All Hallows Evening Prayer for Wednesday Evening (March 16, 2022)
One or more candles may be lit.
Bless be God who forgives all our sins
God’s mercy endures forever
EVENING HYMN
Open this link in a new tab to hear Joyous Light of Glorious God from Kent Gustavson’s Mountain Vespers.
Joyous light of glorious God,
heavenly, holy, Jesus Christ,
We have come to the setting of the Sun
and we look to the ev’ning light.
We sing to Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Our voices pure voices together.
O precious God, giver of life,
we sing your praises forever.
Joyous light of glorious God,
heavenly, holy, Jesus Christ,
We have come to the setting of the Sun
and we look to the ev’ning light.
We sing to Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Our voices pure voices together.
O precious God, giver of life,
we sing your praises forever.
PRAYER OF 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 might learn to be your people once more.
In fasting and service
you bring us back to your heart.
You open our eyes to your presence in the world
and you 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.
Open this link in a new tab to hear Psalm 141 from Kent Gustavson's Mountain Vespers.
Let my prayer rise before you as incense,
the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.
O God, I call you; come to me quickly;
Hear my voice when I cry to you.
Let my prayer rise before you as incense,
the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.
Set a watch before my mouth,
and guard the doors of my lips.
Let not my heart incline to any evil thing;
Never occupied in wickedness.
Let my prayer rise before you as incense,
the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.
My eyes are turned to you, O God,
in you I take refuge.
My eyes are turned to you, O God,
Strip me not of my life.
Let my prayer rise before you as incense,
the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.
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.
SCRIPTURE
Romans 12: 1-21 Life in God’s Service
And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
Because of the privilege and authority God has given me, I give each of you this warning: Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us. Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other.
In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.
Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other. Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically. Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying. When God’s people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to practice hospitality.
Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them. Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with each other. Don’t be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people. And don’t think you know it all!
Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable. Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone.
Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say,
“I will take revenge;
I will pay them back,”
says the Lord.
Instead,
“If your enemies are hungry, feed them.
If they are thirsty, give them something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap
burning coals of shame on their heads.”
Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.
May your word live in us
and bear much fruit to your glory
HOMILY
The Penny Drops
Today’s reading, Romans 12: 1-21, was suggested by an article that Andrew Mason wrote about what he described as the “one another” passages of the New Testament. According to Mason, the New Testament has 59 such passages. Several I noted were in the twelfth chapter of Paul’s Letter to the Romans.
The “one another” passages are helpful in understanding not only the particularities of the Christian faith and way of life but also the importance of the Christian community, the local church, to that faith and way of life. Christians do not normally practice their faith and way of life in isolation from other Christians but as a part of a community of believers, their children, their grandchildren, and adults and young people exploring the Christian faith and way of life.
This reading can be broken down into five parts, each meriting a homily of its own explaining what it means and how applies to the lives of Christians and those exploring the Christian faith and way of life. In today’s homily I will be looking at verses 1 and 2. It is the first in a five-part homily series on Romans 12
“And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”
The kind of sacrifice that the apostle Paul is asking the members of the church at Rome to make is to give up living the way that their fellow Romans live, in response to what God has done for them, opening to them the way to salvation through faith in Jesus. God has opened this way to salvation not just to the Jews but to all people.
The Romans had a set of values that in some respects are similar to the values of our own culture. Their values in other respects differ from those of our own culture.
Roman culture tolerated a degree of licentiousness, sexual behavior that was not considered moral by the standards of the Hebrew Bible, and which from the accounts of Paul’s Roman contemporaries as well as Paul’s own letters appeared to characterize Roman society as whole.
What kind of sexual behavior in which an individual might engage depended upon their status in Roman society, their gender, and Roman notions of masculinity. While it was permissible for a high status Roman male who fit Roman notions of masculinity to engage in sexual activities of all kinds with adults, men and women, and children, boys and girls, without any loss of respect, a wife was expected to remain faithful to her husband. On the other hand, men who did not meet Roman notions of masculinity and who engaged in sexual activities with other men were viewed with contempt and ill-treated. Slaves who were considered property were made to take part in sexual activities at the whim of their master. Brothels and prostitution, male and female, were social institutions. Infanticide was the most common form of birth control. Unwanted babies were exposed.
