All Hallows Evening Prayer for Saturday Evening (August 20, 2022)

 

PROCLAMATION OF THE LIGHT

One or more candles may be lit.

You, O lord, are my hope, my trust from my youth. Upon you I have leaned since my birth. Psalm 71: 5-6

EVENING HYMN

Open this link in a new tab to hear Carl P. Daw Jr.’s evening hymn, “O Light Whose Splendor Thrills and Gladdens.”

O Light whose splendor thrills and gladdens
with radiance brighter than the sun,
pure gleam of God's unending glory,
O Jesus, blest Anointed One;

as twilight hovers near at sunset,
and lamps are lit, and children nod,
in evening hymns we lift our voices
to Father, Spirit, Son: one God.

In all life's brilliant, timeless moments,
let faithful voices sing your praise,
O Son of God, our Life-bestower,
whose glory lightens endless days.

PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give our thanks and praise.

Blessed are you, Sovereign God,
our light and our salvation,
eternal creator of day and night,
to you be glory and praise for ever.
Now, as darkness is falling,
hear the prayer of your faithful people.
As we look for your coming in glory,
wash away our transgressions,
cleanse us by your refining fire
and make us temples of your Holy Spirit.
By the light of Christ,
dispel the darkness of our hearts
and make us ready to enter your kingdom,
where songs of praise for ever sound.
Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Blessed be God for ever. Amen.

HYMN OF THE DAY

Open this link in a new tab to hear Christopher Idle’s hymn, “Glory in the Highest.”

1 Glory in the highest to the God of heaven!
Peace to all your people through the earth be given!
Mighty God and Father, thanks and praise we bring,
singing Hallelujah to our heavenly king.

2 Jesus Christ is risen, God the Father's Son!
With the Holy Spirit you are Lord alone!
Lamb once killed for sinners, all our guilt to bear,
show us now your mercy, now receive our prayer.

3 Christ the world's true Saviour, high and holy One,
seated now and reigning from your Father's throne:
Lord and God, we praise you! Highest heaven adores:
in the Father's glory, all the praise be yours!

SCRIPTURE

Hebrews 12:18-29 An Unshakeable Kingdom

You have not come to a physical mountain, to a place of flaming fire, darkness, gloom, and whirlwind, as the Israelites did at Mount Sinai. For they heard an awesome trumpet blast and a voice so terrible that they begged God to stop speaking. They staggered back under God’s command: “If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned to death.” Moses himself was so frightened at the sight that he said, “I am terrified and trembling.”

No, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to countless thousands of angels in a joyful gathering. You have come to the assembly of God’s firstborn children, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God himself, who is the judge over all things. You have come to the spirits of the righteous ones in heaven who have now been made perfect. You have come to Jesus, the one who mediates the new covenant between God and people, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks of forgiveness instead of crying out for vengeance like the blood of Abel.

Be careful that you do not refuse to listen to the One who is speaking. For if the people of Israel did not escape when they refused to listen to Moses, the earthly messenger, we will certainly not escape if we reject the One who speaks to us from heaven! When God spoke from Mount Sinai his voice shook the earth, but now he makes another promise: “Once again I will shake not only the earth but the heavens also.” This means that all of creation will be shaken and removed, so that only unshakable things will remain.

Since we are receiving a Kingdom that is unshakable, let us be thankful and please God by worshiping him with holy fear and awe. For our God is a devouring fire.

Silence

May your word live in us
and bear much fruit to your glory

HOMILY

Understanding Worship

Due in part to the seeker services of the late twentieth century and their influence on what is described as “contemporary worship,” many people who identify themselves as Christians have a poor understanding of the nature of worship. Seeker services were instituted at churches like Saddleback and Willow Creek to attract people to these churches and to point them to Jesus Christ. The seeker services were not services of public worship which we held for believers during the week but a form of evangelism.

Since the people whom they were designed to attract had little or no Christian background, were unfamiliar with the hymns and songs that Christians sung and were unaccustomed to singing, the seeker services typical had in place of congregational singing a band, a group of instrumentalists and vocalists who performed inspirational songs. These songs were modeled in style on the popular secular songs with which those whom these churches hoped to attract with their seeker services were familiar. In addition to a band performing inspirational songs, a seeker service might include skits, interviews, live and recorded; video clips, and would include a message given by one of the church’s pastors. This message might be evangelistic but often as not it was practical, addressing some concern that those whom these churches were seeking to attract might have—for example, improving their relationship with their spouse or partner, rearing children, managing their money, coping with the stresses of daily living, and other similar things.

