All Hallows Evening Prayer for Saturday Evening (July 16, 2022)
PROCLAMATION OF THE LIGHT
One or more candles may be lit. In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be your strength. Isaiah 30:16
EVENING HYMN
Open this link in a new tab to hear the Liturgical Folk’s setting of the Phos hilaron, “O Gracious Light.”
O gracious Light, pure brightness of the everliving Father in heaven,
O Jesus Christ, holy and blessed!
O gracious Light,
pure brightness of the everliving Father in heaven,
O Jesus Christ, holy and blessed!
Now as we come to the setting of the sun,
and our eyes behold the vesper light,
we sing thy praises, O God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Thou art worthy at all times to be praised by happy voices,
O Son of God, O Giver of life,
thou art worthy at all times to be praised by happy voices,
O Son of God, O Giver of life,
and to be glorified through all the worlds.
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, ruler of the universe!
Your word brings on the dusk of evening,
your wisdom creates both night and day.
You determine the cycles of time,
arrange the succession of seasons,
and establish the stars in their heavenly courses.
Lord of the starry hosts is your name.
Living and eternal God, rule over us always.
Blessed be the Lord, whose word makes evening fall.
Amen.
HYMN OF THE DAY
Open this link to hear Margaret Old’s “Spirit of God, Unseen as the Wind.”
Spirit of God, unseen as the wind,
gentle as is the dove;
teach us the truth and help us believe,
show us the Saviour's love!
You spoke to us long, long ago,
gave us the written word;
we read it still, needing its truth
through it God's voice is heard.
Spirit of God, unseen as the wind,
gentle as is the dove;
teach us the truth and help us believe,
show us the Saviour's love!
Without your help we fail our Lord,
we cannot live His way;
we need Your power, we need Your strength,
following Christ each day.
Spirit of God, unseen as the wind,
gentle as is the dove;
teach us the truth and help us believe,
show us the Saviour's love!
SCRIPTURE
Amos 8: 1-12 A Vision of Ripe Fruit
Then the Sovereign Lord showed me another vision. In it I saw a basket filled with ripe fruit. “What do you see, Amos?” he asked.
I replied, “A basket full of ripe fruit.”
Then the Lord said, “Like this fruit, Israel is ripe for punishment! I will not delay their punishment again. In that day the singing in the temple will turn to wailing. Dead bodies will be scattered everywhere. They will be carried out of the city in silence. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken!”
Listen to this, you who rob the poor
and trample down the needy!
You can’t wait for the Sabbath day to be over
and the religious festivals to end
so you can get back to cheating the helpless.
You measure out grain with dishonest measures
and cheat the buyer with dishonest scales.
And you mix the grain you sell
with chaff swept from the floor.
Then you enslave poor people
for one piece of silver or a pair of sandals.
Now the Lord has sworn this oath
by his own name, the Pride of Israel:
“I will never forget
the wicked things you have done!
The earth will tremble for your deeds,
and everyone will mourn.
The ground will rise like the Nile River at flood time;
it will heave up, then sink again.
“In that day,” says the Sovereign Lord,
“I will make the sun go down at noon
and darken the earth while it is still day.
I will turn your celebrations into times of mourning
and your singing into weeping.
You will wear funeral clothes
and shave your heads to show your sorrow—
as if your only son had died.
How very bitter that day will be!
“The time is surely coming,” says the Sovereign Lord,
“when I will send a famine on the land—
not a famine of bread or water
but of hearing the words of the Lord.
People will stagger from sea to sea
and wander from border to border
searching for the word of the Lord,
but they will not find it.
Silence
May your word live in us
and bear much fruit to your glory
HOMILY
A Famine in the Midst of Plenty
A famine of hearing the words of the Lord!! In today’s reading—Amos 8: 1-12—God warns Israel that the time is coming when he will send such a famine on the land. But the people of Israel did not heed God’s warning. They did not change their evil ways.