In pleading with the members of the church at Rome to offer their bodies as “a living and holy sacrifice” to God, he is begging them not to live by the moral standards of their fellow Romans. I should also mention that the Romans also practiced temple prostitution. It was believed that sex with a temple prostitute was an act of worship of the god or goddess with whose temple the temple prostitute was connected. Paul is telling the Roman Christians that in abstaining from this practice and other practices tolerated in Roman society, they are truly honoring God.
Rather than copy the behavior and customs of their fellow Romans, Paul urges them to let God transform them into a new person by changing the way they think. If they do that, they will acquire knowledge of what is God’s will for them.
Paul clearly recognizes the relationship between our thoughts and our behavior. How we think affects how we behave. When we begin to think differently, we begin to behave differently. We will in effect become a new person over time.
It is easy when unpacking this passage to focus on sexuality to the neglect of the attitudes and beliefs that underlay the behavior and customs of the Romans. What gets overlooked or ignored is the Roman attitude toward self-gratification, often at the expense of someone else, and the low value that the Romans placed on human life, dignity, and worth. The Romans were not only known for their orgies, but they also were also known for their bloodlust and their inhumane treatment of their fellow human beings. They flocked to the arenas to see their fellow human beings tortured and killed. They used one of the cruelest forms of punishment—crucifixion—to execute common criminals.
The Romans may have been formidable military opponents and skilled engineers and they may sometimes be described in literature as noble; they, however, had a vicious streak. Their conquered foes were dragged in chains through the streets of Rome to the jeers of the populace before they were put to death in a most unpleasant manner. After the Romans defeated the Carthaginians, they sowed the fields around the conquered city with salt so that they could not be used to feed any survivors. Pontius Pilate who ordered the crucifixion of our Lord earned the displeasure of the Roman Emperor Caligula and was forced to die at his own hand.
It is a mistake to view the ancient Romans as an enlightened, sexually-liberated nation.
When Paul tells the members of the church at Rome to give up their bodies, in response to what God has done for them, the context which I have just described needs to be kept in mind. Offering their bodies as “a living and holy sacrifice” to God entailed more than not going to an orgy at a friend’s house or not visiting your favorite temple prostitute. It meant living all of their life, not just a part of it, in a God-honoring way, in a way that showed that they were truly disciples of Jesus, following his teachings and example in every way.
Jesus treated everyone as having worth no matter who they were or what their station in life was. He showed compassion and love toward them.
Seeing other people as sex objects and using them solely for our self-gratification is not an attitude that has a place in Jesus’ teachings and example.
What Jesus emphasizes as important in the life of a disciple is loving God and loving others and exhibiting the same kind of kindness and forgiveness toward our fellow human beings as God shows toward us. He emphasizes fidelity in our friendships and relationships.
What we learn from this passage is that we should not compartmentalize our lives. Rather than separating our spiritual life from the other parts of our lives and not letting it mix with these other parts, we should integrate into the rest of our life. We should maintain the same attitudes and beliefs and behave in the same fashion at church and in our daily life.
We also learn that God transforms us through our thought processes. While God can influence these processes directly through the Holy Spirit, he also influences them through the Bible, sermons, homilies, Christian literature, conversations with Christians and non-Christians, and even everyday happenings in our lives.
There is an inference that we are much more than our sexuality—our ability to experience or express sexual feelings—despite the emphasis our culture may place on sexuality.
The knowledge of God’s will for us, which we acquire when God transforms us into a new person is knowledge of his revealed will, of what he has made known to us in Scripture as seen through the lens of Jesus’ teaching and example. It is not a special, personal revelation to us, something that is not made known to anyone else. We are not given a brief glimpse into God’s hidden will. Rather the penny drops, to use a British informal expression, an allusion to the old-fashioned coin-operated machines found on seaside amusement piers. They began operating when the penny put into the machine dropped into the coin receptacle. We finally understand God’s will for us after not understanding it for a time.
SONG OF PRAISE
Open this link in a new tab to hear the Magnificat from Kent Gustavson’s Mountain Vespers.
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.
My spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
For you have looked with favor on your lowly servant;
from this day all generations will call me blessed.
