Sundays at All Hallows (Sunday, June 9, 2024)

Welcome to Sundays at All Hallows.

In this world all kinds of people and things vie for our loyalty. For those who have responded to Jesus’ call to follow him, they have one loyalty above all others. That loyalty is to Jesus, their King and Lord.

In this Sunday’s message we look at what the implications are for those who have responded to his call.

GATHERING IN GOD’S NAME

The Lord is here.
His Spirit is with us.

Open this link in a new tab to hear Margaret Clarkson’s “God of the Ages.”

1 God of the ages,
history's Maker,
planning our pathway,
holding us fast,
shaping in mercy
all that concerns us:
Father, we praise you,
Lord of the past!

2 God of this morning,
gladly your children
worship before you,
trustingly bow;
teach us to know you
always among us,
quietly sovereign--
Lord of our now.

3 God of tomorrow,
strong Overcomer,
princes of darkness
own your command:
what, then, can harm us?
we are your people,
now and forever
kept by your hand.

4 Lord of past ages,
Lord of this morning,
Lord of the future,
help us, we pray:
teach us to trust you,
love you, obey you,
crown you each moment
Lord of today!

*5 God of the nations,
you have redeemed us,
blessed us with privilege,
freedom and youth:
yours is the Kingdom!--
make us your heralds,
sharing your Gospel,
living its truth!

*Omitted on the video.

Let us confess our sins to God our Father

Silence

Almighty and merciful God
we have sinned against you,
in thought, word and deed.
We have not loved you with all our heart.
We have not loved others as our Saviour Christ loves us.
We are truly sorry.
In your mercy forgive what we have been,
help us to amend what we are,
and direct what we shall be;
that we may delight in your will
and walk in your ways;
through Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.

Merciful Lord, 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 Lord. Amen.

Open this link in a new tab to hear the “Kyrie” from Liam Lawson’s Mass of the Celtic Saints.

Kyrie eleison.
Kyrie eleison.

Christe eleison.
Christe eleison.

Kyrie eleison, kyrie eleison, kyrie eleison.
Kyrie eleison, kyrie eleison, kyrie eleison.

Open this link in a new tab to hear the “Glory to God” from Liam Lawson’s Mass of the Celtic Saints.

Glory to God, glory to God,
Glory to God in the highest heaven
Glory to God, glory to God
Peace to God’s people, God’s people on Earth

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 heaven
Glory to God, glory to God
Peace to God’s people, God’s people on Earth

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 heaven
Glory to God, glory to God
Peace to God’s people, God’s people on Earth

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, the glory
The glory of God the Father

Glory to God, glory to God,
Glory to God in the highest heaven
Glory to God, glory to God
Peace to God’s people, God’s people on Earth

Glory to God, glory to God,
Glory to God in the highest heaven
Glory to God, glory to God
Peace to God’s people, God’s people on Earth

Let us pray.

Silence

Lord, you have taught us
that all our doings without love are nothing worth:
Send your Holy Spirit
and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love,
the true bond of peace and of all virtues,
without which whoever lives is counted dead before you.
Grant this for your only Son Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.

THE MINISTRY OF THE WORD

A reading from the First Book of Samuel, Chapter 8, Verses 4 through 20.

Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah and said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations.” But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to govern us.” Samuel prayed to the Lord, and the Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. Just as they have done to me from the day I brought them up out of Egypt to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so also they are doing to you. Now then, listen to their voice; only, you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.”

So Samuel reported all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots, and he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers. He will take one-tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers. He will take your male and female slaves and the best of your cattle and donkeys and put them to his work. He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And on that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you on that day.”

But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel; they said, “No! We are determined to have a king over us, so that we also may be like other nations and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles.”

Silence

Those present may read recite Psalm 138 either in unison or antiiphonally, from side to side by verse or half verse.

I will give thanks to you, O Lord, with my whole heart; 
before the gods will I sing praise to you.

I will bow down towards your holy temple and praise your name,
because of your love and faithfulness; 
for you have glorified your name
and your word above all things.

In the day that I called to you, you answered me;
you put new strength in my soul.

All the kings of the earth shall praise you, O Lord, 
for they have heard the words of your mouth.

They shall sing of the ways of the Lord, 
that great is the glory of the Lord.

Though the Lord be high, he watches over the lowly;
as for the proud, he regards them from afar. 

Though I walk in the midst of trouble,
you will preserve me; 
you will stretch forth your hand against the fury of my enemies;
your right hand will save me.

