Sundays at All Hallows (Sunday, May 5, 2024)

Welcome to Sundays at All Hallows.

Before his betrayal and arrest Jesus gave a new commandment to his disciples: “Love one another in the way I have loved you.” He told them that the world would know them to be his disciples by their love for one another.

Jesus did not give that commandment just to them. He gave it to succeeding generations of his disciples. Love for one another was to be their trademark, their brand. It would set them apart from everyone else.

How are we doing?

GATHER IN GOD’S NAME

Open this link in a new tab to hear Vinnie Zarletti, Ellington Porter, and Jeff Deyo’s arrangement of Psalm 100, “Shout for Joy to the Lord.”

1 Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
Worship the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful songs.
Know that the Lord is God. It is He who made us.
And we are His; we are His people, the sheep of His pasture.

Shout for joy to the Lord all the earth.
Shout for joy to the Lord all the earth.

2 Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise.
Give thanks to Him and praise His name.
For the Lord is good, and His love endures forever.
His faithfulness continues through all generations.

Shout for joy to the Lord all the earth.
Shout for joy to the Lord all the earth.
Shout for joy to the Lord all the earth.
Shout for joy to the Lord all the earth.

Bridge 1
Shout for joy to the Lord.
His love endures forever.
Shout for joy to the Lord.
His love endures forever.
Shout for joy to the Lord.
His love endures forever.
Shout for joy to the Lord.
His love endures forever.

Bridge 2
Shout for joy to the Lord.
His love endures forever
Shout for joy to the Lord.
His love endures forever

Shout for joy to the Lord all the earth.
Shout for joy to the Lord all the earth.
Shout for joy to the Lord all the earth.
Shout for joy to the Lord all the earth.

The Lord be with you.
The Lord bless you.

This is the day which the Lord has made.
Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

God has promised forgiveness
to all who truly repent,
turn to Christ in faith
and are themselves forgiving.

In silence we call to mind our sins.

Silence

Let us confess our sins.

Merciful God,
we have sinned
in what we have thought and said,
in the wrong we have done
and in the good we have not done.
We have sinned in ignorance:
we have sinned in weakness:
we have sinned through our own deliberate fault.
We are truly sorry.
We repent and turn to you.
Forgive us, for our Saviour Christ’s sake,
and renew our lives to the glory of your name. Amen.

Almighty God, who pardons all who truly repent,
forgive our sins, strengthen us by the Holy Spirit,
and keep us in life eternal;
through Jesus Christ our Redeemer.
Amen.

Open this link in a new tab to hear Marty Haugen’s “Glory to God” from Beneath the Tree of Life.

Glory to God, glory to God,
glory to God in the highest,
and peace to God’s people,
peace to God’s people,
peace to God’s people on earth.

1 Lord God, heavenly King,
almighty God and Father,
we worship you, we give you thanks,
we praise you for your glory.

Glory to God, glory to God,
glory to God in the highest,
and peace to God’s people,
peace to God’s people,
peace to God’s people on earth.

2 Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father,
Lord God, Lamb of God,
you take away the sin of the world:
have mercy on us;
you are seated at the right hand of the Father,
receive our prayer.

Glory to God, glory to God,
glory to God in the highest,
and peace to God’s people,
peace to God’s people,
peace to God’s people on earth.

3 For you alone are the Holy One,
you alone are the Lord,
you alone are the Most High,
Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit,
in the glory of God the Father.

Glory to God, glory to God,
glory to God in the highest,
and peace to God’s people,
peace to God’s people,
peace to God’s people on earth.

Let us pray.

Silence

Almighty God,
you teach us in your word that love is the fulfilling of the law:
grant that we may love you with all our heart
and our neighbor as ourselves;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

A reading from the New Testament (Acts 10:44–48)

Even as Peter was saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the message. The Jewish believers who came with Peter were amazed that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles, too. For they heard them speaking in other tongues and praising God.

Then Peter asked, “Can anyone object to their being baptized, now that they have received the Holy Spirit just as we did?” So he gave orders for them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Afterwards Cornelius asked him to stay with them for several days.

Silence

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

7 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 (1 John 5:1–6)

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has become a child of God. And everyone who loves the Father loves his children, too. We know we love God’s children if we love God and obey his commandments. Loving God means keeping his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome. For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith. And who can win this battle against the world? Only those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

And Jesus Christ was revealed as God’s Son by his baptism in water and by shedding his blood on the cross* —not by water only, but by water and blood. And the Spirit, who is truth, confirms it with his testimony.

Silence

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

Open this link in a new tab to hear Marty Haugen’s arrangement of “Halle, Halle, Hallelujah.”

