Thursday Evenings at All Hallows (Thursday, January 25, 2024)

Welcome to Thursday Evenings at All Hallows.

As followers of Jesus, we are expected to be generous in loving others as God is generous in loving us. We may be tempted, however, to make God’s love narrower with our own false limits so that we can make our own love narrower.

GATHER IN GOD’S NAME

Great and marvelous are your works, O Lord God, the Almighty.
Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations.
Who will not fear you, Lord, and glorify your name?
For you alone are holy.
All nations will come and worship before you,
for your righteous deeds have been revealed. Revelation 15: 3-4

Open this link in a new tab to hear Charles Wesley’s “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing.”

O for a thousand tongues to sing
my great Redeemer's praise,
the glories of my God and King,
the triumphs of his grace!

1 O for a thousand tongues to sing
my great Redeemer's praise,
the glories of my God and King,
the triumphs of his grace!

2 My gracious Master and my God,
assist me to proclaim,
to spread thro' all the earth abroad
the honors of thy name.

3 Jesus! the name that charms our fears,
that bids our sorrows cease,
'tis music in the sinner's ears,
'tis life and health and peace.

4 He breaks the power of cancelled sin,
he sets the prisoner free;
his blood can make the foulest clean;
his blood availed for me.

5 He speaks, and listening to his voice,
new life the dead receive,
the mournful broke hearts rejoice,
the humble poor believe.

6 To God all glory, praise, and love
be ever, ever given
by saints below and saints above,
the Church in earth and heaven.

O for a thousand tongues to sing
my great Redeemer's praise,
the glories of my God and King,
the triumphs of his grace!

Trusting God’s forgiveness and kindness,
let us confess our sins in penitence and faith.

Silence

Almighty God, our heavenly Father,
we have sinned against you,
through our own fault,
in thought word, and deed,
and in what we have left undo.
For your Son our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake,
forgive us all that is past;
and grant that we may serve you in newness
of life
to the glory of your name. Amen.

Merciful God,
grant to your faithful people pardon and peace;
that we may be cleansed from all our sins
and serve you with a quiet mind;
through Jesus Christ our Redeemer.
Amen.

Open this link in a new tab to hear Frederick William Faber’s “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy.”

1 There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,
like the wideness of the sea.
There’s a kindness in God’s justice,
which is more than liberty.
There is welcome for the sinner,
and more graces for the good.
There is mercy with the Savior,
there is healing in his blood.

2 For the love of God is broader
than the measure of our mind,
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.
If our love were but more simple,
we would take Christ at his word,
and our lives would be illumined
by the presence of our Lord.

Coda;
There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,
like the wideness of the sea.

The Lord be with you.
The Lord bless you.

Let us pray.

Silence

Eternal God,
your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ is the light of the world.
Grant that your people may shine with his glorious light
that he may be known, worshiped, and obeyed
to the ends of the earth;
for he is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever. Amen.

THE MINISTRY OF THE WORD

A reading from the Old Testament (Leviticus 25: 1-22)

The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai and commanded him to give the following regulations to the people of Israel. When you enter the land that the Lord is giving you, you shall honor the Lord by not cultivating the land every seventh year. You shall plant your fields, prune your vineyards, and gather your crops for six years. But the seventh year is to be a year of complete rest for the land, a year dedicated to the Lord. Do not plant your fields or prune your vineyards. Do not even harvest the grain that grows by itself without being planted, and do not gather the grapes from your unpruned vines; it is a year of complete rest for the land. Although the land has not been cultivated during that year, it will provide food for you, your slaves, your hired men, the foreigners living with you, your domestic animals, and the wild animals in your fields. Everything that it produces may be eaten.

Count seven times seven years, a total of forty-nine years. Then, on the tenth day of the seventh month, the Day of Atonement, send someone to blow a trumpet throughout the whole land. In this way you shall set the fiftieth year apart and proclaim freedom to all the inhabitants of the land. During this year all property that has been sold shall be restored to the original owner or the descendants, and any who have been sold as slaves shall return to their families. You shall not plant your fields or harvest the grain that grows by itself or gather the grapes in your unpruned vineyards. The whole year shall be sacred for you; you shall eat only what the fields produce of themselves.

