All Hallows Evening Prayer for Sunday Evening (October 3, 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 F. Bland Tucker’s translation of the Phos hilaron, “O Gracious Light.”
O Gracious Light, Lord Jesus Christ,
In you the Father’s glory shone.
Immortal, holy, blest is he,
And blest are you, his holy Son.
Now sunset comes, but light shines forth,
the lamps are lit to pierce the night.
Praise Father, Son, and Spirit: God
Who dwells in the eternal light.
Worthy are you of endless praise,
O Son of God, Life-giving Lord;
Wherefore you are through all the earth
And in the highest heaven adored.
O Gracious Light!
Thanksgiving
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give our thanks and praise.
Blessed are you, Creator of the universe,
from old you have led your people by night and day.
May the light of your Christ make our darkness bright,
for your Word and your presence are the light of our pathways,
and you are the light and life of all creation.
Amen.
Psalm 141 is sung and incense may be burned.
Open this link in a new tab to hear Marty Haugen’s adaptation of Psalm 141, “Let My Prayer Rise Up Like Incense Before You.”
Let my prayer rise up like incense before you,
the lifting up of my hands as an offering to you.
O God, I call to you, come to me now;
hear my voice when I cry to you.
Let my prayer rise up like incense before you,
the lifting up of my hands as an offering to you.
Keep watch within me, God;
deep in my heart may the light of your love be burning bright.
Let my prayer rise up like incense before you,
the lifting up of my hands as an offering to you.
All praise to the God of all, Creator of life;
all praise be to the Christ and the Spirit of love.
Let my prayer rise up like incense before you,
the lifting up of my hands as an offering to you.
Silence is kept.
May our prayers come before you, O God, as incense, and may your presence surround and fill us, so that in union with all creation, we might sing your praise and your love in our lives. Amen.
The Psalms
Open this link in a new tab to hear Kiran Young Wimberly's Psalm 23, “The Lord’s My Shepherd I’ll Not Want.”
The Lord’s my shepherd I’ll not want
He lets me rest in pastures green
He leadeth me by waters still
He restores my soul; restores my soul
Even though I walk through the darkest vale
I will fear no evil, for you’re with me
Your rod and staff, protect and guide
You comfort me; you comfort me
You prepare a table, a feast for me
In the presence of my enemies
You anoint my head with holy oil
My cup overflows; it overflows
Surely goodness and God’s mercy great
Shall follow me all my days of life
And I’ll dwell within the house of God
My whole life long; my whole life long
Silence is kept.
O God, our sovereign and shepherd,
who brought again your Son Jesus Christ
from the valley of death,
comfort us with your protecting presence
and your angels of goodness and love,
that we also may come home
and dwell with him in your house for ever. Amen.
Open this link in a new tab to hear John L. Bell's "Love One Another"
Love one another for love is of God,
Those who live in love,
Live in God and God lives in them.
Love one another for love is of God,
Those who live in love,
Live in God and God lives in them.
Those who show love are the children of God,
Father and mother is God to each of them.
Love one another for love is of God,
Those who live in love,
Live in God and God lives in them.
Love one another for love is of God,
Those who live in love,
Live in God and God lives in them.
God showed his love in the face of the Son;
Christ lives in us so that we might live in him.
Love one another for love is of God,
Those who live in love,
Live in God and God lives in them.
Love one another for love is of God,
Those who live in love,
Live in God and God lives in them.
Love has no place for the menace of fear;
Fear is abandoned where perfect love is found.
Love one another for love is of God,
Those who live in love,
Live in God and God lives in them.
Love one another for love is of God,
Those who live in love,
Live in God and God lives in them.
Love has its purpose in God's holy will;
We learn to love from the one who loved us first.
Love one another for love is of God,
Those who live in love,
Live in God and God lives in them.
Love one another for love is of God,
Those who live in love,
Live in God and God lives in them.
The Proclamation of the Word
The Reading
Mark 10: 1-16 Jesus Welcomes Small Children
Then he got up and left Galilee and went off to the borders of Judea and beyond the Jordan. Again great crowds assembled to meet him, and again, according to his custom, he taught them. Then some Pharisees arrived to ask him this test-question. “Is it right for a man to divorce his wife?”
Jesus replied by asking them, “What has Moses commanded you to do?”
“Moses allows men to write a divorce-notice and then to dismiss her,” they said.
“Moses gave you that commandment,” returned Jesus, “because you know so little of the meaning of love. But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female’. ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’. So that in body they are no longer two people but one. That is why man must never separate what God has joined together.”
On reaching the house, his disciples questioned him again about this matter.
“Any man who divorces his wife and marries another woman,” he told them, “commits adultery against his wife. And if she herself divorces her husband and marries someone else, she commits adultery.”
Then some people came to him bringing little children for him to touch. The disciples tried to discourage them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant and told them, “You must let little children come to me—never stop them! For the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Indeed, I assure you that the man who does not accept the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” Then he took the children in his arms and laid his hands on them and blessed them.
