All Hallows Evening Prayer for Saturday Evening (March 13, 2021)
The Service of Light
Jesus Christ is the light of the world.
A light no darkness can extinguish.
Open this link in a new tab to hear David von Kampen’s choral arrangement of “Joyous Light of Glory.”
Joyous light of glory of the immortal Father:
Heavenly, holy, blessed Jesus Christ,
We have come to the setting of the Sun
And we look to the evening light.
We sing to God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
You are worthy of being praised
with pure voices forever.
O Son of God, O Giver of life,
The universe proclaims your glory,
your glory, your glory.
Thanksgiving
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give our thanks and praise.
Blessed are you, O Lord our God,
the Shepherd of Israel,
their pillar of cloud by day,
their pillar of fire by night.
In these forty days you lead us
into the desert of repentance
that in this pilgrimage of prayer
we may learn to be your people once more.
In fasting and service you bring us back to your heart.
Open our eyes to your presence in the world
and free our hands to lead others
to the radiant splendour of your mercy.
Be with us in these journey days
for without you we are lost and will perish.
To you alone be dominion and glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
Psalm 141 is sung and incense may be burned.
Open this link in a new tab to hear Randall De Bruyn’s arrangement of Psalm 141 from The Grail (England).
Like burning incense, O Lord, let my prayer rise up to you.
Like burning incense, O Lord, let my prayer rise up to you.
I have called to you, Lord, hasten to help me.
Hear my voice when I cry to you.
Let my prayer arise before you like incense.
the raising of my hands like the evening oblation.
Set, O Lord, a guard over my mouth,
keep watch, O Lord, at the door of my lips!
Do not turn my heart to things that are wrong,
to evil deeds with those who are sinners.
Never allow me to share in their feasting.
If the righteous strike or reprove me, it is a kindness;
but let the oil of the wicked n’er anoint my head.
Let my prayer be ever against their malice.
To you, Lord God, my eyes are turned;
in you I take refuge; spare my soul!
From the trap they have laid for me keep me safe;
Keep me from the snares of those who do evil.
Glory to the Father and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, is now,
and will be for ever. Amen.
Like burning incense, O Lord, let my prayer rise up to you.
Silence is kept.
Let the incense of our repentant prayer ascend before you, O Lord, and let your
loving kindness descend upon us, that with purified minds we may sing your
praises with the Church on earth and the whole heavenly host, and may glorify
you forever and ever. Amen.
The Psalms
Open this link in a new tab to hear Donald Fishel’s choral arrangement of Psalm 91, “Be With Me, Lord.”
Refrain:
Be with me, Lord,
when I am in trouble.
Be with me, Lord.
Be with me, Lord,
when I am in trouble.
Be with me, Lord.
1 You who dwell in the shelter, in the shelter of the Most High,
who abide in his shadow of the Almighty,
say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress,
my God in whom I trust.”
Refrain
2 No evil shall befall you, no evil shall befall you,
nor affliction come near, come near your tent,
for to his angels he has given command about you,
that they guard you in all your ways.
Refrain
3 Upon their hands, upon their hands,
they shall bear you up, bear you up,
lest you dash your foot against a stone.
You shall tread upon the asp and the viper;
You shall trample down the lion and the dragon.
Refrain
4 Because he clings to me, I will deliver him;
I will set him on high
because he acknowledges my name.
He shall call upon me,
and I will answer him;
I will be with him in distress;
I will deliver him and glorify him.
Refrain
Silence is kept.
Keep us, good Lord,
under the shadow of your mercy
and, as you have bound us to yourself in love,
leave us not who call upon your name,
but grant us your salvation,
made known in the cross of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
The Proclamation of the Word
The Reading
Luke 14: 34-35 About Salt
“Salt is good; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; they throw it away. Let anyone with ears to hear listen!Silence is kept.
Homily
Salt?
In the Gospel of Luke we find today’s reading, a short passage of two verses, tucked between Jesus’ teaching about the cost of discipleship and his telling of the Parable of the Lost Sheep. Similar passages are found in Matthew and Mark’s Gospels but in different contexts. In Matthew the passage appears in Jesus’ sermon on the mountain right after the Beatitudes. In Mark it follows Jesus’ teaching about the temptation to sin. The different contexts suggest that Jesus made reference to salt in his teaching on more than once occasion.
When we think of salt, we think of cooking salt or table salt or the salt that is sprinkled on sidewalks and roads to speed the melting of ice or those tiny packets of salt which are supplied by fast food restaurants to their customers to sprinkle on chips, or French fries. If you are as old as I am, you may also remember when potato crisps, or potato chips, came with their own little packet of salt.
Those who were present when Jesus was teaching would have had a different view of salt from ours. In Jesus’s day as in ours, salt was used to season food, to bring out its flavor. Bread, which was a mainstay in the diet of the time, was sometimes sprinkled with a little salt and then dipped in olive oil before it was eaten. Salt was added to a pot of cooking lentils along with herbs It was sprinkled on roasting meat.
