Thursday Evenings at All Hallows (Thursday, July 25, 2024)
Among the means of grace, the ways God invigorates and strengthens the faith of those who are believers and awakens and arouses the faith of those who are not yet believers are times of worship like this one. Join in the songs as you are able, Read the prayers, the Scripture reading, the message, and the affirmation of faith aloud, pausing after the Scripture reading and the message to reflect on what you have read. Pray the prayers from the heart. Take your time. There is no need to rush. If more than one person is present, divide the reading of the Scripture, the message, and the prayers between yourselves. With the exception of the introduction, the title of each part of the service, and the links to the videos, what is printed in bold is for everyone to say or sing. What is printed in italics are directions.
This evening’s message unpacks the Scripture reading and considers its implications for us.
GATHERING IN GOD’S NAME
The Lord be with you,
The Lord bless you.
Merciful God,
As we gather to worship you this evening, in spirit if not in person, help us to put away from our thoughts whatever may be troubling us so that we can worship you with undistracted hearts and minds. Enable us to glorify you, our God and Father, in everything that we do or say. Increase in us the presence and power of your Holy Spirit so that we always do what is right, show loving-kindness to all, and walk humbly with you. This we ask in the name of your Son Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, Lord, and Friend. Amen.
Open this link in a new tab to hear Brian Doerksen’s “Come, Now Is the Time to Worship.”
Come now is the time to worship
Come now is the time to give your heart
Come just as you are to worship
Come just as you are before your God
Come
One day every tongue
Will confess You are God
One day every knee will bow
Still the greatest treasure remains
For those who gladly choose You now
Come now is the time to worship
Come now is the time to give your heart
Come just as you are to worship
Come just as you are before your God
Come
One day every tongue
Will confess You are God
One day every knee will bow
Still the greatest treasure remains
For those who gladly choose You now
Willingly we choose to surrender our lives
Willingly our knees will bow
With all our heart soul mind and strength
We gladly choose You now
[Instrumental interlude]
One day every tongue
Will confess You are God
One day every knee will bow
Still the greatest treasure remains
For those who gladly choose You now
Come now is the time to worship
Come now is the time to give your heart
Come just as you are to worship
Come just as you are before your God
Come
Come, just as you are
Come just as you are
Come
Come
You come
Oh
You come
Open this link in a new tab to hear Andy Weeks and Matt Clarks’ “Alpha and Omega.”
Verse 1:
You are the Alpha and the Omega,
beginning and the end;
Lord God Almighty, King of the ages,
worthy of all praise.
Chorus:
Jesus, Faithful and True, you are holy,
there is no-one like you,
Lord of heav’n and earth.
Jesus, worthy of honour and glory,
King of love and mercy,
Lord of heav’n and earth.
Verse 2:
You came from heaven, suffered to save us,
the sinless lamb of God;
now you are risen, you are exalted
and crowned the Lord of lords.
Chorus:
Jesus, Faithful and True, you are holy,
there is no-one like you,
Lord of heav’n and earth.
Jesus, worthy of honour and glory,
King of love and mercy,
Lord of heav’n and earth.
Verse 3:
Blessing and honour and glory and power
be to our God forever.
Heaven rejoices and angels bow down:
praise to our God forever.
Blessing and honour and glory and power
be to our God forever.
Heaven rejoices and angels bow down:
praise to our God forever.
Blessing and honour and glory and power
be to our God forever.
Heaven rejoices and angels bow down:
praise to our God forever.
Final Chorus:
Jesus, Faithful and True, you are holy,
there is no-one like you,
Lord of heav’n and earth.
Jesus, worthy of honour and glory,
King of love and mercy,
Lord of heav’n and earth.
Jesus, Faithful and True, you are holy,
there is no-one like you,
Lord of heav’n and earth.
Jesus, worthy of honour and glory,
King of love and mercy,
Lord of heav’n and earth.
Lord of heav’n and earth.
Lord of heav’n and earth.
Open this link in a new tab to hear Michael Frye’s “Be the Centre.”
Verse 1
Jesus be the centre
Be my source, be my light
Jesus
Verse 2
Jesus be the centre
Be my hope, be my song
Jesus
Chorus
Be the fire in my heart
Be the wind in these sails
Be the reason that I live
Jesus, Jesus
Verse 3
Jesus be my vision
Be my path, be my guide
Jesus
Final Chorus
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
THE MINISTRY OF THE WORD
Heavenly Father,
give us faith to receive your word,
understanding to know what it means,
and the will to put it into practice,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
A reading from the Gospel according to Luke, Chapter 9, Verses 46-56.
Then his disciples began arguing about which of them was the greatest. But Jesus knew their thoughts, so he brought a little child to his side. Then he said to them, “Anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me also welcomes my Father who sent me. Whoever is the least among you is the greatest.”