Silence is kept.
May your word live in us
and bear much fruit to your glory
The Homily
In yesterday’s homily I touched on what Jesus taught about divorce, citing a passage from Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus taught that the marriage bond was largely indissoluble. It could be destroyed only by marital infidelity, by one spouse having sexual relations with someone outside the marriage. This act of disloyalty to the other spouse dissolved the marriage bond. It severed the connection between the two spouses. Jesus acknowledged that Moses permitted divorce but wrote such a law because the people of Israel were hard to teach. They knew very little of the meaning of love.
Until the last century civil law in the United Kingdom and the United States reflected Jesus’ teaching. Since then Christian traditions have for the large part followed secular society in permitting additional grounds for divorce.
The Catholic Church, while acknowledging Jesus’ teaching on divorce, finds a way around it by annulling marriages, declaring that a valid marriage did not exist and the members of the couple are free to marry someone else. This can create problems if the couple has children. If the parents’ marriage was invalid, the children are illegitimate. In countries where only the legitimate children of the deceased can inherit their property, annulment strips the children of the annulled marriage of any inheritance rights. It also subjects them to the stigma of being illegitimate. It is doubtful that Jesus himself would recognize the annulment as nullifying the marriage.
Marriage as a lifelong union is something to which I believe Christians should aspire in the light of Jesus’ teaching, but it entails taking time to get to know a potential marriage partner and not rushing into a marriage. The potential marriage partner needs to show a genuine commitment to marriage as such a union and to making a marriage work. A Christian woman, any woman, does not need to fall for a man who is thinking to himself, “I’ll have some fun with this flakey broad for a while and any other women who catches my eye and when I grow tired of her, I’ll move on to someone else.”
Too many women have fallen for such guys and ended up with STDs, victims of physical and emotional abuse, caring for one or more children on their own, and struggling with depression and other effects of traumatic separation and abandonment. I have seen it happen. It is not confined to heterosexual relationships.
My mother was one of those unfortunate women. The American GIA she met and married in the United Kingdom became a different person in the United States. He had a violent temper, suffered from paranoid delusions, and severely physically and emotionally abused my mother. For her own safety, the safety of my older brother, and the safety of her unborn child, myself, and with the help of her younger sister, my mother returned to her parents’ home in England.
Christians, I also believe, should marry Christians or someone who genuinely intends to become a Christian and who is not stringing us along. Two people who share a common faith will build each other up in that faith.
A believer whose spouse is not a believer faces a unique set of problems.. Their spouse may be a kind, gentle, loving, supportive person and may have no objections to the believer’s raising the children in the Christian faith. The salvation of the non-believing spouse, however. will weigh heavily on the heart of the believing spouse. When we care about someone, we care about their spiritual welfare. It is natural to take an interest in the spiritual welfare of the one we love. They may resent it, but it is one of the ways we show our love for them.
In today’s reading we not only hear Jesus’ teaching on divorce, but we also hear an important teaching on children. The disciples were turning away people who brought little children for Jesus to touch. They apparently believed that it was undignified for a rabbi, a teacher, to do, which would not have been an uncommon attitude in first century Judaea.
Jesus, however, did not behave like an ordinary rabbi. He did not set up shop somewhere and gather a small circle of disciples around him. He was itinerant. He moved from place to place. Those whom he did take as disciples had to travel with him. He taught large crowds of people. He talked to women and had women followers. He kept company with tax collectors, prostitutes, and other sinners.
Jesus rebuked his disciples, “You must let little children come to me—never stop them! For the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Indeed, I assure you that the man who does not accept the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”
“Wait a minute, Jesus, what did you say? God’s kingdom belongs to little children. Unless we accept God’s kingdom like a little child, we’ll never enter it?!” The disciples must have thought.
The disciples in the Gospel of Mark are pretty thick. Even when Jesus explains things to them, they do not grasp what he is saying. It is one of the unique characteristics of Mark’s Gospel. Uncomprehending disciples.
When Pharisees asked Jesus, when was the kingdom coming, he replied, “The kingdom of God never comes by watching for it. Men cannot say, ‘Look, here it is’, or ‘there it is’, for the kingdom of God is inside you.” (Luke 17: 21 PHILLIPS) This verse can be translated from the Greek in several different ways. J. B. Phillips in his translation of the New Testament concludes the translation of the verse, which makes the most sense is that the kingdom is inside us. God is reigning inside us.
What Jesus did not tell the Pharisees was that the kingdom was in them, but the kingdom is not something outside of us as they mistakenly believed. It is not a kingdom like an earthly kingdom. Rather it made up of people whose lives are ruled by God. Its King was standing in front of them.
God’s rule is evident in our lives when we recognize Jesus for whom he is—Lord, not any lord, but as Mrs. Beaver tells the children in C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, “He is the King!” She is referring to Aslan, the Christ figure in the story. For us the one true King is Jesus!
