All Hallows Evening Prayer for Sunday Evening (August 7, 2022)

 

PROCLAMATION OF THE LIGHT

One or more candles may be lit.

Watch and be ready, for you do not know on what day our Lord is coming. Matthew 24:42, 44

EVENING HYMN

Open this link in a new tab to hear F. Bland Tucker’s translation of the Phos hilaron, “O Gracious Light.”

O Gracious Light, Lord Jesus Christ,
In you the Father’s glory shone.
Immortal, holy, blest is he,
And blest are you, his holy Son.

Now sunset comes, but light shines forth,
the lamps are lit to pierce the night.
Praise Father, Son, and Spirit: God
Who dwells in the eternal light.

Worthy are you of endless praise,
O Son of God, Life-giving Lord;
Wherefore you are through all the earth
And in the highest heaven adored.

O Gracious Light!

PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING

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 in a new tab to hear Heinz Werner Zimmermann and Marjorie Jillson’s “Have No Fear, Little Flock.”

Have no fear, little flock;
have no fear, little flock,
for the Father has chosen
to give you the kingdom;
have no fear, little flock!

Have good cheer, little flock;
have good cheer, little flock,
for the Father will keep you
in his love forever;
have good cheer, little flock!

Praise the Lord high above;
praise the Lord high above,
for he stoops down to heal you,
uplift and restore you;
praise the Lord high above!

Thankful hearts raise to God;
thankful hearts raise to God,
for he stays close beside you,
in all things works with you;
thankful hearts raise to God!

SCRIPTURE

Luke 12:32-40 Teaching on Selling Possessions and Preparing for the Son of Man's Return. 

“So don’t be afraid, little flock. For it gives your Father great happiness to give you the Kingdom.

“Sell your possessions and give to those in need. This will store up treasure for you in heaven! And the purses of heaven never get old or develop holes. Your treasure will be safe; no thief can steal it and no moth can destroy it. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.

“Be dressed for service and keep your lamps burning, as though you were waiting for your master to return from the wedding feast. Then you will be ready to open the door and let him in the moment he arrives and knocks. The servants who are ready and waiting for his return will be rewarded. I tell you the truth, he himself will seat them, put on an apron, and serve them as they sit and eat! He may come in the middle of the night or just before dawn. But whenever he comes, he will reward the servants who are ready.

“Understand this: If a homeowner knew exactly when a burglar was coming, he would not permit his house to be broken into. You also must be ready all the time, for the Son of Man will come when least expected.”

Silence

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

HOMILY

Have No Fear, Little Flock

After telling his disciples to make God’s kingdom their number one priority and not to be anxious and worry about food and clothing, Jesus offers them these reassuring words: “So don’t be afraid, little flock. For it gives your Father great happiness to give you the Kingdom.” God will give the kingdom to all who earnestly seek it and with the kingdom he will meet their needs. They need not let their fears get the best of them. God will take care of them.

In a time of inflation, high gasoline prices, rising costs of living, an ongoing pandemic, a new public health emergency, mass shootings, natural disasters, and an outbreak of polio, it may be hard for us to give our full attention to Jesus’s words of reassurance, especially if we are faced with difficulties that are particular to our own situation.

The human mind has a way of turning molehills into mountains as the old saying, exaggerating the seriousness of a situation and even viewing it as a catastrophe. We not only to look at people in the worst possible light, but we also do the same thing with situations. We may imagine that bad things are happening when they aren’t. This happens due to our tendency to believe the worst about a person or a situation. The human mind is very good at making up stories about people or situations which are very plausible, seemingly true, or believable, but which are in the final analysis products of our own imagination.

On the other hand, we may downplay the harmful effects of a situation, minimize its seriousness, not recognize its true extent, or go as far as to deny its existence. When someone displays unwillingness to accept something is true, they may be denying it at a much deeper level than the level at which appear to be denying it. They may also be questioning the accuracy of our interpretation of a particular situation. This can be mistaken for denial.

We also may have blinds spots. We do things but we are not aware that we are doing them. People often betray what they are feeling on their faces, but they do not realize that they are giving themselves away. We may let our feelings influence our thinking, but we have no awareness of what we are doing.

When I was a mental health counselor and a child welfare case worker I studied the fascinating subject of how human beings communicate non-verbally. I studied body language, the non-verbal cues by which people convey what they are thinking and feeling. I also studied kinesics, how people use body movements when they are communicating with other people, and proxemics, the amount of space people feel is necessary to set between themselves and others. A mental health counselor and a child welfare case worker must be able to quickly size up a person or a situation for the safety of their client and for their own safety and in child welfare for the safety of a child.