The Lord shall make good his purpose for me; 
your loving-kindness, O Lord, endures for ever;
forsake not the work of your hands.

Silence

A reading from Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 4, Verse 13 through Chapter 5, Verse 5.

But just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture—“I believed, and so I spoke”—we also believe, and therefore we also speak, because we know that the one who raised Jesus will also raise us with Jesus and will present us with you in his presence. Indeed, everything is for your sake, so that grace, when it has extended to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.

So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For our slight, momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen, for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.

For we know that, if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to be further clothed with our heavenly dwelling, for surely when we have been clothed in it we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan under our burden because we wish not to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. The one who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a down payment.

Silence

Open this link in a new tab to hear Carl P. Daw Jr.’s paraphrase of the Benedicite, “Let All Creation Bless the Lord.”

1 Let all creation bless the Lord,
till heav'n with praise is ringing.
Sun, moon, and stars, peal out a chord,
stir up the angels' singing.
Sing, wind and rain! Sing, snow and sleet!
Make music, day, night, cold and heat:
exalt the God who made you.

2 All living things upon the earth,
green fertile hills and mountains,
sing to the God who gave you birth;
be joyful, springs and fountains.
Lithe waterlife, bright airborne birds,
wild roving beasts, tame flocks and herds:
exalt the God who made you.

3 O men and women everywhere,
lift up a hymn of glory;
let all who know God's steadfast care
tell out salvation's story.
No tongue be silent; sing your part,
you humble souls and meek of heart:
exalt the God who made you.

A reading from the Gospel according to Mark, Chapter 3, Verses 20 through 35.

Then he went home, and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.” And he called them to him and spoke to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.

“Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin”— for they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.”

Then his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

Silence

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

Jesus, King and Lord

This Sunday’s reading from the Old Testament contains important lesson for twenty-first century Christians. It recounts how Israel became a kingdom, a development that would have serious consequences for the people of Israel.

For several generations after the people of Israel entered the land that God had promised them, they had no king and Israel was not a kingdom. The people of Israel were divided into tribes and each tribe had its own elders. The people of Israel collectively had one or more judges who served as leaders of the nation, settled disputes, and interpreted the law.

The people of Israel quickly forget how the Pharoah of Egypt, a strongman, had enslaved and oppressed them. They began to envy the surrounding nations who had kings, strongmen leading them, and came to desire a king of their own, a strongman like the kings of the surrounding nations.

The elders of the tribes met with Samuel who then was judge and demanded that he appoint a king to rule them. Samuel consulted with God who tells him that it is not him the people of Israel are rejecting but God, something the people of Israel have been doing since God delivered them from slavery in Egypt. He instructs Samuel to do what they ask while at the same time warning them of the consequences of having a king, a strongman, ruling them. When Samuel warns the people, they refuse to listen to him.

The Old Testament of the Bible records what happened to the people of Israel as a result of their rejection of God as their true King for a human king, a strongman. Evil times befell them.

Samual’s warning was not the only warning they would receive. Psalm 146: 3-6 urged the people of Israel—

Do not put your trust in princes,
in mortals, in whom there is no help.
When their breath departs, they return to the earth;
on that very day their plans perish.

Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord their God,
who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them;
who keeps faith forever….

Despite what happened to them, the people of Israel did not heed these warnings, or the warnings of the prophets God sent to them. At the time Jesus began his earthly ministry, the Messiah they were expecting was a strongman who would restore the kingdom of Israel. Instead, they got their true King, God in the person of the Son, in the person of Jesus. They got a King who did not ride into Jerusalem on a war horse but on a donkey, a King who suffered and died on a cross for the sins of the world.

In our own time there are people in our own country who are dissatisfied with our present democratic form of government and would replace it with a dictatorship, a form of government in which one party and its leader wields absolute power without the restraints of a constitution or laws. They have not learned from the lessons of history, from the evil that dictators and other strongmen have done and the suffering they have caused. If they have read the Bible, they have not learned from what happened to the people of Israel after Samuel gave them a king. 

Among the characteristics of a dictatorship are the use of intimidation, murder, imprisonment, violence and other human rights abuses to control the population and the promotion of a cult of personality that makes an idol of the party leader. These characteristics are at odds with what Jesus taught and exemplified. No Christian who is a true disciple of Jesus would wish to impose a dictatorship on the people of this country or any country.

Jesus taught that the two greatest commandments are to love God with the totality of our being and to love our neighbors as ourselves. He identified our neighbors as all people, not just people like us. He further taught that we are to love even those whom we perceive to be our enemies and not to persecute them. We are to forgive those who do us ill. 