1 You O God have done great things
and holy is your name.
You have mercy on those who fear you
n ev’ry generation.
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.
My spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
For you have looked with favor on your lowly servant;
from this day all generations will call me blessed.
2 You have shown the strength of your arm,
you have scattered the proud in their conceit.
You have cast the might down from thrones
and have lifted up the lowly.
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.
My spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
For you have looked with favor on your lowly servant;
from this day all generations will call me blessed.
3 You have filled the hungry with good things,
the rich you have sent away empty.
You have come to the help of your servant Israel
you’ve remembered your promise of mercy.
The promise you made
to Sarah and Abraham.
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.
My spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
For you have looked with favor on your lowly servant;
from this day all generations will call me blessed.
Glory to you, O Lord our God
With your love and power.
Glory to you, O Lord our God
With your love and power.
Amen
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
With confidence and trust let us pray to the Lord, saying, “Lord, have mercy.”
For the one holy catholic and apostolic Church throughout the world, we pray to you, Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
For the mission of the Church, that in faithful witness it may preach the gospel to the ends of the earth, we pray to you, Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
For those preparing for baptism and for their teachers and sponsors, we pray to you, Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
For peace in the world, that a spirit of respect and reconciliation may grow among nations and peoples, we pray to you, Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
For the poor, the persecuted, the sick, and all who suffer; for refugees, prisoners, and all in danger; that they may be relieved and protected, we pray to you, Lord.
Lord, have mercy
For all whom we have injured or offended, we pray to you, Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
For grace to amend our lives and to further the reign of God, we pray to you, Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
Free Prayer
In silent or spontaneous prayer all bring before God the concerns of the day.
The Collect
God of patience and humility, in your love you gave your Son to be rejected and raised up on a cross. Gather us under its shadow and open our eyes to its mystery, that we may share even now in the life that is from above; through Jesus Christ our Lord, 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 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 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.
SOLEMN PRAYER OVER THE PEOPLE
Look with compassion, O Lord,
upon this your people;
that rightly observing this holy season
they may learn to know you more fully,
and to serve you with a more perfect will;
through Christ our Lord. Amen.
In pleading with the members of the church at Rome to offer their bodies as “a living and holy sacrifice” to God, he is begging them not to live by the moral standards of their fellow Romans. I should also mention that the Romans also practiced temple prostitution. It was believed that sex with a temple prostitute was an act of worship of the god or goddess with whose temple the temple prostitute was connected. Paul is telling the Roman Christians that in abstaining from this practice and other practices tolerated in Roman society, they are truly honoring God.
Rather than copy the behavior and customs of their fellow Romans, Paul urges them to let God transform them into a new person by changing the way they think. If they do that, they will acquire knowledge of what is God’s will for them.
Paul clearly recognizes the relationship between our thoughts and our behavior. How we think affects how we behave. When we begin to think differently, we begin to behave differently. We will in effect become a new person over time.
It is easy when unpacking this passage to focus on sexuality to the neglect of the attitudes and beliefs that underlay the behavior and customs of the Romans. What gets overlooked or ignored is the Roman attitude toward self-gratification, often at the expense of someone else, and the low value that the Romans placed on human life, dignity, and worth. The Romans were not only known for their orgies, but they also were also known for their bloodlust and their inhumane treatment of their fellow human beings. They flocked to the arenas to see their fellow human beings tortured and killed. They used one of the cruelest forms of punishment—crucifixion—to execute common criminals.
The Romans may have been formidable military opponents and skilled engineers and they may sometimes be described in literature as noble; they, however, had a vicious streak. Their conquered foes were dragged in chains through the streets of Rome to the jeers of the populace before they were put to death in a most unpleasant manner. After the Romans defeated the Carthaginians, they sowed the fields around the conquered city with salt so that they could not be used to feed any survivors. Pontius Pilate who ordered the crucifixion of our Lord earned the displeasure of the Roman Emperor Caligula and was forced to die at his own hand.
It is a mistake to view the ancient Romans as an enlightened, sexually-liberated nation.
