All Hallows Murray for Saturday Evening (March 6, 2021)

 

Evening Prayer

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 arrangements 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 Marty Haugen’s folk style arrangement of Psalm 91, “Be With Me.”

Refrain:
Be with me, Lord, when I am in trouble,
be with me, Lord, I pray.

1 You who dwell in the shelter of the Lord Most High.
who abide in the shadow of our God.
Say to the Lord, “My refuge and fortress,
the God in whom I trust.” Refrain

2 No evil shall befall you, no pain come near,
for God’s angels stand close by your side,
Guarding you always and bearing you gently,
Watching over your life. Refrain

3 Those who cling to the Lord live secure in God’s love
Lifted high those who trusted in God’s name.
Call on the Lord, who will never forsake you;
God will bring you salvation and joy. 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 10: 25-37 The Parable of the Good Samaritan

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

Silence is kept.

Homily

Neighbor to Each Other, Neighbor to All

No one who was listening to Jesus’ conversation with the lawyer would have been surprised at the behavior of the priest and the Levite. If the man was half-dead, the priest and the Levite would have become ritually unclean if they had touched the man, much less tended to his wounds. This was a defect not only of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law but also other adherents of the Jewish religion. They were scrupulous in observing its various rules and regulations but were singularly lacking in what was important to God—mercy. They most likely were shocked at Jesus’ choice of a hated and despised Samaritan as the one who was a neighbor to the injured man, who tended his wounds, brought him to an inn, and paid for his stay at the inn. To the Jews the Samaritans were a half-breed race and their religion was a bastardized version of the Jewish religion. I imagine that it caused some who came to hear that conversation to mutter among themselves. Jesus had stood their way of thinking on its head and they were not happy about it. Could this man really be the Messiah, the Son of David? Wouldn’t God’s Anointed stand up for the priest and the Levite?

Early Thursday morning I read and bookmarked an article which told how some You-Tubers showed up at a church on Sunday morning in hazmat suits and videoed the congregation at worship and interviewed several members of the congregation. They subsequently posted the video online. The gathering was a large one. No one was wearing a face mask or keeping a safe distance from each other. The You-Tubers received the same answer from each person that they interviewed when they questioned them about why they were not wearing face masks or keepong a safe distance from each other. “God is protecting us. We have nothing to fear. We have faith.” There was no thought to those present who might be struggling with their faith or those outside their fellowship, who might not have any faith at all. The attitude was. “They are not my concern.” “God is protecting me.”

I do not know who the church’s pastor is, but he did not appear to have taught the congregation about what Jesus taught in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, about being neighbors to others. Nor did he appear to have what Jesus taught about God’s desiring us to show mercy to others, to being merciful as God himself is merciful. While Jesus tells us that a little faith can move mountains, he does not tell us that we may use what he told us as an excuse to ignore what else he teaches.

God does work through the miraculous. God also works through the ordinary. God is found in the commonplace as well as the extraordinary. God is sovereign. He gets to decide how he is going to act. God is not some jinn that we keep in a brass lamp. He does not jump out and do our bidding every time that we rub the lamp.

While the New Testament promises that nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, the New Testament does not promise us that, when we turn to Jesus, our lives will “easy peasy lemon squeezy.” It promises us nothing of the sort.

Following Jesus is the way of the cross. Jesus does not promise that we will never get ill or suffer hardship. The apostle Paul was beaten, stoned, shipwrecked, imprisoned in the worst prison in ancient Rome, and eventually executed in the dark, stinking bowels of that prison. The apostle James was beheaded. The apostle John died in exile on the island of Patmos. The early Christians suffered gruesome deaths—soaked in oil and burned as torches or devoured alive by half-starved lions in the arena.

One of the reasons that some folks fall away from the faith is that it was not the easy row to hoe that they thought it would be. For those who are not familiar with this expression, it comes from the days when a large part of farming was done by hand. A farm worker would be given a long-handled hoe and assigned a row between the growing plants to hoe, digging up any weeds with the blade of the hoe. Some rows had few weeds; others were full of weeds. The ground might also be hard and stony.

In the days before the Civil War the farmer worker was most likely a slave in the South. In the days after the Civil War the farm worker might be a hired hand or a member of a sharecropper’s family. In none of these cases was the life of a farm worker an easy one. 

Hoeing rows under the hot sun was backbreaking work. After they finished one row, they started on another. If they had not finished the row by sunset, they kept hoeing the row until it was done. If they were slaves, they were not allowed to go back to their cabins. If they were hired hands, they did not get paid.

In churches where the prosperity gospel is flourishing, members of the congregation are taught that their faith will be rewarded with health, success, material possessions, and all kinds of blessings. This is not what Jesus taught. Nor is it what his apostles taught. Faith is not a good work, something we exhibit to win favor with God. It is a gift from God. Without God’s grace, we would not experience the slightest stirrings of faith. Without God’s grace we would be spiritually dead We would not be able to turn to Jesus and enjoy a new life in him.

Our Lenten journey to Good Friday and to Easter Day is a good time to thinking about who our neighbors are and how we are being neighbor to them. Are we going out of our way like the Good Samaritan in the parable? Or are we crossing to the other side of the road?

Silence is kept.

The Gospel Canticle

Open this link in a new tab to hear Chaz Bower’s choral arrangement of “My Soul Proclaims Your Greatness, Lord.”

My soul proclaims your greatness, Lord;
I sing my Savior’s praise!
You looked upon my lowliness,
and I am full of grace.
Now ev’ry land and ev’ry age
this blessing shall proclaim—
great wonders you have done for me,
and holy is your name.

To all who live in holy fear
Your mercy ever flows.
With mighty arm you dash the proud,
Their scheming hearts expose.
The ruthless you have cast aside,
the lowly throned instead;
the hungry filled with all good things,
the rich sent off unfed.

To Israel, your servant blest,
your help is ever sure;
the promise to our parents made
their children will secure.
Sing glory to the Holy One,
give honor to the Word,
and praise the Pow’r of the Most High,
one God, by all adored,
on God, by all adored.

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

Click this link to hear Omer Westendorf’s translation of the Latin hymn Ubi Caritas, "Where Charity and Love Prevail."

1 Where charity and love prevail,
There God is ever found;
Brought here together by Christ’s love,
By love we are thus bound.

2 With grateful joy and holy fear
His charity we learn;
Let us with heart and mind and soul
Now love Him in return.

3 Forgive we now each other’s faults
As we our faults confess;
And let us love each other well
In Christian holiness.

4 Let strife among us be unknown,
Let all contention cease;
Be his the glory that we seek,
Be ours his holy peace.

5 Let us recall that in our midst
Dwells God’s begotten Son;
As members of his body joined,
We are in Him made one.

6 No race nor creed can love exclude
If honored be God’s name;
Our family embraces all
Whose Father is the same.

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