Jesus equated harboring anger and resentment toward someone else with murdering that person. Jesus said that saying unkind or cruel things to someone or about that person and attacking their reputation was serious offense against God. He further taught that we are to pursue reconciliation with those who have anything against us.

In this Sunday’s reading from the Gospels Jesus identifies as his true kindred those who do the will of God. What then is the will of God?

Read Matthew 17:5, Mark 9:7, and Luke 9:35. This is Luke’s account of what happened. Jesus was transfigured before the eyes of the apostles. “Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”

Listening to Jesus, believing him and his words, and doing what he commanded is doing God’s will. It is not bending a knee to any political figure who demonstrates an uncanny ability to manipulate people’s fears and prejudices, whose primary motivation for seeking office of the President of the United States appears to be to regain the power and prestige of that office, to exploit the office for his own advantage, and to exact vengeance upon his political enemies. It is to recognize that Jesus is the true King, not just of the people of Israel but of all humankind. He is the Lord of all!

It is to Jesus and Jesus alone that every knee must bow. It is his commandments that we are to obey, not out of fear, but out of love, love for him who loved us so much that he humbled himself and suffered death on a cross for us, opening to us the way of salvation! Those who do God’s will are not only Jesus’ true kindred. They are true children of God!

Silence

Open this link in a new tab to hear Caroline M. Noel’s “At the Name of Jesus.”

1 At the Name of Jesus
Ev'ry knee shall bow,
Ev'ry tongue confess him
King of glory now.
’Tis the Father’s pleasure
We should call him Lord,
Who from the beginning
Was the mighty Word.

2 Humbled for a season,
To receive a Name
From the lips of sinners,
Unto whom he came,
Faithfully he bore it
Spotless to the last,
Brought it back victorious,
When through death he passed.

3 Bore it up triumphant
With its human light,
Through all ranks of creatures,
To the central height,
To the throne of Godhead,
To the Father’s breast;
Filled it with the glory
Of that perfect rest.

4 In your hearts enthrone him;
There let him subdue
All that is not holy,
All that is not true:
Crown him as your Captain
In temptation's hour;
Let his will enfold you
In its light and power.

5 Jesus, Lord and Savior,
Shall return again,
With his Father's glory
O'er the earth to reign;
For all wreaths of empire
Meet upon his brow,
And our hearts confess him
King of glory now.

For all wreaths of empire
Meet upon his brow,
And our hearts confess him
King of glory now.

Let us confess the faith of the Church.

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.

THE MINISTRY OF PRAYER

Let us pray for all people and for the Church throughout the world.

Father, we pray for your holy catholic Church
that we all may be one.

Grant that every member of your Church may truly and humbly serve you:
that your name may be glorified by all people.

We pray for all bishops, elders, deacons, and licensed local pastors
that they may be faithful ministers of your word and sacraments.

We pray for all who govern and hold authority in the nations of the world
that there may be justice and peace on the earth.

Give us grace to do your will in all that we undertake
that your glory may be proclaimed through our lives.

Have compassion on those who suffer from any grief or trouble
that they may be delivered from their distress.

We praise you for your saints who have entered their eternal joy
may we also come to share in the fulness of your kingdom.

We pray for our own needs and for those of others:

Silence. 

The people may add their own petitions.

Faithful God,
you have promised to hear the prayers
of all who ask in Jesus’ name.
In your mercy, accept our prayers.
Give us what we have asked in faith,
according to your will;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Let us sum up our prayers and praises in the words our Saviour Christ has taught us and say:

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.

Open this link in a new tab to hear James Seddon’s “Tell All the World of Jesus.”

1 Tell all the world of Jesus,
our Saviour, Lord and King;
and let the whole creation
of his salvation sing:
proclaim his glorious greatness,
in nature and in grace,
creator and redeemer,
the Lord of time and space.

2 Tell all the world of Jesus,
that everyone may find
the joy of his forgiveness
true peace of heart and mind.
Proclaim his perfect goodness,
his deep, unfailing care,
his love so rich in mercy,
a love beyond compare.

3 Tell all the world of Jesus,
that everyone may know
of his almighty triumph
defeating every foe.
Proclaim his coming glory,
when sin is overthrown,
and he shall reign in splendour
the King upon his throne!

THE SENDING OUT 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.

May the Lord bless us and keep us,
May the Lord make his face to shine on us and be gracious to us,
May the Lord look on us with kindness and give us peace. Amen.

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

Those present may exchange a gesture of peace with these or similar words:
Peace be with you.