Halle, halle, hallelujah.
Halle halle, hallelujah.
Halle halle, hallelujah.
Hallelujah, hallelujah.
Halle halle, hallelujah.
Halle halle, hallelujah.
Hallelujah, hallelujah.

Oh God, to who shall we go?
You alone have the words of life.
Let your words be our prayer and the song we sing:

Hallelujah, hallelujah.
Halle, halle, hallelujah.
Halle halle, hallelujah.
Halle halle, hallelujah.
Hallelujah, hallelujah.
Halle, halle, hallelujah.
Halle halle, hallelujah.
Halle halle, hallelujah.
Hallelujah, hallelujah.
Halle, halle, hallelujah.
Halle halle, hallelujah.
Halle halle, hallelujah.
Hallelujah, hallelujah.

A reading from the New Testament (John 15:9–17)

“I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you.

There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. This is my command: Love each other.

Silence

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

How to Overcome the Barriers to Loving One Another

When I read today’s reading from the Gospel of John I think about a passage in the First Letter of John.

If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their fellow believers. (1 John 4: 20-21 NLT)

Hate is the opposite of love. When we hate someone, we dislike them very much. We can express our dislike of them in the form of open hostility, obvious unfriendliness. Or we can hide our dislike of them and express it in the form of passive aggressiveness. We can refuse to speak to them or speak to them very little. We can invent and spread rumors about them. We can act toward them in other unhelpful or unfriendly ways.

While hatred, an extremely strong feeling of dislike, is a serious barrier or obstacle to obeying Jesus’ commandment to love one another as he has loved us. it is not the only barrier or obstacle. In this message, I am going to take a look at six other common barriers or obstacles to obeying this commandment. They are apathy, indifference, bias, preference, prejudice, and aversion. With hatred, these barriers or obstacles can prevent us from loving our fellow believers as disciples of Jesus are meant to do.

Apathy and indifference share a number of similarities. At the same time, they are different from each other. Someone who is apathetic show “a significant lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern.” They struggle with motivation and have no energy. Someone who is indifferent also shows a lack of interest but to a milder degree than someone who is apathetic. They display a lack of emotional investment in what is going on around them. They do not care about the things that a Christian might be expected to care about or have a particular opinion about them. Both apathy and indifference can affect interpersonal relationships and can impair the ability of Christians to love one another.

Whether we recognize or acknowledge them, we all have biases, preferences, and prejudices. Someone who is biased against someone else shows an unreasonable dislike for them based upon personal opinions. They will treat them in an unfair way, allowing personal opinions to influence their judgment.

A preference is the fact that we like something or someone more than another thing or person. We prefer to be around people of our own age, people who share our interests and opinions, people who are pleasant or pleasing and whose company we enjoy, and so on. When we attend a church, we gravitate toward the people who match our preferences and pay little or no attention to those who do not.

A prejudice is “an unreasonable opinion or feeling, especially when formed without enough thought or knowledge.” Prejudices cause us to make assumptions about people, believing things about them as true without question or proof, and to act toward them, based upon these assumptions.

Like apathy and indifference, our biases, preferences, and prejudices can impair our ability to love our fellow Christians.

Aversion is “a feeling of strong dislike or reluctance or unwillingness to do something.” If we have an aversion to someone or something, we dislike them very much. It is usually accompanied by withdrawal from the person or thing which triggers dislike or avoidance of them. The response of withdrawal or avoidance is what distinguishes it from hatred. Both hatred and aversion involve feelings of strong dislike. When we hate someone, we respond with aggression toward them in some form or another. When we have an aversion to them, we respond with flight. We seek to escape, runaway, or avoid them. We may experience anxiety when we are around them because we are unable to fight or flee.

Our aversion to someone may not be rational. We may have misinterpreted their words and actions. We may have let our imaginations get the best of us. Something that they said or did may have reminded us of a traumatic event in our past. We may confuse them with someone else from our past, a parent or parental figure or some other person with whom we had relationship problems. They may have elicited feelings in us with which we are not comfortable. We may imagine that they feel a particular way toward us or want something from us when in fact it is ourselves who feel that way.

Aversion can prove a serious barrier or obstacle to loving one another as Jesus has loved us.

In self-help articles and videos on the internet, it is not uncommon to read or hear advice to surround ourselves with people who make you feel happy and to distance ourselves from people who make us unhappy. Psychologists tell us that this advice shifts responsibility for how we feel from ourselves to those around us, giving them control over our feelings rather than recognizing that we have control of how we feel. They also tell us that this is not the same thing as removing ourselves from what is proving to be a toxic environment—an environment in which our interactions with other people may involve emotional and physical abuse and/or sexual harassment, abuse, or exploitation.