The northern kingdom—the kingdom of Isarael would be conquered by the Assyrians. Those who the Assyrians did not kill were deported and resettled in other parts of the Assyrian Empire. Only a remnant of Israel’s people was left to till the soil and the Assyrians resettled people from another part of their empire in Israel. These two groups of people would intermarry and become the Samaritans, a people whom the Jews of the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry despised and hated.
Where the Assyrians resettled the people of Israel in their empire, we do not know. They would come to be known as the ten lost tribes of Israel. Wherever they were resettled, they would no longer hear God speaking through his prophets. They would be assimilated into the people living in that part of the Assyrian Empire, adopting their religion and their way of life. Wherever they were resettled, they would no longer have the Torah, the books of the Hebrew Bible, which had been compiled by the time of their deportation and resettlement. They would no longer have the written Word of God. They would indeed have a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.
The southern kingdom, the Kingdom of Judea, did not fare much better. Its people would eventually be conquered by the Babylonians and taken into exile. They too would suffer a famine of hearing the words of the Lord. After the death of Malachi God sent no more prophets to the people of Judea, prophets through whom he spoke.
God stopped sending prophets to relay his words to the people of Israel and the people of Judea because they refused to pay attention to his words. They persisted in doing the evil things that God warned them against doing.
As read in the passage from the Book of Amos from the Old Testament in the Bible, from the collection of books known as the Prophets, the people of Israel were going through the motions of honoring God. They observed the Sabbath and kept the religious festivals, but their hearts were elsewhere.
Like the Pharisees of the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry, who were punctilious in their observation of their religious duties, giving attention to the smallest detail, they showed no compassion and mercy to other people. They were unkind in their treatment of the poor and the needy. They cheated those over whom they had complete power. They used scales to weigh what others were purchasing from them, which made the purchase appear heavier than it was. They trimmed silver from the coins with which they used as payment for their own purchases so they weighed less than they should have. They adulterated the grain which they sold. They enslaved people for small debts. They were constantly violating the laws which God had given them in regard to how they should treat those less fortunate than themselves.
God, however, would keep his promise to send a Messiah to the Jews. This Messiah was not what they were expecting. They were expecting a king, a military leader like King David, who would lead them into battle and drive the Romans and other unwanted foreigners from their land. Instead, God himself came to them in the person of the Son, Jesus of Nazareth, an itinerant preacher, healer, and miracle worker.
Jesus would receive a hostile reception from the Jewish religious authorities and Judaism’s religious parties. They would conspire to kill him and secured his execution as a common criminal by the Romans. Three days later as the Jews of the time understood days, Jesus would rise from the dead to be seen by numerous witnesses.
God would reveal that Jesus had been sent not just to the Jews but to all the nations of the world, to all its different people groups. Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross put things right between God and the entire human race. Samaritans and Gentiles, non-Jews, who believed in Jesus would know God’s salvation, as well as Jews. Their sins would be forgiven, and they would be restored to a right relationship with God.
In Jesus’ earthly ministry God would end the famine of hearing the words of the Lord. As Jesus pointed to the attention of those who gathered to hear him, his words were not his own but the words that God had given him. He was fulfilling the Old Testament prophesy that God himself would come and teach his people, making them his disciples.
We live in a time when many people who identify themselves as Christians, while they attend Sunday school and church on Sundays and listen to popular contemporary Christian and praise and worship music every day do not act like disciples of Jesus during the week. They do not live their lives according to Jesus’ teaching and example. Their lives do not evidence the kind of fruit that the Holy Spirit produces in the life of a true Jesus follower— “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5: 22-23 NLT). Indeed, their lives outside of a few hours on Sunday are largely indistinguishable from that of their neighbors who do not identify themselves as Christians.
