Message from the Pastoral Care and Eldership Team (PaCET) for Sunday Meeting 5th April 2026

Dear Friends,

You’ve probably come across the George Fox song.

The words were written by Sydney Carter:  not a Quaker, but certainly Quaker-adjacent (he served in the Friends Ambulance Unit in WW2).  His best known work is “Lord of the Dance”.

On this Friday – when the Catholic and Protestant churches remember the crucifixion of Jesus – it’s worth remembering another of Sydney Carter’s songs.  It’s written from the perspective of one of the two thieves crucified alongside Jesus.  Some people find it very reverent,  others find it blasphemous.  It’s too long to quote in full, but here is the opening verse and chorus.

 It was on a Friday morning
That they took me from the cell,
And I saw they had a carpenter
To crucify as well.
You can blame it on to Pilate,
You can blame it on the Jews,
You can blame it on the Devil,
It’s God I accuse.

It’s God they ought to crucify
Instead of you and me,
I said to the carpenter
A-hanging on the tree.

Here is how it ends

To hell with Jehovah,
To the carpenter I said,
I wish that a carpenter
Had made the world instead.
Goodbye and good luck to you,
Our ways will soon divide.
Remember me in heaven,
The man you hung beside.

It’s God they ought to crucify
Instead of you and me,
I said to the carpenter
A-hanging on the tree.

Timothy Pitt-Payne

Quakers value diversity. We share this Friend’s message in the hope it will speak to others.

Pastoral Care and Eldership Team: Patricia Cockrell, David Hitchin, Sharon Krummel, Tim Pitt-Payne, Theresa Samms, Emily Slater.