else to be. Nothing else to do. My sense of time slows down to match that of those gathered. In this time of prayer and worship, all that matters is that each person has the time and space to pray.

I, certainly, have learned something from these weeks of slow, patient prayer. And I wonder what it would look like for our churches to model worship after communities like L’Arche, or fourth century Jerusalem, going slowly and gently through our prayers and liturgies, so the heart of our worship is providing the time and space for every person to pray.

*All names of L’Arche members have been changed.

**Lester Ruth, Carrie Steenwyk, John D. Witvliet, Walking Where Jesus Walked: Worship in Fourth Century Jerusalem (Eerdmans, 2010), 53.

***Artwork: View of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives (1847), Hubert Sattler (Austrian, 1817-1904)