An abused child may be fearful around the abuser. The abuser may have unrealistic expectations of the child, not communicate their expectations, misinterpret the child’s behavior, or be openly hostile to the child. If they are in a highly agitated state, they may abuse the child once the worker leaves. A neglectful parent or caregiver may show indifference to a neglected child or a preoccupation with their own needs. They may evidence signs of depression or some other psychiatric disorder. During the interview the worker must be on the alert for non-verbal cues as well as verbal ones. They must be able to take in a child’s environment in a glance and to recognize other indicators of abuse or neglect.

These skills are not acquired immediately, and inexperienced workers are paired with seasoned workers for this reason. Workers may also make home visits in pairs for their own safety.

I later found this knowledge useful when I was preaching. I could gauge whether a person was paying attention to my sermon and how the sermon was affecting that person.

A pastor may look at his congregation while preaching and based upon their faces may assume that they are attentively listening to what he is saying. He does not see their feet which tell a different story.

On one occasion I had an opportunity to observe a women’s feet during a sermon. She was sitting in a pew in front of me and I could see her feet and ankles. During the sermon she looked attentively at the preacher. But at one point in the sermon, she curled one ankle around the other, a sign of defensiveness. The preacher was saying something that apparently was causing her to feel criticized or attacked, something that she did not like hearing. As the sermon progressed, she began to tap her toe, a sign of impatience. She looked at her cell phone briefly and then resumed looking at the preacher.

People have an imaginary space around them which someone else cannot enter without causing them to become anxious or agitated or otherwise experience discomfort in one form or another. They may become anxious or agitated without realizing it. The extent of this space will vary with their mental state and their level of discomfort will be determined by their relationship with the individual who has entered their space. When someone is anxious or agitated the boundary of their comfort zone may extend well beyond them. If they are relaxed, its boundary may be closer to them. If the individual is a stranger, they may become uncomfortable even when the individual is at a distance. On the other hand, if the individual is a family member, relative, spouse, romantic partner, or close friend the individual may be able to come close to them and even touch them without causing any discomfort.

This explains why people may stake out a space in a pew in church and may become nervous or even irritated if someone else sits too close to them. It also explains why someone may exhibit a startled response if we accidentally brush against them.

When an anxious or agitated person is sitting or standing in close proximity to other people, they may pick up their anxiety or agitation and may feel anxious or agitated themselves. This in turn may cause the anxious or agitated person to become more anxious or agitated.

We affect each other in other ways. We may pick up on other people's non-verbal cues, and subconsciously, that is, out of our conscious awareness, respond to those cues. We may misinterpret these cues.

We may notice someone staring at us intently. They could be angry or displeased with us. They could be showing a strong sexual interest in us. They could be thinking about us, curious about what we may be thinking. We could have caused them hurt or injury in some way, offered them no explanation, and they are trying to figure out what happened. They could be thinking about something or someone else. They could have vision problems and are trying to focus their eyes. We may jump to the conclusion that they are looking at us for a particular reason which has nothing to do with why they are looking at us.

We can trigger feelings of discomfort in other people without meaning to trigger such feelings.

While external stimuli may trigger anxiety or agitation in an individual, their internal dialogue—what is called self-talk, feelings, cognitive distortions, biases, and attitudes will determine their level of discomfort. The external stimuli may arouse feelings in them with which they are not comfortable in themselves, or they cannot accept in themselves. They may also experience the phenomenon known as transference in which a person transfers their thoughts and feelings about a particular individual on to that person. Family members, relatives, friends, and coworkers who are not familiar with these dynamics can reinforce and exacerbate their anxiety or agitation if they share their thoughts with them and such individuals accept them at face value. They may be misreading a person’s behavior or judging a situation wrongly.

Jesus in the preceding passages to the one in which he offers these reassuring words to his disciples is talking mainly about anxiety and worry about our physical needs—food, clothing, and shelter. Our anxiety and worry, however, are not confined to these needs. We also experience anxiety and worry concerning our emotional and relational needs, our directional needs, and our spiritual needs.

His instructions to the disciples to make God’s kingdom their number one priority and God will meet their needs can be applied to the whole spectrum of our needs. His words of reassurance in today’s reading, Luke 12: 32-40, are a reminder of what Jesus taught was God’s essential nature. God is compassionate and merciful. God is good even to the wicked and the thankless.

