All Hallows Evening Prayer for Saturday Evening (February 26, 2022)
One or more candles may be lit.
Light and peace in Jesus Christ our Lord
Thanks be to God
EVENING HYMN
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!
PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING
Dear Jesus,
as a hen covers her chicks with her wings
to keep them safe, do thou this night
protect us under your golden wings. Amen.
SCRIPTURE
Mark 12: 28-34 The Most Important Commandment
One of the teachers of religious law was standing there listening to the debate. He realized that Jesus had answered well, so he asked, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”
The teacher of religious law replied, “Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth by saying that there is only one God and no other. And I know it is important to love him with all my heart and all my understanding and all my strength, and to love my neighbor as myself. This is more important than to offer all of the burnt offerings and sacrifices required in the law.”
Realizing how much the man understood, Jesus said to him, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” And after that, no one dared to ask him any more questions.
Silence is kept.
May your word live in us
and bear much fruit to your glory
HOMILY
What Did Jesus Teach? Love Your Neighbors As You Love Yourself
The Second Great Commandment in Jesus’ Summary of the Law is an abbreviated version of Leviticus 19:18. “Do not take revenge on others or continue to hate them, but love your neighbors as you love yourself. I am the Lord.” Jesus did not need to cite the entire verse. Those to whom he was speaking would have been well-acquainted with Leviticus 19:18.
While ordinary Jews of the time did not spend their time studying the Old Testament like the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, they were much more familiar with the Hebrew Bible than we are. They heard the Old Testament read and expounded in the local synagogue on the Sabbath and other occasions. Its religious and moral laws were an integral part of the culture in which they lived. They recognized the different allusions that Jesus made to the Hebrew Bible, allusions which we do not catch. This puts us at something of a disadvantage.
For this reason, it is a good idea to use a Bible that references the Old Testament passages to which Jesus is alluding when studying his teaching. Our study of the Old Testament would be much more fruitful if we focus on the passages that anticipate Jesus’ teaching or prophesize his coming.
Jesus’ omission of the first part of the verse, “Do not take revenge on others or continue to hate them” was not intended as a watering-down of this verse. This is evident from his teaching about loving our enemies, forgiveness, and reconciliation.
Harming someone as a punishment for harm that they may have done and having a strong feeling of anger and dislike for a person whom we feel has treated us badly, especially one that lasts a long time, are not something that Jesus taught, practiced, approved, or supported. It is clear from his teaching that Jesus expected his disciples to forgive other people’s failings, to not hold other people’s failings against them, and to make peace with anyone who had anything against themselves. We cannot exact revenge on someone or nurse a grudge against them and love them at the same time. They are incompatible.
In his summary of the Law Jesus singles out loving God with all your heart, all our soul, all our strength, and all your mind and loving our neighbors as ourselves as the two most important things that we can do in this life. Religion played an important part in the lives of the Jews of the time, something to which most things were secondary in importance.
We should be careful in how we view the order in which Jesus places the two commandments because Jesus on several occasions places how we treat others before our religious duty in his teaching. There is the implication in the way we treat them, we are showing honor and reverence to God. What matters to God is not the strictness with which they keep the Sabbath or their observance of the minutia of the religious law, he tells the Pharisees, but how they treat other people. Note that Jesus in today's reading states that the two commandments are equally important.
When Jesus was asked, “who is my neighbor?” Jesus told this parable.
“A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road.
“By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side.
“Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.’” Luke 10: 30-35, NLT
After he had told the parable, Jesus posed this question to the the man who had asked him. “Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?” The man replied. “The one who showed him mercy.” I can imagine Jesus fixing his gaze on the man as he told him. “Yes, now go and do the same.”
What is interesting about this parable is that Jesus chose as the one of the three who would be kind to the man who was robbed, beaten, and left for dead was a Samaritan, a member of a group of people for whom the Jews had a strong dislike because they though the Samaritans were the descendants of foreigners that the Assyrians had transplanted in the conquered kingdom of Israel and who had intermarried with the Israelites whom the Assyrians had left there and adopted their religion. The Jews viewed the Samaritans as a mongrel race and their religion as corrupted by foreign influences.
The Samaritans, on the other hand, viewed the religion of the Jews as having been corrupted by foreign influences during their captivity in Babylon and theirs the true religion of the people of Israel. They believed that their temple on Mount Gerizim, the site where God pronounced blessing on the Jewish people in Joshua’s time, was the place where the people of Israel had originally worshipped God. The hard feelings between the Jews and the Samaritans were mutual.
The Samaritan is one who shows compassion to the injured Jew, tends his wounds, and bandages them, puts him on a donkey, takes him to an inn, and pays for his care at the inn. He is the one who has a strong feeling of sympathy for the injured man and stops to help him.