It was thought that once an individual who attended a seeker service became a Christian, they would move to the regular services of public worship held during the week. To their surprise the churches that launched seeker services discovered that the people who attended these services and who later became Christians did not make the transition to the church’s regular services of public worship. They had become accustomed to the seeker services, and it was the type of church gathering that they preferred.

It was also found that those who attended the seeker services, accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord, and became believers had only a rudimentary grasp of what it meant to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. One of the reasons for their poor formation as followers of Jesu Christ was that did not attend the gatherings at which instruction in the Christian faith and life was the primary focus, the church’s regular services of public worship.

How these churches have tried to solve the dilemma is not the subject of this homily. I am mentioning these developments to draw attention to two of the weaknesses of seeker services. They do have bearing on why many Christians have a poor understanding of the nature of worship.

The churches that launched seeker services were influential churches and they would influence the practices of other churches. The seeker services would come to influence the form that “contemporary worship” would take. The problem, however, is that while it may be described as worship, “contemporary worship” is not in the true sense worship. It is also as knowledgeable people like Carey Nieuwhof, Canadian pastor, author, conference speaker, and podcaster, point to our attention NOT contemporary. Technically it is modern-day version of the Sandy Creek revival service, which is itself a spinoff of the camp meetings of the nineteenth century.

At this point I think that it would be a good idea to take a look at what worship is not before we examine what worship is. As today’s reading, Hebrews 12:18-29, invites us to “please God by worshiping him with holy fear and awe,” we need to gain a better understanding of what is not worship and what is worship so we can tell the two apart and not confuse one with the other.

Going to a church building on a Sunday or some other occasion and attending a gathering there is not by itself worship. This said, the act of going to a place of worship and gathering with other like-minded people to honor God can be considered an act of worship. The determining factor is what our intention is.

If we go to church to socialize with friends, listen to some inspiring music, and to hear a message that helps us cope with life’s problems and cause us to feel better about ourselves and others, we are not worshiping. We are going to get our needs met. Getting our needs met as important as that may be is not worship. The focus is on us and not God.

We hear and read a lot about consumer Christianity these days. Church attendance which is primarily intended to meet our needs is consumer Christianity. We attend a church to consume a commodity, be it social contact, children’s ministry, music, sermons, and other similar things.

Worship is not something that someone else can do for us. We cannot worship God by proxy. The band on the platform may worship God with a song but the band members are offering worship to God for themselves, they are not offering worship to God on our behalf. Worship is something that we do ourselves. If we are not singing ourselves, we are not worshiping. We are watching someone else worship. This is why it is so important that the hymns and songs that whoever plans the music for a church gathering selects should be hymns and songs that the whole congregation can sing and not just the band’s vocalists.

Praying and singing can be acts of worship, but they are not worship. We may hear a pastor or a worship leader refer to the time in a church gathering when the band performs a medley of songs or leads the congregation in singing a medley of songs as the worship time. This, however, is an inaccurate description of that particular time and contributes to a congregation’s poor understanding of the nature of worship.

Many Christians who attend church gatherings featuring what is described as “traditional worship” also have a poor understanding of worship. “Traditional worship” involves varying degrees of ritualism, that is, the use of set actions and words as a part of religious ceremonies. Performing a religious ceremony, a simple one like making the sign of the cross or a complicate one like the Holy Eucharist or the Mass, can be an act of worship, and in the case of the Holy Eucharist or the Mass the individual parts of the ceremony can also be acts of worship. However, the act of performing the ceremony or one of its component parts is not by itself worship. Once more the determining factor is our intention. As we shall see intention is one of several considerations in deciding what we are doing is worship.

