All Hallows Evening Prayer for Wednesday Evening (May 4, 2022)
One or more candles may be lit.
Christ is risen!!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!!
EVENING HYMN
Open this link in a new tab to hear John L. Bell and Graham Maule’s “Jesus Calls Us Here to Meet Him.”
Jesus calls us here to meet him
as, through word and song and prayer,
we affirm God‘s promised presence
where his people live and care.
Praise the God who keeps his promise;
praise the Son who calls us friends;
praise the Spirit who, among us,
to our hopes and fears attends.
Jesus calls us to confess him
Word of Life and Lord of All,
sharer of our flesh and frailness
saving all who fail or fall.
Tell his holy human story;
tell his tales that all may hear;
tell the world that Christ in glory
came to earth to meet us here.
Jesus calls us to each other,
vastly different though we are;
creed and colour, class and gender
Neither limit nor debar.
Join the hand of friend and stranger;
join the hands of age and youth;
join the faithful and the doubter
in their common search for truth.
Jesus calls us to his table
rooted firm in time and space,
where the Church in earth and heaven
finds a common meeting place.
Share the bread and wine, his body;
share the love of which we sing;
share the feast for saints and sinners
hosted by our Lord and King.
PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give our thanks and praise.
We praise and thank you, O God our Father,
through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Through him you have enlightened us
by revealing the light that never fades,
for dark death has been destroyed
and radiant life is everywhere restored.
What was promised is fulfilled:
we have been joined to God,
through renewed life in the Spirit of the risen Lord.
Glory and praise to you, our Father,
through Jesus your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Spirit,
in the kingdom of light eternal,
for ever and ever. Amen.
HYMN OF THE DAY
Open this link in a new tab to hear Alan Dale and Hubert Richard’s “God Spirit Is in My Heart.”
God's Spirit is in my heart,
He has called me and set me apart.
This is what I have to do,
what I have to do.
He sent me to give the Good News to the poor,
Tell prisoners that they are prisoners no more,
Tell blind people that they can see,
And set the downtrodden free
And go tell everyone the news that the Kingdom of God has come,
And go tell everyone the news that the Kingdom of God has come.
Just as the Father sent me,
So I'm sending you out to be
My witnesses throughout the world,
The whole of the world.
He sent me to give the Good News to the poor,
Tell prisoners that they are prisoners no more,
Tell blind people that they can see,
And set the downtrodden free
And go tell everyone the news that the Kingdom of God has come,
And go tell everyone the news that the Kingdom of God has come.
Don’t carry a load in your pack;
You don’t need two shirts on your back’
God’s workers can earn their own keep—
Can earn their own keep
He sent me to give the Good News to the poor,
Tell prisoners that they are prisoners no more,
Tell blind people that they can see,
And set the downtrodden free
And go tell everyone the news that the Kingdom of God has come,
And go tell everyone the news that the Kingdom of God has come.
Don't worry what you have to say,
Don't worry because on that day
God's Spirit will speak in your heart,
Will speak in your heart.
He sent me to give the Good News to the poor,
Tell prisoners that they are prisoners no more,
Tell blind people that they can see,
And set the downtrodden free
And go tell everyone the news that the Kingdom of God has come,
And go tell everyone the news that the Kingdom of God has come.
SCRIPTURE
1 Peter 3: 8-12 All Christians
Finally, all of you should be of one mind. Sympathize with each other. Love each other as brothers and sisters. Be tenderhearted, and keep a humble attitude. Don’t repay evil for evil. Don’t retaliate with insults when people insult you. Instead, pay them back with a blessing. That is what God has called you to do, and he will grant you his blessing. For the Scriptures say,
“If you want to enjoy life
and see many happy days,
keep your tongue from speaking evil
and your lips from telling lies.
Turn away from evil and do good.
Search for peace, and work to maintain it.
The eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right,
and his ears are open to their prayers.
But the Lord turns his face
against those who do evil.”
Silence is kept.
May your word live in us
and bear much fruit to your glory
HOMILY
A Lesson in Grace
How many of us can truly say that we are in total agreement with others about anything? If we are honest with ourselves, we find fault with what each other thinks and says. We may agree on some things but not on others. We bicker and quarrel with each other.
We show each other little if any care and understanding about each other’s problems. We are preoccupied with ourselves. We give all our attention to our own feelings and none to others.
As for loving each other as brothers and sisters, we act more like quarrelsome siblings, intent upon putting the other in what we believe in their rightful place.
Tender-hearted?! Unkind, cruel, and unfeeling is more like it!!