While it is tempting to look outside of the church and find fault with the way that non-Christians live— to focus our attention on what we view as other people’s failings while ignoring our own, Jesus taught his disciples that we should first remove the log from our own eye before offering our help in removing a splinter from someone else’s eye. A number of recent surveys show that most self-identified Christians have at best only a passing acquaintance with the Bible. They are not as familiar with Jesus’ teaching and his life as they might ought to be as his disciples. These surveys also show that they entertain many unbiblical ideas about Jesus, salvation, and other important matters. In local churches one may hear politics preached from the pulpit on Sundays or self-improvement but not the good news of Jesus Christ, his person, his mission, his teaching and his life, and his character, the kinds of things that a non-believer need to hear to become a believer, or a Jesus follower need to hear to grow and mature as a disciple.
Could it be that we may be in the midst of a famine of hearing God’s words? We may be at the beginning of such a famine here in the United States despite the availability of Bibles in various forms, the podcasts and videos on the internet, and the like— a famine in the midst of plenty. It is a thought that we might wish to consider.
In Jesus’ earthly ministry God would end the famine of hearing the words of the Lord. As Jesus pointed to the attention of those who gathered to hear him, his words were not his own but the words that God had given him. He was fulfilling the Old Testament prophesy that God himself would come and teach his people, making them his disciples.
We live in a time when many people who identify themselves as Christians, while they attend Sunday school and church on Sundays and listen to popular contemporary Christian and praise and worship music every day do not act like disciples of Jesus during the week. They do not live their lives according to Jesus’ teaching and example. Their lives do not evidence the kind of fruit that the Holy Spirit produces in the life of a true Jesus follower— “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5: 22-23 NLT). Indeed, their lives outside of a few hours on Sunday are largely indistinguishable from that of their neighbors who do not identify themselves as Christians.
While it is tempting to look outside of the church and find fault with the way that non-Christians live— to focus our attention on what we view as other people’s failings while ignoring our own, Jesus taught his disciples that we should first remove the log from our own eye before offering our help in removing a splinter from someone else’s eye. A number of recent surveys show that most self-identified Christians have at best only a passing acquaintance with the Bible. They are not as familiar with Jesus’ teaching and his life as they might ought to be as his disciples. These surveys also show that they entertain many unbiblical ideas about Jesus, salvation, and other important matters. In local churches one may hear politics preached from the pulpit on Sundays or self-improvement but not the good news of Jesus Christ, his person, his mission, his teaching and his life, and his character, the kinds of things that a non-believer need to hear to become a believer, or a Jesus follower need to hear to grow and mature as a disciple.
Could it be that we may be in the midst of a famine of hearing God’s words? We may be at the beginning of such a famine here in the United States despite the availability of Bibles in various forms, the podcasts and videos on the internet, and the like— a famine in the midst of plenty. It is a thought that we might wish to consider.
This famine, however, may not be God’s doing but our own. We are prone to self-deception, temptation, and distraction. When we might be devoting time to studying Jesus’ teaching and his life and applying what we learn to our own, we are doing other things. If we genuinely love Jesus, we will seek to emulate him, to follow his teaching and example.
God came into the human story in the person of Jesus not only to reconcile humanity to himself but also to teach us how we can live our lives in a way that is pleasing to him. While we cannot save ourselves by living our lives that way, we can show our gratitude and thankfulness to God for doing what we cannot do ourselves, making things right between himself and us, by living that way. Since living that way is not something that we can do in our own strength, God works in us, giving us the will and the power to do so. Indeed, everything is a gift from God, even our faith for it is God who enables us to believe. God showed us his goodwill and favor, goodwill and favor which we do not deserve and which we cannot earn, what theologians call “grace,” when he sent Jesus. It is the result of the same goodwill and favor toward us that we are able to have in faith in Jesus and by that faith be put right with God. On our part we need to open our hearts and minds to the grace that God shows us and make use of it. God even helps us there.
One of the ways that God supplies us with grace, or put another way, exercises his divine influence in us, is through the reading and study of Scripture. For the disciple of Jesus reading and studying what the New Testament tells us about Jesus, his person, his mission, his teaching and his life, and his character is an important channel of grace to us, an important means by which God molds us and fashions us into the image of his Son. It is not something to neglect.