In this year all property that has been sold shall be restored to its original owner. So when you sell land to an Israelite or buy land, do not deal unfairly. The price is to be set according to the number of years the land can produce crops before the next Year of Restoration. If there are many years, the price shall be higher, but if there are only a few years, the price shall be lower, because what is being sold is the number of crops the land can produce. Do not cheat an Israelite, but obey the Lord your God.

Obey all the Lord's laws and commands, so that you may live in safety in the land. The land will produce its crops, and you will have all you want to eat and will live in safety.

But someone may ask what there will be to eat during the seventh year, when no fields are planted and no crops gathered. The Lord will bless the land in the sixth year so that it will produce enough food for two years. When you plant your fields in the eighth year, you will still be eating what you harvested during the sixth year, and you will have enough to eat until the crops you plant that year are harvested.

Silence

This is the word of the Lord
Thanks be to God

Open this link in anew tab to hear Ruth Duck’s paraphrase of Psalm 98, “To God Compose a Song of Joy.”

To God compose a song of joy;
To God make melody,
Whose arm of strength does wondrous things,
Whose hand brings victory!

Before the nations God reveals
A just and righteous will,
Remembering in faithful love
The house of Israel.

In every corner of the earth,
God comes to save and free;
Break forth with shouts of holy joy;
All lands, make melody.

With trumpet, with the sound of horns,
With strings, yes, with the lyre,
With voices praise the sov'reign God,
A lusty, joyous choir.

Let seas in all their fullness roar,
And people of all lands,
Let mountains join and shout for joy,
Let rivers clap their hands.

The God of justice comes to save;
Let earth make melody!
For God will judge with righteousness
And rule with equity.

To God compose a song of joy;
To God make melody,
Whose arm of strength does wondrous things,
Whose hand brings victory!

A reading from the New Testament (Luke 4: 14-30)

Jesus went back to Galilee with the power of the Spirit. Stories about him spread all over the area around Galilee. He began to teach in the synagogues, and everyone praised him.

Jesus traveled to Nazareth, the town where he grew up. On the Sabbath day he went to the synagogue as he always did. He stood up to read. The book of Isaiah the prophet was given to him. He opened the book and found the place where this is written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me.
He has chosen me to tell good news to the poor.
He sent me to tell prisoners that they are free
and to tell the blind that they can see again.
He sent me to free those who have been treated badly
and to announce that the time has come for the Lord to show his kindness.”

Jesus closed the book, gave it back to the helper, and sat down. As everyone in the synagogue watched him closely, he began to speak to them. He said, “While you heard me reading these words just now, they were coming true!”

Everyone there said good things about Jesus. They were amazed to hear him speak such wonderful words. They said, “How is this possible? Isn’t he Joseph’s son?”

Jesus said to them, “I know you will tell me the old saying: ‘Doctor, heal yourself.’ You want to say, ‘We heard about the things you did in Capernaum. Do those same things here in your own hometown!’” Then he said, “The truth is, a prophet is not accepted in his own hometown.

“During the time of Elijah it did not rain in Israel for three and a half years. There was no food anywhere in the whole country. There were many widows in Israel during that time. But the fact is, Elijah was sent to none of those widows in Israel. He was sent only to a widow in Zarephath, a town in Sidon.

“And there were many people with leprosy living in Israel during the time of the prophet Elisha. But none of them were healed; the only one was Naaman. And he was from the country of Syria, not Israel.”

When the people in the synagogue heard this, they were very angry. They got up and forced Jesus to go out of town. Their town was built on a hill. They took Jesus to the edge of the hill to throw him off. But he walked through the middle of the crowd and went away.

Silence

This is the word of the Lord
Thanks be to God

Open this link in a new tab to hear Kiran Young Wimberly’s paraphrase of Psalm 67, “May God Be Gracious Unto Us."