When we hear the word, “neighbor,” we think of someone who lives near us. The Jews would have thought of a fellow Jew. But Jesus affirms as the neighbor to the man attacked by bandits the Samaritan who showed him mercy. He was not neighbor to the injured man because of where he lived or who he was but because of what he did. He was kind to the injured man. He did not leave the injured man to die from his wounds. He saw the injured man as a neighbor whom he should love.
The sacred Scripture of the Samaritans was the five books of Moses—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. We can assume that the Samaritan of the parable was acquainted with Leviticus 19:18. He practiced what it taught. He did not abandon the injured Jew out of the longstanding feelings of hate between the Jews and his people. Those listening to Jesus would not have been surprised if he had.
When we take into consideration this parable, the entirety of Leviticus 19:18, and the entirety of Jesus’ teachings, we need to have second thoughts about a lot of the things that we do. They are not the way that someone who is a disciple of Jesus behaves. “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings.” John 8:31 NLT Being faithful means to be firm and unchanging in our belief in what Jesus taught.
Believing in Jesus’ teachings means allowing them to shape our thoughts and actions, letting them make a difference in our lives. It goes beyond thinking about his teachings. It means acting on them and absorbing them so that they become part of our character, of who we are as a person. It means changing how we react in various situations. It means stretching ourselves. It means not allow our angry feelings to fester but letting go of them and forgiving the person who may have triggered them. It means behaving in a kind and pleasant way to someone whom we do not find easy to like, much less love. It means quashing our desire to show our anger or displeasure by not speaking to the person with whom we are unhappy or upset and otherwise making life miserable for them.
Jesus put his finger on it when he said, “If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Matthew 5: 46-48 NLT
The Jews did not consider tax collectors paragons of virtue. They paid to the Romans the taxes assessed to a province or client kingdom for the right to gouge as much money as they could from the people in the province or client kingdom. The Jews did not consider pagans as having as higher moral values as they did.
Jesus tells his disciples and whoever else was listening to him that they are to be different. He does not tell them to be faultless, to make no mistakes. But he does tell them to do the same kind of good to others as God does to us. In that way, he tells them, they will be acting as true children of God. If God is kind, generous, and patient with us, we, as children imitating a parent, are to be kind, generous, and patient with other people.
Remember, loving others does not mean giving them a full body hug, sharing spit, or moving into together. It means treating them with kindness, generosity, forgiveness, patience, and thoughtfulness. It means showing them the love that God shows us.
Silence is kept.
SONG OF PRAISE
Open this link in a new tab to hear Miriam Winter’s “My Soul Gives Glory to My God.”
1. My soul gives glory to my God,
My heart pours out its praise.
God lifted up my lowliness
In many marvelous ways.
2. My God has done great things for me:
Holy is the Name.
All people will declare me blessed,
And blessings they shall claim.
3. From age to age to all who fear,
Such mercy love imparts,
Dispensing justice far and near,
Dismissing selfish hearts.
4. Love casts the mighty from their thrones,
Promotes the insecure,
Leaves hungry spirits satisfied;
The rich seem suddenly poor.
5. Praise God, whose loving covenant
Supports those in distress,
Remembering past promises
With present faithfulness
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
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, whose Son was revealed in majesty before he suffered death upon the cross, give us faith to perceive his glory, that being strengthened by his grace we may be changed into his likeness, from glory to glory; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
RESPONSE
Open this link in a new tab to hear Percy Dearmer’s “God Is Love: His the Care.”
1 God is love: his the care,
tending each, ev’rywhere.
God is love--all is there!
Jesus came to show him,
that mankind might know him.
Sing aloud, loud, loud!
Sing aloud, loud, loud!
God is good! God is truth!
God is beauty! Praise him!
*2 None can see God above;
all have here man to love;
thus may we Godward move,
finding him in others,
holding all men brothers.
Sing aloud, loud, loud!
Sing aloud, loud, loud!
God is good! God is truth!
God is beauty! Praise him!
3 Jesus lived here for men,
strove and died, rose again,
rules our hearts, now as then;
for he came to save us
by the truth he gave us.
Sing aloud, loud, loud!
Sing aloud, loud, loud!
God is good! God is truth!
God is beauty! Praise him!
4 To our Lord praise we sing--
light and life, friend and king,
coming down love to bring,
pattern for our duty,
showing God in beauty.
Sing aloud, loud, loud!
Sing aloud, loud, loud!
God is good! God is truth!
God is beauty! Praise him!
*Omitted in the video.
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.
BLESSING
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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