To hold each other accountable and to encourage and support each other, it is a good idea for Christians to meet weekly in a small group of no more than seven people to share with each other how they are progressing in living the life of a disciple of Jesus. As well as holding each other accountable and encouraging and supporting each other, they can pray for each other. Prayer itself is an important channel of God’s grace as is our conversing with our fellow Christians about spiritual matters.
We do not have to suffer a famine of hearing God’s words in the midst of plenty if we are faithful in reading and studying what the New Testament tells us about Jesus, his person, his mission, his teaching and his life, and his character and applying what we learn to our own lives. God will meet us in the Bible when we seek him there, and God will renew and transform us.
We on our part must act on what we learn. We must live the truths and principles that God reveals to us through his Son, through Jesus. There is not any point in studying Jesus’ reiteration of God’s commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves or his other instructions to his disciples if we do not obey those instructions and practice what he taught. Nor is there any point in calling ourselves Jesus followers. A true disciple believes the truths and principles Jesus taught and exemplified and seeks to live the way that he did.
Silence is kept.
AFFIRMATION OF FAITH
Open this link to hear the Liturgical Folk’s setting of our Lord’s Summary of the Law, “Jesus Creed.”
Jesus said
The first commandment is this:
Hear O Israel
The Lord our God is the only Lord.
Love the Lord your God
with all your heart,
with all your soul,
with all your mind,
and with all your strength.
The second is this:
Love your neighbor as yourself.
There is no other commandment greater than these.
Amen.
SONG OF PRAISE
Open this link in a new tab to hear the Liturgical Folk’s setting of the Magnificat, “Song of Mary.”
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior;
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed.
The Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
The Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
The Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
The Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel,
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
The promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children for ever.
The Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
The Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
The Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
The Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior;
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
God came into the human story in the person of Jesus not only to reconcile humanity to himself but also to teach us how we can live our lives in a way that is pleasing to him. While we cannot save ourselves by living our lives that way, we can show our gratitude and thankfulness to God for doing what we cannot do ourselves, making things right between himself and us, by living that way. Since living that way is not something that we can do in our own strength, God works in us, giving us the will and the power to do so. Indeed, everything is a gift from God, even our faith for it is God who enables us to believe. God showed us his goodwill and favor, goodwill and favor which we do not deserve and which we cannot earn, what theologians call “grace,” when he sent Jesus. It is the result of the same goodwill and favor toward us that we are able to have in faith in Jesus and by that faith be put right with God. On our part we need to open our hearts and minds to the grace that God shows us and make use of it. God even helps us there.
One of the ways that God supplies us with grace, or put another way, exercises his divine influence in us, is through the reading and study of Scripture. For the disciple of Jesus reading and studying what the New Testament tells us about Jesus, his person, his mission, his teaching and his life, and his character is an important channel of grace to us, an important means by which God molds us and fashions us into the image of his Son. It is not something to neglect.
To hold each other accountable and to encourage and support each other, it is a good idea for Christians to meet weekly in a small group of no more than seven people to share with each other how they are progressing in living the life of a disciple of Jesus. As well as holding each other accountable and encouraging and supporting each other, they can pray for each other. Prayer itself is an important channel of God’s grace as is our conversing with our fellow Christians about spiritual matters.
We do not have to suffer a famine of hearing God’s words in the midst of plenty if we are faithful in reading and studying what the New Testament tells us about Jesus, his person, his mission, his teaching and his life, and his character and applying what we learn to our own lives. God will meet us in the Bible when we seek him there, and God will renew and transform us.
We on our part must act on what we learn. We must live the truths and principles that God reveals to us through his Son, through Jesus. There is not any point in studying Jesus’ reiteration of God’s commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves or his other instructions to his disciples if we do not obey those instructions and practice what he taught. Nor is there any point in calling ourselves Jesus followers. A true disciple believes the truths and principles Jesus taught and exemplified and seeks to live the way that he did.
Silence is kept.
AFFIRMATION OF FAITH
Open this link to hear the Liturgical Folk’s setting of our Lord’s Summary of the Law, “Jesus Creed.”