God’s rule is evident in us when we live our lives in accordance with Jesus’ teaching and example. We trust Jesus. We trust his word and we keep it. Jesus said that his teaching was God’s teaching.
In the twenty-first century here in the United States our culture encourages us to be self-sufficient, self-contained, and independent, relying on no one but ourselves. This is the opposite of what Jesus told the disciples. To enter the kingdom, we must become like a little child. Jesus is not suggesting that we regress to our early childhood. What Jesus is saying is that we must become helpless and dependent like a little child, trusting God as a little child trusts a parent or other caretaker and rely on God as a little child relies on that caretaker. It means believing from the heart that God intends us no harm, only good; he has our welfare at heart; he is not out to do us ill. He will take care of us.
This may be harder for some of us than it is for others. We may have abandonment issues. We may find it difficult to trust people and God out of a fear of abandonment and rejection. I have concluded that I may have abandonment issues. My mother was recovering from the trauma of having been the victim of severe physical and emotional abuse. My grandmother found herself caring for a two-year old and a newborn. A recurrent theme in my dreams is abandonment and rejection. People disappear on me. They go off and leave me as my older brother and his friend did when I was four years old. They may not have realized that I was tagging behind them. I became lost. I was in emotional distress and crying when a woman who was taking her baby for a walk in a pram or stroller found me and took me to the police. I experienced social rejection in elementary school and bullying and teasing in middle school after my family moved to the United States.
Some of us may have been forced to be independent and self-reliant at an early age. One parent may have been emotionally distant or emotionally unpredictable; the other parent may have been preoccupied with their work. We quickly learned to depend on no one but ourselves. Consequently, we have difficulty entrusting ourselves to the care of others. We shrink from any kind of relationship over which we have no control and in which we might find ourselves in a dependent position. We also have difficulty in entrusting ourselves to the care of God.
If we do have issues that make it difficult to become like a little child, one thing we can to do is share with God what happened to us and ask him for inner healing. Sharing our experiences with God will help us building a more trusting relationship with God. Inner healing will help us work through the more traumatic experiences. We can also ask others to pray for inner healing for us. We do not have to be specific in our prayer request. Asking others for prayer can itself be a step in building more trusting relationships with others, relying on others beside ourselves.
The simple act of turning to God in prayer is itself an act of a little child, the act of one of God’s dearly loved and treasured children reaching up their arms to their heavenly Father and crying “Abba, Father, I need your help. Hold me in your loving arms and let me rest my head on you.” When we do that, I do not believe I am wrong in saying we have entered the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus not only welcomes the little ones whom we bring to him to touch but also welcomes the inner child in us, the child who is suffering the effects of childhood trauma, of painful childhood experiences, of erratic parental acceptance and affirmation, of forced precocity and pre-maturation. He looks deeply into our innermost being and sees the suffering child within us. He takes that child into his arms, lays a hand on them, heals them, and gives them peace.
Silence is kept.
The Gospel Canticle
Open this link in a new tab to hear Joanne Boyce’s adaptation of the Magnificat, “My Soul Glorifies the Lord.”
My soul glorifies the Lord,
my spirit rejoices
My God forever he will be,
bless his holy name.
He looks upon me his servant,
looks on me in my lowliness.
He works marvels for me,
Hence forth all ages call me blessed,
Call me blessed.
My soul glorifies the Lord,
my spirit rejoices
My God forever he will be,
bless his holy name.
He scatters the proud hearted,
casts the mighty from their thrones.
His mighty arm before me,
In strength he raises the lowly,
raises the lowly.
My soul glorifies the Lord,
my spirit rejoices
My God forever he will be,
bless his holy name.
He fills the starving with plenty,
but empty sends the rich away.
From age to age his mercy,
The mercy promised us forever,
promised forever.
My soul glorifies the Lord,
my spirit rejoices
My God forever he will be,
bless his holy name.
Bless him, bless him.
Bless him, bless him.
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
In darkness and in light,
in trouble and in joy,
help us, heavenly Father,
to trust your love,
to serve your purpose,
and to praise your name,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. 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 Margaret Cropper’s children’s hymn. “Jesus’ Hands Were Kind Hands.”
Jesus' hands were kind hands, doing good to all,
healing pain and sickness, blessing children small,
washing tired feet and saving those who fall;
Jesus' hands were kind hands, doing good to all.
Take my hands, Lord Jesus, let them work for you;
make them strong and gentle, kind in all I do;
let me watch you, Jesus, till I'm gentle too,
till my hands are kind hands, quick to work for you.
The Lord be with you.
The Lord bless you.
Let us praise the Lord,
Thanks be to God.
May God, Creator, bless us and keep us,
may Christ be ever light for our lives,
may the Spirit of love be our guide and path,
for all of our days. Amen.
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