May God be gracious unto us
Make God’s face shine on to us
That your way be known on earth
And your power among all nations

Let the peoples praise you, God
All the peoples praise you, God
And be glad and sing for joy
Guide the peoples of all nations

God, our God, has blessed us kindly
Blessed us and sustained us kindly
God be gracious unto us
And God’s face shine on all nations

May God be gracious unto us
May God’s face shine on to us
God be gracious unto us
And God’s face shine on all nations

Far Greater Than We Can Imagine

The words Jesus read from the Book of Isaiah in this evening’s New Testament reading pleased the people of Nazareth gathered in their synagogue on the sabbath. What Jesus went on to say did not please them. They attempted to lynch him, throw him off the top of the hill on which the town stood.

What are we to make of the passage that Jesus read from the book of Isaiah and Jesus’ explanation of the passage? What Jesus told the people of Nazareth was that he was the fulfillment of the prophesy contained in the passage. The words of the prophesy were being fulfilled in their very presence.

What would anger the people of Nazareth was his announcement that they would not be the beneficiaries of the prophesy’ fulfillment as they themselves believed. They would reject him He goes on to tell them that God sent prophet Elijah to a Phoenician widow and the prophet Elisha to a Syrian general. Both the widow and the general were Gentiles, non-Jews. They were not God’s chosen people, the people of Israel. This infuriated them even more.

Let’s take a look at the prophesy itself, the words that Jesus read. Their main thrust is the last verse, “…to announce that the time has come for the Lord to show his kindness.” This verse is sometime translated as to announce the year of the Lord’s favor.

The Easy-to-Read Version’s rendering of this verse is more in line with what Jesus tells the people of Nazareth after he has read the passage. This evening’s New Testament reading is taken from that version of the Bible.

Jesus is not referring to an ordinary Jubilee year, one Sabbath year in seven, that is, every 50 years, when in which debts would be remitted, lands restored to their original owners, and slaves freed. He was referring to something much greater, something that would affect Gentiles as well as Jews.

Jesus’ words offended the people of Nazareth because they viewed themselves as superior to the Gentiles. Like tax collectors and other sinners, they believed that Gentiles were beyond redemption. God would never show favor to them.

If we think about it, we, and other people whom we know, people who are professed Christians like us, take the same attitude toward various people groups in our society. In the back of our mind, we think to ourselves God is not going to have mercy upon people like them. We marshal all kinds of things in our heads to justify this belief. When someone suggests otherwise, we may dismiss what that person says or we may respond with outrage, depending upon how much we have invested in seeing a particular people group in a particular way.

But it is not our place to decide upon whom God will have mercy. We are tasked with proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ to all peoples, not just those whom we believe are worthy of God’s forgiveness and kindness.

What Jesus was telling the people of Nazareth and us with them is that God’s willingness to show mercy, God’s willingness to show forgiveness and kindness, is far greater than they or we can imagine.

When we read all four Gospels, we see God’s forgiveness and kindness in Jesus’ teaching, the way he treats people, his healings, exorcisms, raising of the dead, and other miracles, and ultimately in Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection. While Jesus in one passage narrowly restrict his ministry to the people of Israel, nonetheless his actions reveal a different picture. He delivers the daughter of a Syrophoenician woman from an evil spirit, and he heals the servant of a Roman officer. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, the example of someone who shows true neighborliness, which Jesus gives is a Samaritan, a member of ethnic group despised and hated by the Jews. He spoke to a Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob and offered her salvation. In the Acts of the Apostles, which completes Luke’s Gospel, it is clear that the way to salvation that Jesus opened on the cross is available to all people, not just Jews.

God’s forgiveness and kindness did not end when Jesus ascended into heaven and took his place at the Father’s right hand. Jesus’ ministry and the events that took place while he was here on earth was just the beginning. The year of the Lord’s favor was not contained in one year, a single year of Jubilee. It continues to this day. Our time is a time in which God shows his forgiveness and kindness too. The way of salvation is open to all who believe in Jesus, to all who turn in repentance from sin and to him in faith, to all who accept him as their Savior and Lord.