The use of set actions and words in a religious ceremony is not bad in itself but it can become problematic when we use unnecessary actions and words because we are hoping to impress God or the congregation, or we have a penchant for using a lot of unnecessary actions and words which serve no purpose. It can also be problematic when we use a set of actions and words that are fixed and traditional out of the belief that if we use these actions and words, we are influencing God. This is not worship. It is magic—an attempt to manipulate supernatural forces by the performance of a particular ritual or ceremony. The people of Israel in offering sacrifices to God and observing new moons and religious festivals would fall into this trap. They thought that by doing what the Law prescribed, they would secure God’s favor. We may believe that by celebrating the Holy Eucharist or the Mass, we can secure various benefits from God not only for ourselves but also others, including those who have departed this life.

God can use different acts of worship as a means of grace to us, as an instrument through which the power of the Holy Spirit works in our lives. The grace that we experience when we perform these acts of worship is not a reward for performing them. If that was the case, then it would not be grace, which cannot be earned or merited. It is entirely free, an expression of God’s favor and goodwill toward us.

What then is worship? When we worship God, we show not only in our words but in our actions that we love and respect God very much. We are awed by God. Our actions and words embody our attitude toward God.

Worshiping God is not something that we just do on a Sunday. It is the way that we live seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. We seek to honor and please God, to show God great respect, in all that we say and do.

We can perform a number of different acts like reading a passage of Scripture or singing a hymn, psalm, or spiritual song but none of these acts is worship unless in performing them, our intention is to honor and please God.

Worship involves the heart, not the organ in our chest that sends the blood around our body, but the place within a person from where our thoughts feelings, and desires are considered to come and where our will which controls and directs our thoughts and actions is considered to reside. True worship comes from the heart. We are not going through motions of what we think is worship. We are actually worshiping God.

True worship does not expect any form of reciprocity from God. We are not worshiping God in the hopes that God will in turn show us favor. We worship God out of thankfulness and a desire to honor and please God.

The utterances of the Old Testament prophets and the teaching of Jesus tie our worship of God to our treatment of other people. Jesus repeated the words of the prophet Hosea, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” What matters more to God than our formal acts of worship that we perform on Sundays and other occasions is the way that we relate to other people in our daily lives. Jesus paired the commandment to love God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our mind with the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves, saying that the second commandment was equally as important as the first. As John wrote in his first epistle, “…if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see?”

True worship involves obedience to God, particularly to Jesus. When we obey Jesus’ teaching and follow his example, we honor God who sent him. Jesus has been given all authority and power in heaven and on earth. Jesus is not just the master and teacher of his disciples, but he is also the Lord of all.

A good way to start each day, whatever the season of the year, rain or shine, sleet or snow, is to dedicate ourselves and the day to God, asking God by the power of the Holy Spirit to enable us to honor and please him in our words and actions throughout the day, to be not only faithful disciples of his Son Jesus but also to be true worshipers, worshiping him in spirit and in truth. Then live into our prayer, trusting God to provide us with the grace that we need.

Silence

AFFIRMATION OF FAITH

Let us affirm our faith in the words of the Apostles Creed.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth;
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son Our Lord,
Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead;
He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.

SONG OF PRAISE

Open this link to hear John Michael Talbot’s adaptation of the Magnificat, “Holy Is His Name.”

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
and my spirit exalts in God my Savior.
For he has looked with mercy on my lowliness,
and my name will be forever exalted.
For the mighty God has done great things for me,
and his mercy will reach from age to age.
And holy, holy, holy is his name.

He has mercy in ev’ry generation.
He has revealed his power and his glory.
He has cast down the mighty in their arrogance,
and has lifted up the meek and the lowly.
He has come to help his servant Israel;
he remembers his promise to our fathers.
And holy, holy, holy is his name.

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

O God, the Judge of all,
through the saving blood of your Son
you have brought us to the heavenly Jerusalem
and given us a kingdom that cannot be shaken:
fill us with reverence and awe in your presence,
that in thanksgiving we and all your Church
may offer you acceptable worship;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives to intercede for us, now and for ever. Amen.

RESPONSE

Open this link in a new tab to hear the “Kyrie” from Healey Willan’s Missa De Sancta Maria Magdalen.

Lord have mercy
Lord have mercy
Lord have mercy

Christ have mercy
Christ have mercy
Christ have mercy

Lord have mercy
Lord have mercy
Lord have mercy

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.