Today’s reading describes two other uses for salt in Jesus’ time—a treatment for the soil and for the manure pile. A search of the Old Testament and the Apocrypha, or the Deuterocanonical Books, for references to salt give us a better picture of how salt was used in Old Testament and later times.
Catholics and Orthodox consider the Apocrypha, or Deuterocanonical Books, to be books of the Bible; most Protestants, on the other hand, do not. Anglicans and Lutherans, however, read these books “for the examples that they provide of heroic lives and faithful conduct.” They do not use the books to establish doctrine. The Apocrypha was written during the period between the Old Testament and the New Testament and was familiar to the early Christians, as well as the Jews of Jesus’ time.
In the Book of Exodus we learn that “salt, pure and holy,” was one of the ingredients of the incense used in the tabernacle, the tent of meeting, to honor God.
In Numbers we learn that the offerings that Aaron and his sons make to God on behalf of the people of Israel are a covenant of salt between God and Aaron and his descendants. In Leviticus we learn that salt must be offered with all offerings. It is the salt of the covenant with God.
In the Book of Deuteronomy we learn that soil burned out by sulfur and salt cannot sustain vegetation. In it nothing can be planted. In it nothing will sprout.
In Judges we learn that Abimelech conquered the city of Shechem, slaughtered its inhabitants, and “sowed the city with salt.” In the ancient times it was practice to sow the fields of a defeated enemy with salt so that nothing would grow there. This was to prevent any survivors from reoccupying a conquered city. It might take several generations for the rain to leach the salt from the soil so that crops might be grown there again. The Romans, when they defeated their rival Carthage, sowed the city’s fields with salt.
In the Second Book of Kings Elisha purifies with a new bowl of salt a spring whose water has been causing deaths and miscarriages. In Second Chronicles we learn that God “gave the kingship over Israel forever to David and his sons by a covenant of salt.”
The Book of Ezra describes the companions of the king as sharing the salt of the palace. They ate with the king and therefore shared his salt. This signified the closeness of their relationship. In the same book King Cyrus gives instructions that priests at Jerusalem should be given everything that they need to offer sacrifices—" young bulls, rams, or sheep for burnt offerings to the God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine, or oil… day by day without fail.” It was Cyrus who permitted the Jews to return to Jerusalem and to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem.
From the Book of Ezekiel we learn that it was the practice to wash newborn babies and rub them with salt before wrapping them in cloths. We also learn that it was the practice to throw salt on bullocks and rams when offering them up as a burnt offering to God.
In the Apocrypha, in the Book of Tobit we find a reference to
the practice of salting fish to preserve them for future consumption.
The Wisdom of Sirach, also known as Ecclesiasticus, like the Book of Proverbs, is full of pithy sayings. “Sand, salt, and a piece of iron are easier to bear than a stupid person.” And observations of life. “The basic necessities of human life are water and fire and iron and salt and wheat flour and milk and honey, the blood of the grape and oil and clothing.”
In the Letter of Jeremiah we find a reference to the practice of preserving meat with salt. Rather than give some of the meat from the sacrifices to the poor and the helpless, the priests’ wives were salting down what their husbands did not sell. The priests were selling the sacrifices that they offered to the gods and pocketing the money.
First Maccabees contains references to salt taxes and salt pits. Salt taxes are taxes paid in salt. Salt pits are surface or subsurface deposits of salt that were mined during the time of the Maccabees and earlier. The Maccabees were a group of Jewish rebels who took control of Judea when it was part of the Seleucid Empire. The Seleucid Empire was established by one of Alexander the Great’s generals after Alexander’s death.
I believe that we can safely assume that a number of
these things came to the minds of those present when Jesus talked about salt
that had lost its saltiness. It is hard to imagine salt that has lost its
saltiness and therefore is worthless. I suspect Jesus’ listeners also had
difficulty imagining it too. I suspect that they were shocked by what Jesus
said about throwing it away.
The Jews did not offer to God anything that was cheap and easy-to-come by. Salt in the ancient world was a valuable commodity. Salt was either mined from surface or subsurface deposits or slowly made by the open-air evaporation of briny water, water that contains a high concentration of salt—typically sea water.
I suspect the thought of salt that lacked its essential saltiness and therefore was utterly worthless must have boggled the mind of Jesus’ listeners. The idea of dumping salt on the ground so that people could walk on it may have been too much for them.
We, on the other hand, are likely to give it no second thought. After all, we can pick up another tub of Hain Pure Food Sea Salt or Morton’s Iodized Salt or Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt at the supermarket or go online and order Himalayan Pink Salt or Hawaiian Black Salt and have it delivered to our doorstep.
Consequently, I believe that the idea of salt losing its saltiness and therefore becoming not good for anything does not have the same impact upon us at it did to Jesus’ listeners. Salt is something that we take for granted. Many of us eat too much of it. We cannot eat anything without liberally sprinkling salt all over it. Ice cream. It needs salt. Apple pie. It needs salt. A few of us eat very little of it, if any at all.