John said to Jesus, “Master, we saw someone using your name to cast out demons, but we told him to stop because he isn’t in our group.”
But Jesus said, “Don’t stop him! Anyone who is not against you is for you.”
As the time drew near for him to ascend to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. He sent messengers ahead to a Samaritan village to prepare for his arrival. But the people of the village did not welcome Jesus because he was on his way to Jerusalem. When James and John saw this, they said to Jesus, “Lord, should we call down fire from heaven to burn them up?” But Jesus turned and rebuked them. So they went on to another village.
Silence
May your word live in us
and bear much fruit to your glory.
Works in Progress
From the Gospel narrative, we may conclude that Jesus’ first disciples fell to arguing about who was the greatest among them on more than one occasion. On this particular occasion, Jesus, sensing a teachable moment, gave them an object lesson. He brought a small child to his side. He the told them, “Anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me also welcomes my Father who sent me. Whoever is the least among you is the greatest.”
The implication for today’s Christians is that when we receive a child on Jesus’ behalf, we are also receiving God in the person of the Son and the Father. Children are God’s representatives to us. This should cause us to give thought to how we treat them at church. Do we include them in the worship, ministry, and life of the local church? Or do we ignore what Jesus said and segregate them from the Body of Christ?
The first disciples’ behavior is not surprising. They were not the “saints” that we have come to see them. They were ordinary human beings like us, each with his own limitations and weaknesses. Jesus did not choose them because they were exceptional. We do not know why he chose them. The Gospel narrative does not tell us. Jesus may have seen something in them that others did not see. Jesus was very perceptive. He could see past an individual’s persona, the particular type of character that a person seems to have, the character that the person shows to others, to their real or private character.
In a way the disciples remind me of a group of schoolboys, gathered at the edge of their school’ playing field, boasting about their athletic abilities and accomplishments. Competitiveness and one-upmanship are common in school field sports and often are encouraged.
The disciples lived in a stratified society with the religious elite and the wealthy landowners at the top of society and the slaves at its bottom. Everyone else was squeezed somewhere between the top and bottom layers. Tax collectors and others whom the Pharisees and the teachers of the religious law regarded as sinners beyond redemption were on the margins of society as were its untouchables, the lepers. For this reason it is also not surprising that the first disciples would try to sort themselves into some kind of pecking order, in which some disciples knew that they were more important or less important than others.
The Gospel narrative does not tell us on what basis each disciple was saying that he was greater than the others. What it does tell us in an indirect way that pride, the belief that we are better or more important than others, was one of first disciples’ weaknesses. They lacked humility, the feeling or attitude that we have no special importance that makes us better than everyone else. If they were aware of their bad qualities, they were unwilling to acknowledge them.
Whatever was motivating them, Jesus tips everything on its head, telling that in his disciples the greatest is whoever is the least. His words must have left them flabbergasted, feeling shocked because it was not what they were expecting to hear. On the other hand, they may have experienced a sinking feeling because they knew that Jesus would say something like he did.
When we consider this evening’s Scripture reading in its entirety, it is evident that disciples did not fully grasp Jesus’ teaching, much less had they internalized it. They were works in progress. They stopped a man from delivering people from evil spirits in Jesus’ name because he was not a member of their group. James and John wanted to call down fire from heaven on a Samaritan village because its inhabitants did not welcome them.
The reason that the Samaritan village’s inhabitants refused them hospitality had nothing to do with Jesus. The villagers thought that since Jesus and his disciples were going to Jerusalem, they were pilgrims to the Temple at Jerusalem. The villagers were unwilling to offer them hospitality for this reason. To this day the Samaritans believe that Mount Gerizim is the holiest place on Earth. They regard Mount Gerizim, rather than Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, as the location chosen by God for a holy temple, and therefore the most appropriate place to which worshippers of God should make a pilgrimage. To offer hospitality to pilgrims on their way to the Temple at Jerusalem was, in their minds, sacrilege. They would be treating the true location of God’s holy temple with disrespect. They would also be giving tacit support to a belief that was against the principles of their religion. The Samaritans believe that when the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judea were taken into captivity in Babylon, their religion became corrupt. They, not the Judeans, preserved the true religion of the people of Israel. While both the Samaritans and the Judeans are descendants of the people of Israel, their religious differences have been a source of friction and animosity between the two groups in the past. Today the Samaritans are considered to be a sect within the Jewish religion.
Some early manuscripts of the New Testament add an expanded conclusion to verse 55 and an additional sentence in verse 56: “And he said, “You don’t realize what your hearts are like. For the Son of Man has not come to destroy people’s lives, but to save them.”
Jesus’ first disciples had a lot to learn. As we can gather from Luke’s Acts of the Apostles, they were still learning after Jesus had risen from the dead and ascended into heaven. Jesus continued to teach them through a dream and outpourings of the Holy Spirit upon Samaritans and Gentiles, Romans, Greeks, and other non-Jews.
