All Hallows Evening Prayer for Saturday Evening (May 22, 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 Redeemer God,
You destroyed the bonds of death
and from the darkness of the tomb
drew forth the light of the world.
Led through the waters of death.
we become the children of light
singing our Alleluia
and dancing to the music of new life.
Pour out your Spirit upon us
that dreams and visions bring us
ever closer to the kingdom
of Jesus Christ our Risen Savior.
Through him and in the Holy Spirit
all glory be to you, Almighty Father,
this night and for ever and ever.
Amen.

Psalm 141 is sung and incense may be burned.

Open this link in a new tab to hear Peter Inwood’s setting of Psalm 141, “O Lord, Let My Prayer Rise Before You Like Incense.”

O Lord, let my prayer rise before you like incense,
my hands like an evening offering.

1. Lord, I am calling:
hasten to help me.
Listen to me as I cry to you.
Let my prayer rise before you like incense,
my hands like an evening offering.

O Lord, let my prayer rise before you like incense,
my hands like an evening offering.

2. Lord, set a guard at my mouth,
keep watch at the gate of my lips.
Let my heart not turn to things that are wrong,
to sharing the evil deeds done by the sinful.
No, I will never taste their delights.

O Lord, let my prayer rise before you like incense,
my hands like an evening offering.

3. The good may reprove me,
in kindness chastise me,
but the wicked shall never anoint my head.
Ev’ry day I counter their malice with prayer.

O Lord, let my prayer rise before you like incense,
my hands like an evening offering.

4 To you, Lord, my God, my eyes are turned:
in you I take refuge;
do not forsake me.
Keep me from the traps they have set for me,
from the snares of those who do evil.

O Lord, let my prayer rise before you like incense,
my hands like an evening offering.

5 Praise to the Father, praise to the Son,
all praise to the life-giving Spirit.
As it was, is now and shall always be
for ages unending. Amen.

O Lord, let my prayer rise before you as incense,
my hands like an evening offering.

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 Heather Sorenson’s choral arrangement of Psalm 121, “I Lift My Eyes Unto the Hills.”

I lift my eyes unto the hills,
the hills from where my help is come.
My help, it cometh from the Lord
Who made heaven,
heaven and earth.

I lift my eyes unto the hills,
the hills from where my help is come.
My help, it cometh from the Lord
Who made heaven,
heaven and earth.

He will not suffer thy foot to be moved,
Neither will He sleep.
The Lord is thy keeper,
The Lord is thy shade.

The sun shall not smite thee by day;
the moon shall not smite thee by night.

The Lord shall protect thee from ev’ry evil.
He shall preserve thy soul,
The Lord shall protect thee from ev’ry evil.
He shall preserve thy soul
for-ever, for-ever,
for-ever, for-ever,
for-ever
He will preserve thy soul.

I lift my eyes unto the hills,
the hills from where my help is come.
My help, it cometh from the Lord
My help, it cometh from the Lord
My help, it cometh from the Lord
Who made heaven,
heaven and earth.
Amen, Amen.

Silence is kept.

Lord, ever watchful and faithful,
we look to you to be our defense
and we lift our hearts to know your help;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Open this link in a new tab to hear Timothy Dudley Smith’s hymn, “O Christ the Same.”

1 O Christ the same, through all our story's pages,
our loves and hopes, our failures and our fears;
eternal Lord, the King of all the ages,
unchanging still, amid the passing years:
O living Word, the source of all creation,
who spread the skies, and set the stars ablaze,
O Christ the same, who wrought our whole salvation,
we bring our thanks for all our yesterdays.

2 O Christ the same, the friend of sinners, sharing
our inmost thoughts, the secrets none can hide,
still as of old upon your body bearing
the marks of love, in triumph glorified:
O Son of Man, who stooped for us from heaven,
O Prince of life, in all your saving power,
O Christ the same, to whom our hearts are given,
we bring our thanks for this the present hour.

3 O Christ the same, secure within whose keeping
our lives and loves, our days and years remain,
our work and rest, our waking and our sleeping,
our calm and storm, our pleasure and our pain:
O Lord of love, for all our joys and sorrows,
for all our hopes, when earth shall fade and flee,
O Christ the same, beyond our brief tomorrows,
we bring our thanks for all that is to be.

The Proclamation of the Word

The Reading

Luke 11: 1-13 The Lord’s Prayer

He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say:

Our Father in heaven hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done, on earth as in heaven
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us into temptation but rescue us from evil.

And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.

“So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone; or if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit from heaven to those who ask him!”

Silence is kept

May your word live in us
and bear much fruit to your glory.

How God Answers Prayer

In today’s reading Jesus stresses the importance of persistence in prayer. He goes on to tell his disciples that if they who are evil give good things to their children, they can expect to receive far more from God who is good beyond measure. God does answer prayer.

God is not capricious in the way that he answers prayer. God is not “impulsive and unpredictable” so that we have no idea what God will do next. God is not “given to sudden and unaccountable changes of mood or behavior.” God does not do things on a whim. Whatever God does, he does for good, not evil. We can count on his care. These are important characteristics of God. His basic attitude toward his creatures, toward us, is one of love and goodwill.

The character of God, the character of the Most High, whom Jesus called Father and taught his disciples to call Father, with whom Jesus is one, would have greatly appealed to the pagan Gentiles of the ancient Mediterranean world. They had many gods and goddesses, many cults, and many temples. They also had household gods, guardian spirits, and ancestor spirits. But the pagan Gentiles could not count on their goodwill, much less their favor. They were capricious. They had to be appeased, bought off with offerings.