For our part we must accept Jesus’ words, not just the words in this passage but in all the Gospels on faith. However, we may be making ourselves be anxious and worried, whatever we may be telling ourselves, whatever we may be hearing from others, we must trust Jesus and believe what he says. Trust and belief are the basic elements of faith. It is by faith, our trust and belief in Jesus, we are put right with God. It is by faith that we appropriate the benefits of Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross and his resurrection. It is by faith that we recognize Jesus’ authority over our lives as the Lord of all. It is by faith that we accept his teaching and example as the right way to live.

When we believe that Jesus’ words are true and act on them, we become a part of a community which shares our faith. It is with the other members of this community that we make God’s kingdom our number one priority in our lives. It is through this community that God will to a large part meet our emotional and relational, directional, and spiritual needs. We call this community the local church. It is a part of a much larger community made up of individuals who like us have believed that Jesus’ words are true and have acted on them in the past, in the present, and in the future, individuals who heard Jesus’ voice and recognized him as their shepherd, the guardian and keeper of their souls. In a particular locality and in a particular time, Jesus’ flock may be a little one. But when it is viewed across all time, it is a huge cloud of witnesses, a great multitude of saints, those who have been called out of darkness in God’s wonderful light to make known his goodness.

The local church is not perfect. Those who become our brothers and sisters in Christ have flaws like we do. They make mistakes like we do. But God’s grace, the power of the Holy Spirit, is working in them and us to make them and us free from faults and to transform them and us into the likeness of Jesus in our love of God and our qualities of character.

Among the things that Jesus taught and practiced was to forgive the failings of others. He taught his disciples that they should love one another as he loved them. 

Loving our fellow disciples goes beyond having warm fuzzy feelings about them. It means forgiving their faults and weaknesses and not holding their faults and weaknesses against them. It means sitting down with them when a rift develops between them and us and seeking to resolve any misunderstanding that may have caused that rift. Too often misunderstandings arise because of a failure of communication. We may misinterpret someone’s words or actions, and we may not attempt to find out what they meant by what they said or what they did. We may not be willing to talk about something that happened between us and someone else, leaving that person hanging, wondering what went wrong and denying them closure, an end to an unpleasant situation or experience, so they can start new activities. 

Jesus recognized that such rifts if they are not addressed in the right way can lead to further difficulties. He encouraged his disciples to immediately seek to make peace with someone with whom a rift had developed in their relationship even setting aside their religious obligation until they had made peace with the other person.

When such misunderstandings arise, we need to remember Jesus’ words, “don’t be afraid….” It not only gives the Father great happiness to give us the kingdom, but it also gives him great happiness to provide us with the grace we need to enable us to resolve such misunderstanding and to deal with the anxiety and worry that they may produce. The God who was in Jesus, reconciling humankind to himself, also desires that human beings be reconciled to each other as well as to himself.

Jesus identified as the second great commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Loving our neighbors includes seeking to repair broken relationships with our neighbors and to live peaceably with them. It means not letting our anxiety and fears get in our way and keep us from resolving any misunderstanding.

In Isaiah 41: 10 God offers this assurance to the people of Israel.

Don’t be afraid, for I am with you.
Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you.
I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.

It is also an assurance that Jesus himself makes to his disciples on several occasions. It is an assurance that he makes to us. “Don’t be afraid.” Let us take these words to heart and persevere in walking as true disciples in the way of Jesus.

Silence

AFFIRMATION OF FAITH

Open this link to hear Ryan Flanigan’s setting of the Apostles Creed.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
And born of the virgin Mary

He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried
He descended to the dead, on the third day he rose again
He ascended into heaven, and is seen at the right hand of the father
He will come again 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 the life everlasting
Amen

SONG OF PRAISE

Open this link in a new tab to hear Stuart Townend’s “My Soul Will Magnify.”

My soul will magnify the Lord
I rejoice in God, my Savior
In the wonder of His favor
For He has done great things for me
He was mindful of His servant
Every age shall call be blessed
The hope of Abraham come
In the giving of the Son
For He who promised is mighty
In remembering His mercy

My soul will magnify the Lord
For His grace to those who fear Him
Through every generation
The proud He scatters to the wind
As the ruler's strength is broken
And the rich are left with nothing
The humble lifted high
And the hungry satisfied
Our portion and our treasure
Our hope and help forever

My soul will magnify the Lord
I rejoice in God, my Savior
In the wonder of His favor

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. 

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

Almighty and everlasting God,
by your Spirit the whole body of the Church
is governed and sanctified;
hear the prayers we offer
for all your faithful people
that in the ministry to which you have called us
we may serve you in holiness and truth;
through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ
Amen.

RESPONSE

Open this link in a new tab to hear Steve Angrisano’ s setting of "Lord have mercy."

Lord have mercy
Lord have mercy

Christ have mercy
Christ 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.