Modern-day Christians, like the first disciples, are also works in progress. As the apostle Paul wrote the fledgling church at Philippi, God is working in us, giving us the desire and the power to do what pleases him (Philippians 2:13). He works invisibly in us in the person of the Holy Spirit who indwells all who turn in repentance from sin and turn in faith to Jesus. God, however, does not force us to do his will. He gives us a measure of free will. We can choose to cooperate with him in our transformation into the likeness of Jesus, into the person we were created to be. Or we can resist God. We can let ourselves be sidetracked by politics and other worldly concerns. We can put making the changes that need to make in our life on hold, convincing ourselves that we can do what need to do later. Mañana. Tomorrow.
When we do not take advantage of the present moment and put off what we need to do to another day, we decrease the likelihood that we will do anything. We fall into the habit of pushing everything to some undetermined future time. It is not just that we are putting our salvation at stake as some would argue, we are depriving ourselves and those around us of the benefits of a transformed life, a life marked by a deep love of God and a deep love our fellow human beings, a life that makes a difference in the lives of others, a life in which we are bright lights illuminating the darkness of this world.
Silence
Open this link in a new tab to hear Rob Smith’s “Undivided.”
1 Give me an undivided heart
That I might fear your name
Teach me to walk in righteous paths
And follow in your ways
For you are gracious and forgiving
Hear, O Lord, and answer me
2 Give me an undivided mind
That I might love your word
Help me to hunger for your voice
And know your Spirit’s sword
For you are good, your truth unchanging
Life is found in serving you
Undivided – I want to live for you
Single-minded – all that I say, all that I do
Sanctify me, take me and make me new
That I might live for Christ, my Lord
3 Give me an undivided love
For all that you desire
Make me a living sacrifice
Ignite in me your fire
For you, O Lord, are God eternal
All my ways are known to you
Undivided – I want to live for you
Single-minded – all that I say, all that I do
Sanctify me, take me and make me new
That I might live for Christ, my Lord
Undivided – counting my gains as loss
Single-minded – whatever the pain, whatever the cost
Sanctify me, help me take up my cross
And live for him who died for me
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
In the course of the silence after each petition, those present may offer their own prayers, either silently or aloud.
Let us join in prayer with God’s faithful people throughout the
world, saying “God of Love: hear our prayer.”
We pray for the unity of your church, that our life may reflect the
love you have shown us.
Silence
God of love: Hear our prayer.
We ask your grace for N our pastor and for all who
minister in word and in action, that we may bear faithful witness
to your good news.
Silence
God of love: Hear our prayer.
We seek your peace and justice in our world, our country, and our
community, that the needy may never be forgotten.
Silence
God of love: Hear our prayer.
We ask your blessing on our homes, our friends and family, and
on those who live alone, that we may know your presence ever
near us.
Silence
God of love: Hear our prayer.
We name before you all whom you have given us to pray for
[especially….], knowing that you are doing for them better things
than we can ask or imagine.
Silence
God of love: Hear our prayer.
We commend to you all who have died [especially….], that our
trust in you may deepen as you keep them safe in your care.
Silence
God of love: Hear our prayer.
We offer our thanks and praise for all you have done for us,
rejoicing in the knowledge that you are with us always.
Silence
God of love: Hear our prayer.
We look for your purposes to be accomplished, and ask you to fill
us with the strength and vision to further your reign.
Silence
God of love: Hear our prayer.
Accept our prayers through Jesus Christ our Lord, who 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,
the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
Open this link in a new tab to hear Matt Osgood’s “Send Us Out.”
Verse 1
Send us out in the power of your Spirit,
to shine your light in the way we live.
Send us out in the power of your Spirit,
as we’ve received, may we freely give.
Chorus
Send us out,
send us out,
send us out for your glory.
Let all we do
be praise to you;
send us out for your glory
Verse 2
Send us out in the power of your Spirit
to show your love everywhere we go.
Send us out in the power of your Spirit,
Lord, fill us up so we overflow.
Chorus
Send us out,
send us out,
send us out for your glory.
Let all we do
be praise to you;
send us out for your glory
Bridge
We're laying down our lives,
a living sacrifice,
we're living for your glory and your praise.
We’re taking up our cross,
we’ve counted up the cost,
we're living for your glory and your praise.
Final Chorus
Send us out,
send us out,
send us out for your glory.
Let all we do
be praise to you;
send us out for your glory
Send us out,
send us out,
send us out for your glory.
Let all we do
be praise to you;
send us out for your glory
send us out for your glory
send us out for your glory
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.
The love of the Father enfold us,
the wisdom of the Son enlighten us,
the fire of the Spirit enflame us;
and the blessing of God, the Three in One,
be upon us and abide with us now and for ever. 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.
Comments
Post a Comment