Jesus said
The first commandment is this:
Hear O Israel
The Lord our God is the only Lord.
Love the Lord your God
with all your heart,
with all your soul,
with all your mind,
and with all your strength.
The second is this:
Love your neighbor as yourself.
There is no other commandment greater than these.
Amen.
SONG OF PRAISE
Open this link in a new tab to hear the Liturgical Folk’s setting of the Magnificat, “Song of Mary.”
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior;
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed.
The Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
The Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
The Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
The Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel,
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
The promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children for ever.
The Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
The Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
The Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
The Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior;
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
During the silence that follows each bidding, the congregation may pray aloud or silently for each concern or need
To our Father in heaven
let us make our requests with thanksgiving,
through our only mediator,
Jesus Christ the Son.
I ask your prayers for peace in the life of the world ...
Pray for God's peace.
Silence
I ask your prayers for all who suffer injury, sickness and loss ...
Pray for all who are afflicted.
To our Father in heaven
let us make our requests with thanksgiving,
through our only mediator,
Jesus Christ the Son.
I ask your prayers for peace in the life of the world ...
Pray for God's peace.
Silence
I ask your prayers for all who suffer injury, sickness and loss ...
Pray for all who are afflicted.
Silence
I ask your prayers for all who wield authority and influence ...
Pray for all who exercise power.
Silence
I ask your prayers for all whom we have wronged ...
Pray for all who hate us.
Silence
I ask your prayers for our bishop(s) ...
and for all whom Christ has appointed to his service ...
Pray for God's people.
Silence
I ask your prayers for ...
During the silence members of the congregation may ask the prayers of the congregation for specific concerns and needs
Silence
Give thanks to God for all
in whom Christ has been honoured,
(especially ... )
Silence
O God, whose will it is
that all should find salvation
and come to know the truth:
receive the prayers and petitions
which we offer in faith and love;
through him who gave proof of your purpose,
and who sacrificed himself
to win freedom for all humankind,
Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
The Collect
God of all delight,
grant us that joy
which none can take from us,
of having a work to do,
a life to live;
that joy in believing
which will carry us through.
This we ask through Jesus Christ our Saviour.
Amen.
RESPONSE
Open this link in a new tab to hear Liturgical Folk’s setting of the Trisagion, Holy God."
Holy God
holy and mighty
holy immortal one
have mercy
mercy
mercy upon us
Repeat 5 more times.
THE LORD’S PRAYER
The Lord be with you.
The Lord bless you.
As our Saviour taught his disciples,
we pray:
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
The blessing of God,
the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,
remain with us always. Amen.
I ask your prayers for all who wield authority and influence ...
Pray for all who exercise power.
Silence
I ask your prayers for all whom we have wronged ...
Pray for all who hate us.
Silence
I ask your prayers for our bishop(s) ...
and for all whom Christ has appointed to his service ...
Pray for God's people.
Silence
I ask your prayers for ...
During the silence members of the congregation may ask the prayers of the congregation for specific concerns and needs
Silence
Give thanks to God for all
in whom Christ has been honoured,
(especially ... )
Silence
O God, whose will it is
that all should find salvation
and come to know the truth:
receive the prayers and petitions
which we offer in faith and love;
through him who gave proof of your purpose,
and who sacrificed himself
to win freedom for all humankind,
Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
The Collect
God of all delight,
grant us that joy
which none can take from us,
of having a work to do,
a life to live;
that joy in believing
which will carry us through.
This we ask through Jesus Christ our Saviour.
Amen.
RESPONSE
Open this link in a new tab to hear Liturgical Folk’s setting of the Trisagion, Holy God."
Holy God
holy and mighty
holy immortal one
have mercy
mercy
mercy upon us
Repeat 5 more times.
THE LORD’S PRAYER
The Lord be with you.
The Lord bless you.
As our Saviour taught his disciples,
we pray:
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
The blessing of God,
the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,
remain with us always. Amen.
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