So what are we to make of today’s reading? What is Jesus getting at? Jesus appears to be saying that people, like salt, have an essential property without which they are useless and worthless and fit only to be thrown away and trampled on. He leaves to us to figure out what that property is! Salt has saltiness. What do we have?
That essential property may be one that really is not ours. We do not come by it naturally. We are able to recognize the truth of what Jesus is saying and to live in accordance with it, to recognize what is the right thing to do and to do it, to recognize evil for what it is and not only to avoid it but also to oppose it.
But that is not really our doing. That is God’s doing. God created us thinking, rational beings. God has given us a brain and the ability to use it. Through God’s grace, through God’s favor and goodwill toward us, through God’s power and influence working in us, we are able to use it for good and not evil, to think and act in ways that are pleasing to God. Just as salt can make a difference in our food, we are able to make a difference in our world. One thing of which we can be sure is that Jesus wants us to give serious thought to what he is teaching.
Now some of us may not be satisfied with this conclusion. We want to hear from Jesus straight out what he means. However, Jesus often taught in parables. He wanted his listeners to think about what he was saying and to figure out for themselves what he meant. Those who were really listening to him, paying attention to his words, would go to that trouble.Silence is kept.
The Gospel Canticle
Open this link in a new tab to hear Richard Hillert’s choral arrangementof the Magnificat.
and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior;
For He has regarded
the low estate of His handmaiden.
all generations will call me blessed.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is His name;
And His mercy is on those who fear Him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones
and has exalted the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich He has sent empty away.
He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy
as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his posterity forever.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be world without end. Amen
Intercessions
Let us complete our evening prayer to the Lord.
Lord have mercy.
For peace from on high and our salvation, let us pray to the Lord.
Lord have mercy.
For the welfare of all churches and for the unity of the human family, let us
pray to the Lord.
Lord have mercy.
For (name), our bishop, and (name), our pastor, and for all ministers of the
Gospel, let us pray to the Lord.
Lord have mercy.
For our nation, its government, and for all who serve and protect us, let us
pray to the Lord.
Lord have mercy.
For this city (town, university, monastery…). For every city and community, and
for all those living in them, let us pray to the Lord.
Lord have mercy.
For the good earth which God has given us and for the wisdom and will to
conserve it, let us pray to the Lord.
Lord have mercy.
For the safety of travelers, the recovery of the sick, the care of the
destitute and the release of prisoners, let us pray to the Lord.
Lord have mercy.
For an angel of peace to guide and protect us, let us pray to the Lord.
Lord have mercy.
For a peaceful evening and a night free from sin, let us pray to the Lord.
Lord have mercy.
For a Christian end to our lives and for all who have fallen asleep in Christ,
let us pray to the Lord.
Lord have mercy.
In the communion of the Holy Spirit (and of all the saints), let us commend
ourselves and one another to the living God through Christ our Lord.
To you, O Lord.
Free Prayer
In silent or spontaneous prayer all bring before God the concerns of the day.
The Collect
Lighten our darkness,
Lord, we pray,
and in your great mercy
defend us from all perils and dangers of this night,
for the love of your only Son,
our Saviour Jesus Christ.
Amen.
The Lord’s Prayer is said.
And now, as our Saviour has taught us,
we are bold to say,
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come;
thy will be done;
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power, and the glory
for ever and ever.
Amen.
Dismissal
Open this link to hear Marty Haugen’s hymn, “Bring Forth the Kingdom.”
Salt for the Kingdom of God!
Share the flavor of life, O people:
Life in the Kingdom of God!
Bring forth the Kingdom of mercy,
Bring forth the Kingdom of peace;
Bring forth the Kingdom of justice,
Bring forth the City of God!
You are a light on the hill, O people:
Light for the City of God!
Shine so holy and bright, O people:
Shine for the Kingdom of God!
Bring forth the Kingdom of mercy,
Bring forth the Kingdom of peace;
Bring forth the Kingdom of justice,
Bring forth the City of God!
You are a seed of the Word, O people:
Bring forth the Kingdom of God!
Seeds of mercy and seeds of justice,
Grow in the Kingdom of God!
Bring forth the Kingdom of mercy,
Bring forth the Kingdom of peace;
Bring forth the Kingdom of justice,
Bring forth the City of God!
We are a blest and a pilgrim people:
Bound for the Kingdom of God!
Love our journey and love our homeland:
Love is the Kingdom of God!
Bring forth the Kingdom of mercy,
Bring forth the Kingdom of peace;
Bring forth the Kingdom of justice,
Bring forth the City of God!
Bring forth the Kingdom of peace;
Bring forth the Kingdom of justice,
Bring forth the City of God!
The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
Let us praise the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
May our Lord Jesus Christ, and God our Father,
comfort our hearts and establish them
In every good work and word. Amen
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