Humble?! You must be joking!! Aren’t we better and more important than them!! They are scum!! They should be blotted from the face of the earth!!
If they have audacity to attack us even in the smallest way, we hit them back twice as hard. First a left jab and then a hard blow with our right fist. Catch them off guard and knock them down. When they are down, kick them so that they stay down.
Return good for evil? What nonsense!! That’s for sissies, for those who are weak and cowardly.
Hit them where it hurts the most!! Make them suffer!! Grovel!! Show them how small and unimportant they are and how powerful we are!!
Wait a minute. Are we reading the same passage, 1 Peter 3:8-12?
My point is that human beings in their natural state, in their own strength, cannot do what Peter urges the readers of his first letter and ourselves to do. We may like to believe that we are capable of acting that way on our own. We might like to believe that we have some hidden store of good that we can use when we need it, but we are deceiving ourselves. We have only to look around us and we will see that even the best of us, the most respectable of us, are capable of doing harm to others and of doing bad, cruel, and very unpleasant things to others.
The truth is that we cannot do anything good apart from God.
You may disagree. In that case take a good look at the news on BBC or some other media website. A brutal war in Ukraine. The use of vacuum bombs and flechette shells. The indiscriminate killing of civilians. The throwing away of the lives of young Russian soldiers to fulfill the territorial aspirations of Russia’s top leader. The rape of women. The torture and execution of non-combatants. The mass graves. Families hiding in cellars. Children drinking rainwater from puddles. A man on trial for murdering his former partner’s two-year-old son to get back at her. A woman murdered by her husband and her body dumped in a wood. A man who set fire to his ex. Young women afraid to go out because their drinks had been spiked when they were out with friends. The sexual assaults. The stabbings.
In our natural state we are incapable of doing good on our own. As John Wesley recognized in the eighteenth century, humanity is depraved. While we were created in God’s image and to certain extent retain God’s image, that image is marred by sin, our inclination to harm others and to do evil. What good we do is the result of God’s influence in our lives, God’s grace working in us to will and do what pleases God.
To take full advantage of God’s grace, which God supplies abundantly, we must open our hearts and minds to that grace. The first step is to believe in Jesus.
God enables us to do just that—to put our trust in Jesus and in doing so be restored to a right relationship with God. We experience a spiritual rebirth and the reorientation of our lives to God. Faith in Jesus and this spiritual rebirth may be described as the flip sides of the same coin. They are so closely tied to each other that they may be described as occurring simultaneously.
It does not, however, end there. Coming to a living faith in Jesus is the beginning of a journey that will last our lifetime. During that time God with his sanctifying, purifying grace will transform us more and more into the likeness of Jesus. We will grow not only in our love of God but in those qualities of character which the apostle Paul describes as the “fruit of the Spirit.” We will be able to live in the way that Jesus taught his disciples to live and to do what Peter urges us to do in today’s reading.
In today’s reading Peter quotes a passage from Psalm 34. The more God’s grace transforms us, the more we will be able to keep from speaking evil and telling lies, to turn away from evil and to do good, to search for peace and to work to maintain it. Our prayers will reflect God’s will and not our own selfish desires.
This, however, is not going to happen if we passively wait for God to spur us to action. While God may occasionally give someone a boot in the posterior, it is not the usual way that God operates.
God works with us when we will to do what he would have us do. Willing to do something is more than desiring and determining to do it. It goes beyond thinking about doing it. It involves taking those thoughts and turning them into words and actions.
God will provide us with an impetus to encourage a particular action or to make it more energetic or effective. The initial impetus may take the form of a particular thought which, when it is acted upon, results in actions to which God gives further impetus.
When my oldest grandnephew was a little boy, I used to push him about in a Playskool car. I would ask him if he wanted to go riding his car. He would climb into the car, and I would give it a push. If I did not keep pushing it, the car would have rolled to a stop. I would keep pushing the car until I was too tired to push the car anymore.
God’s grace is roughly analogous to my offer to push my grandnephew in his car, his acceptance of the offer, and then me pushing him around. God, however, does not grow tired like I did.
Now my grandnephew loved to ride in his car with me pushing him. I was the only adult who would push him around in that car. Otherwise, he had to push himself, using his feet, and he did not get very far when he pushed it with his feet. Whe I pushed the car, he not only got to engage in a favorite activity, but he also got a lot of attention from a granduncle.
I did not have to push him around in the car. I could have left him to struggle along the best he could. But I pushed him around out of the kindness of my heart. God does not have to help us, but he does out of the kindness of his heart. When I think about it, God may have been the one who prompted me to push my grandnephew around in his car, teaching both of us a lesson in grace.