When Paul tells the members of the church at Rome to give up their bodies, in response to what God has done for them, the context which I have just described needs to be kept in mind. Offering their bodies as “a living and holy sacrifice” to God entailed more than not going to an orgy at a friend’s house or not visiting your favorite temple prostitute. It meant living all of their life, not just a part of it, in a God-honoring way, in a way that showed that they were truly disciples of Jesus, following his teachings and example in every way.
Jesus treated everyone as having worth no matter who they were or what their station in life was. He showed compassion and love toward them.
Seeing other people as sex objects and using them solely for our self-gratification is not an attitude that has a place in Jesus’ teachings and example.
What Jesus emphasizes as important in the life of a disciple is loving God and loving others and exhibiting the same kind of kindness and forgiveness toward our fellow human beings as God shows toward us. He emphasizes fidelity in our friendships and relationships.
What we learn from this passage is that we should not compartmentalize our lives. Rather than separating our spiritual life from the other parts of our lives and not letting it mix with these other parts, we should integrate into the rest of our life. We should maintain the same attitudes and beliefs and behave in the same fashion at church and in our daily life.
We also learn that God transforms us through our thought processes. While God can influence these processes directly through the Holy Spirit, he also influences them through the Bible, sermons, homilies, Christian literature, conversations with Christians and non-Christians, and even everyday happenings in our lives.
There is an inference that we are much more than our sexuality—our ability to experience or express sexual feelings—despite the emphasis our culture may place on sexuality.
The knowledge of God’s will for us, which we acquire when God transforms us into a new person is knowledge of his revealed will, of what he has made known to us in Scripture as seen through the lens of Jesus’ teaching and example. It is not a special, personal revelation to us, something that is not made known to anyone else. We are not given a brief glimpse into God’s hidden will. Rather the penny drops, to use a British informal expression, an allusion to the old-fashioned coin-operated machines found on seaside amusement piers. They began operating when the penny put into the machine dropped into the coin receptacle. We finally understand God’s will for us after not understanding it for a time.
SONG OF PRAISE
Open this link in a new tab to hear the Magnificat from Kent Gustavson’s Mountain Vespers.
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.
My spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
For you have looked with favor on your lowly servant;
from this day all generations will call me blessed.
1 You O God have done great things
and holy is your name.
You have mercy on those who fear you
n ev’ry generation.
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.
My spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
For you have looked with favor on your lowly servant;
from this day all generations will call me blessed.
2 You have shown the strength of your arm,
you have scattered the proud in their conceit.
You have cast the might down from thrones
and have lifted up the lowly.
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.
My spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
For you have looked with favor on your lowly servant;
from this day all generations will call me blessed.
3 You have filled the hungry with good things,
the rich you have sent away empty.
You have come to the help of your servant Israel
you’ve remembered your promise of mercy.
The promise you made
to Sarah and Abraham.
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.
My spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
For you have looked with favor on your lowly servant;
from this day all generations will call me blessed.
Glory to you, O Lord our God
With your love and power.
Glory to you, O Lord our God
With your love and power.
Amen
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
With confidence and trust let us pray to the Lord, saying, “Lord, have mercy.”
For the one holy catholic and apostolic Church throughout the world, we pray to you, Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
For the mission of the Church, that in faithful witness it may preach the gospel to the ends of the earth, we pray to you, Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
For those preparing for baptism and for their teachers and sponsors, we pray to you, Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
For peace in the world, that a spirit of respect and reconciliation may grow among nations and peoples, we pray to you, Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
For the poor, the persecuted, the sick, and all who suffer; for refugees, prisoners, and all in danger; that they may be relieved and protected, we pray to you, Lord.
Lord, have mercy
For all whom we have injured or offended, we pray to you, Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
For grace to amend our lives and to further the reign of God, we pray to you, Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
Free Prayer
In silent or spontaneous prayer all bring before God the concerns of the day.
The Collect
God of patience and humility, in your love you gave your Son to be rejected and raised up on a cross. Gather us under its shadow and open our eyes to its mystery, that we may share even now in the life that is from above; through Jesus Christ our Lord, 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 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 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.
SOLEMN PRAYER OVER THE PEOPLE
Look with compassion, O Lord,
upon this your people;
that rightly observing this holy season
they may learn to know you more fully,
and to serve you with a more perfect will;
through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Comments
Post a Comment