In commanding us to love one another as he has loved us, Jesus is not telling us to remain in an environment that is genuinely toxic, an environment that can cause us a lot of harm and unhappiness over a long period of time. But he is telling us to make a sincere effort to maintain open, honest communication with our fellow Christians, particularly those in our church; to get to know each other to the extent that we are able to share each other’s feelings and experiences and imagine what it would be like to be in each other’s situation; to work to correct misunderstandings and to reconcile differences; to treat each other fairly, to be generous, helpful, and considerate of the feelings of everyone, and not just a few to whom we have taken a liking; to be friendly toward everyone; to show them compassion, forgiveness, and patience and otherwise treat everyone as we would wish ourselves to be treated. On our part this may require 180 degrees change in our attitudes, ways of thinking, and behavior.

The kind of love that Jesus would have us show each other is a sacrificial love. It involves giving up things that are valuable to us for the benefit of others. In commanding us to love one other in the same way that he has loved us, Jesus is telling us to give up those barriers and obstacles that keep us from loving each other—our hatred, our apathy, our indifference, our biases, preferences, and prejudices, and our aversions. In obeying his command, we show not only our love for one another but also our love for Jesus. We show ourselves to be true disciples of our risen Lord.

Silence

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

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to hell.
The third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended to heaven
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.
From there he will 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 the life everlasting. Amen.

Open this link in a new tab to hear Carey Landry’s “This Is My Commandment."

1 This is my commandment, that you love one another
as I have loved you,
as I have loved you,
as I have loved you.
This is my commandment, that you love one another
as I have loved you.

2 Love your enemies, do good to those who hurt you
and live in my love,
live in my love,
live in my love.
This is my commandment, that you love one another
as I have loved you.

3 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you
and your joy may be full,
that your joy may be full,
that your joy may be full.
This is my commandment, that you love one another
as I have loved you.

Coda:
As I have loved you.

THE MINISTRY OF PRAYER

God of heaven and earth, through Jesus Christ you promise to hear
us when we pray to you in faith with thanksgiving.

We pray for one another, for our families and friends, through
whom we learn to love and to be loved. Thank you for all who care
for us. Give us grace to serve Christ by serving our neighbours and
our community, loving others as he loves us.

Silence

We thank you for the unfailing love you hold out to everyone in
Jesus Christ. Comfort and heal those in sorrow, need, sickness or
any other trouble. Give them courage and hope in their distress,
and bless those who minister to them.

Silence

We remember with gratitude your many gifts to us in creation and
the rich heritage of this nation. Help us and people everywhere
to share with justice and peace the resources of the earth. Give
wisdom to those in authority among us and to all leaders of the
nations.

Silence

We pray for your Church throughout the world, thanking you for
all who serve Christ and his kingdom. By your Spirit strengthen
your people for their work and witness in the world. Unite us in
your truth and love, that we who confess your name may also
reflect your glory.

Silence

We remember with thanksgiving all who have died in Christ, and
we rejoice at the faithful witness of your saints in every age,
praying that we may enter with them into the unending joy of your
heavenly kingdom.

Silence

Merciful God, you look with compassion on all who turn to you.
Hear the prayers of your people.
Grant that what we have asked in faith
we may by your grace receive;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Draw your Church together, O God,
into one great company of disciples,
together following our Lord Jesus Christ
into every walk of life,
together serving him in his mission to the world,
and together witnessing to his love
on every continent and island.
Praise to you our God; you answer prayer. Amen.

Accept our prayers through Jesus Christ our Lord who has taught us to 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, and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.

THE SENDING FORTH OF GOD’S PEOPLE

Holy and everliving God,
by your power we are created
and by your love we are redeemed;
guide and strengthen us by your Spirit,
that we may give ourselves to your service,
and live each day in love to one another and to you,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Let us bless the Lord.
Thanks be to God.

The almighty and merciful God bless us
and keep us now and for ever. Amen.

Open this link in a new tab to hear Shirley Erena Murray’s “Go Gently, Go Lightly.”

1 Go gently, go lightly,
go safe in the Spirit,
live simply, don't carry
much more than you need:
go trusting God's goodness,
go spreading God's kindness,
stay centered on Jesus
and where he will lead.

2 Go singing, go bringing
the gifts of the Spirit,
go hopefully searching
for things that are true:
in living, in loving,
whatever befalls you,
God keep you, God bless you
in all that you do.

[Instrumental interlude]

3 Go gently, go lightly,
go safe in the Spirit,
live simply, don't carry
much more than you need:
go trusting God's goodness,
go spreading God's kindness,
stay centered on Jesus
and where he will lead.

Those present may exchange a sign of peace.

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