Those who turn to Jesus, trust him, trust his words, surrender their lives to him, emulate his character and follow his teaching and example, will embark on a new relationship with God. They will begin a new life, a life that is in tune with God’s will for us. They will undergo a transformation of their character. Their love of God will grow and with that love will grow their love of others. They will yield what the apostle Paul calls the fruit of the Spirit. They will become more and more like their better self, the self so many of us desire to be, a self that is not hiding somewhere within us but is a gift of God’s grace to us.

Silence

Open this link to hear Frank Houghton’s “Thou Who Wast Rich Beyond All Splendour.”

Thou who wast rich beyond all splendor,
All for love’s sake becamest poor;
Thrones for a manger didst surrender,
Sapphire paved courts for stable floor.
Thou who wast rich beyond all splendor,
All for love’s sake becamest poor.

Thou who art love beyond all telling,
Savior and King, we worship Thee.
Emmanuel, within us dwelling,
Make us what Thou wouldst have us be.
Thou who art love beyond all telling,
Savior and King, we worship Thee.

[Instrumental interlude] 

Thou who art God beyond all praising,
All for love’s sake becamest man;
Stooping so low, but sinners raising,
Heavenward by Thine eternal plan.
Thou who art God beyond all praising,
All for love’s sake becamest man.

Let us affirm with Christians across the ages what we believe about God
and his love for us.

We believe in one God,
who made us and loves all that is.
We believe in Jesus Christ,
God’s only Son, our Lord,
who was born, lived, died and rose again,
and is coming to call all to account.
We believe in the Holy Spirit,
who calls, equips and sends out God’s people,
and brings all things to their true end.

This is our faith, the faith of the Church:

We believe in one God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

THE MINISTRY OF PRAYER

Let us pray to the Lord with all our heart and with all our soul.
Lord, have mercy.

Let us pray for all Christian people, that they may live in love and truth.
Lord, have mercy.

Let us pray for all ministers of the Church, and for our brothers and
sisters in Christ.
Lord, have mercy.

Let us pray for peace throughout the world, and for all governments.
Lord, have mercy.

Let us pray for our neighbours and for all our friends.
Lord, have mercy.

Let us pray for those who hate us as we pray for those who love us.
Lord, have mercy.

Let us pray for refugees and prisoners, and for all who are exposed to the
dangers of travel.
Lord, have mercy.

Let us pray for all sick people, for the sorrowful and the dying.
Lord, have mercy.

Let us pray for the abundance of the fruits of the earth, and that the
poor and hungry may receive a just share.
Lord, have mercy.

Let us remember our brothers and sisters who have entered into eternal
rest.
Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.

Let us continue praying in a time of open prayer.

A period of open prayer follows.

The leader brings the period of open prayer to an end saying

Lord, in your mercy
hear our prayer.

Heavenly Father,
you have promised to hear
what we ask in the name of your Son:
we pray you to accept and answer our prayers,
not as we ask in our ignorance,
nor as we deserve in our sinfulness,
but as you know and love us in your Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

As our Savior 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.

THE SENDING FORTH OF GOD’S PEOPLE

In darkness and in light,
in trouble and in joy,
help us, heavenly Father,
to trust your love,
to serve your purpose,
and to praise your name,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Let us bless the Lord.
Thanks be to God.

May the almighty and merciful God,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
bless us and keep us
now and forever. Amen.

Open this link in a new tab to hear Michael Frye’s “Be the Centre.”

Jesus, be the centre,
Be my source, be my light, Jesus.

Jesus, be the centre,
Be my hope, be my song, Jesus.

Be the fire in my heart,
Be the wind in these sails,
Be the reason that I live, Jesus, Jesus.

Jesus, be my vision,
Be my path, be my guide, Jesus.

Be the fire in my heart,
Be the wind in these sails,
Be the reason that I live, Jesus, Jesus.

Be the fire in my heart,
Be the wind in these sails,

Be the reason that I live, Jesus, Jesus,
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

Those present may exchange a sign of peace.

The peace of the Lord be always with you.
And also with you.