Silence is kept.
SONG OF PRAISE
Open this link in a new tab to hear Rory Cooney’s adaptation of the Magnificat, “My Soul Cries Out with a Joyful Shout.”
1 My soul cries out with a joyful shout
that the God of my heart is great,
and my spirit sings of the wondrous things
that you bring to the ones who wait.
You fixed your sight on your servant’s plight,
and my weakness you did not spurn,
so from east to west shall my name be blest.
Could the world be about to turn?
My heart shall sing of the day you bring.
Let the fires of your justice burn.
Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near,
and the world is about to turn.
2 Though I am small, my God, my all,
you work great things in me,
and your mercy will last from the depths of the past
to the end of the age to be.
Your very name puts the proud to shame,
and to those who would for you yearn,
you will show your might, put the strong to flight,
for the world is about to turn.
My heart shall sing of the day you bring.
Let the fires of your justice burn.
Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near,
and the world is about to turn.
3 From the halls of pow’r to the fortress tow’r,
not a stone will be left on stone.
Let the king beware for your justice tears
ev’ry tyrant from his throne.
The hungry poor shall weep no more,
for the food they can never earn;
there are tables spread, ev’ry mouth be fed,
for the world is about to turn.
My heart shall sing of the day you bring.
Let the fires of your justice burn.
Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near,
and the world is about to turn.
4 Though the nations rage from age to age,
we remember who holds us fast:
God’s mercy must deliver us
from the conqueror’s crushing grasp.
This saving word that our forebears heard
is the promise which holds us bound,
till the spear and rod can be crushed by God,
who is turning the world around.
My heart shall sing of the day you bring.
Let the fires of your justice burn.
Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near,
and the world is about to turn.
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
Periods of silence may be kept.
Heavenly Father,
you have promised to hear when we pray
in the name of your Son.
Therefore in confidence and trust
we pray for the Church:
(Particular intercessions/thanksgivings may be offered.)
Father, enliven the Church for its mission
that we may be salt of the earth and light to the world.
Breathe fresh life into your people.
Give us power to reveal Christ in word and action.
We pray for the world:
(Particular intercessions/thanksgivings may be offered.)
Creator of all,
lead us and every people into ways of justice and peace.
That we may respect one another in freedom and truth.
Awaken in us a sense of wonder for the earth and all that is in it.
Teach us to care creatively for its resources.
We pray for the community:
(Particular intercessions/thanksgivings may be offered.)
God of truth, inspire with your wisdom
those whose decisions affect the lives of others
that all may act with integrity and courage.
Give grace to all whose lives are linked with ours.
May we serve Christ in one another, and love as he loves us.
We pray for those in need:
(Particular intercessions/thanksgivings may be offered.)
God of hope, comfort and restore
all who suffer in body, mind or spirit.
May they know the power of your healing love.
Make us willing agents of your compassion.
Strengthen us as we share in making people whole.
We remember those who have died and those who mourn:
(Particular intercessions/thanksgivings may be offered.)
We remember with thanksgiving those who have died in the faith
of Christ, and those whose faith is known to you alone.
Father, into your hands we commend them.
Give comfort to those who mourn.
Bring them peace in their time of loss.
We praise you for (N and) all your saints
who have entered your eternal glory.
May their example inspire and encourage us.
We pray for ourselves and our ministries:
(Particular intercessions/thanksgivings may be offered and the prayers
conclude with the following.)
Lord, you have called us to serve you.
Grant that we may walk in your presence:
your love in our hearts,
your truth in our minds,
your strength in our wills;
until, at the end of our journey,
we know the joy of our homecoming
and the welcome of your embrace,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Collect
O God,
your Son made himself known to his disciples
in the breaking of bread.
Open the eyes of our faith,
that we may see him in his redeeming work,
who is alive 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 and Graham Maule’s “Take This Moment, Sign and Space”
1 Take this moment, sign and space;
Take my friends around;
Here among us make the place
Where your love is found.
2 Take the time to call my name,
Take the time to mend
Who I am and what I've been,
All I've failed to tend.
3 Take the tiredness of my days,
Take my past regret,
Letting your forgiveness touch
All I can't forget
4 Take the little child in me
Scared of growing old;
Help me here to find my worth
Made in God's own mould.
5 Take my talents, take my skills,
Take what's yet to be;
Let my life be yours, and yet
Let it still be me.
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 Christ who out of defeat brings new hope and new alternatives, bring us new life
and the blessing of God our Creator, Redeemer and Giver of life be with us always. Amen.
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