We have not entirely freed ourselves from that way of thinking. We try to bargain with God. “If you do X, God, I’ll do Y.” We see our obedience to Jesus’ commands as a way of staying on God’s good side rather than as an expression of our love for God and the Son whom he gave so that all who believe in him might have eternal life.

God generally answers prayer in three ways. He says “yes.” He says “no,” He says “wait.”

God says “yes” to what we ask when it attuned to God’ will and God’s timing. What we desire is in line with what God wills and the time which he has chosen to accomplish his will. The concern that we have brought before God is a matter on which he has chosen to act. He has chosen us to play a part in what he is going to do. Through the Holy Spirit God may nudge us to make a request because he intends to grant that request.

God also says “no.” He is not prepared to grant a request because it is not in line with his will. Granting our request may have harmful consequences for us and for others and God wishes to spare us from these consequences. God is all-knowing. God exists outside of time. The past, the present, and the future are one to him.

Unrepented sin can lead to God saying “no.” God may not consider a request until we have dealt with the sin. If we ask for grace to repent and when we repent, forgiveness, God will say “yes.” But until we have turned from the sin or are making a genuine effort to do so, God may hold off saying “yes” to anything else that we ask.

Here I must offer a caveat. God may say “yes” to somethings that we ask because they are steps in our dealing with the sin or God intends to use them as means of grace to us. God does not leave us to struggle with sin on our own. At the same time the devil will seek to persuade us that praying to God is pointless. We are too far gone in sin and God is not going to help us.

God may say “wait.” The time is not right in the eternal scheme of things for God to grant what we ask. God may be testing the genuineness of our desire. Do we really want what we are asking? What we are asking may be within God’s will, but we have not counted cost or considered the consequences to ourselves or to others. We are not ready to take that path.

God may delay answering our prayer in order to give us time to bring our prayer more in tune with what he is willing to do. Prayer is a channel of God’s grace to us. Through prayer God works in our heart and mind and brings our will, our desires and wishes, in line with his own. We may ask one thing at first, but as we keep praying, we find ourselves asking for something entirely different.

Sometimes we pray and pray for a loved one about whom we deeply care or a friend who means a great deal to us, but we do not receive the answer that we had hoped for. What do we do then?

We keep praying.  At the wedding at Cana Jesus turned water into wine. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, the steward called the bridegroom and exclaimed, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now." Like the steward had thought that the bridegroom had done, God may save the best for last. God does perform miracles. Nothing is impossible for God.

At the same time a miracle may not be God's answer to our prayer. God's answer may be to draw our attention to what he is already doing in the life of the one for whom we are praying. 

Our prayer is itself an expression of love for the one for that person. As we pray, our love for them will deepen. Our love will be reflected in the way we relate to them. We will become a channel of God’s grace to them, an expression of his love for them.

Through our prayers God ministers to us. He listens to our sorrows and shares our grief. He offers us consolation, healing, and encouragement.

Whatever answer we receive to our prayers, it is vital to not lose sight of one all-important thing. God loves us. God cares for us. The answer that we receive to our prayers does not show that God is unloving or uncaring. We may not fathom why God answers us the way that he answers us, but of one thing we can be certain, God does not wish us ill. He desires only our good.

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

Almighty God,
you sent your Holy Spirit
to be the light and life of your Church:
open our hearts to the riches of your grace.
that we may bring forth the fruit of the Spirit
in love, joy, and peace;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The Lord's Prayer

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 in a new tab to hear Percy Dearmer’s hymn, “Jesus, Good above All Other.”

1 Jesus, good above all other,
Gentle Child of gentle Mother,
In a stable born our Brother,
Give us grace to persevere.

2 Jesus, cradled in a manger,
For us facing every danger,
Living as a homeless stranger,
Make we thee our King most dear.

3 Jesus, for thy people dying,
Risen Master, death defying,
Lord in heaven, thy grace supplying,
Keep us to thy presence near.

4 Jesus, who our sorrows bearest,
All our thoughts and hopes thou sharest,
Thou to men the truth declarest;
Help us all thy truth to hear.

5 Lord, in all our doings guide us;
Pride and hate shall ne'er divide us;
We'll go on with thee beside us,
And with joy we'll persevere!

The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
Let us praise the Lord.
Thanks be to God.

Open this link in a new tab to hear Elaine Hagenberg’s setting of the traditional Irish blessing, “You Do Not Walk Alone.”

May you see God's light on the path ahead
when the road you walk is dark.
May you always hear
even in your hour of sorrow
the gentle singing of the lark.
When times are hard
may hardness never turn your heart to stone.
May you always remember when the shadows fall–
You do not walk alone.

May you see God's light on the path ahead
when the road you walk is dark.
May you always hear
even in your hour of sorrow
the gentle singing of the lark.
When times are hard
may hardness never turn your heart to stone.
May you always remember when the shadows fall–
You do not walk alone.
You do not walk alone.

May you see God's light on the path ahead
when the road you walk is dark.
May you always hear
even in your hour of sorrow
the gentle singing of the lark.
When times are hard
may hardness never turn your heart to stone.
May you always remember when the shadows fall–
You do not walk alone.
May you always remember when the shadows fall–
You do not walk alone.