Thursday Evenings at All Hallows (Thursday, January 9, 2025

Welcome to Thursday Evenings at All Hallows.

The Season that follows the Feast of the Epiphany and the Season that follows Trinity Sunday or the Feast of Pentecost, depending upon what liturgical calendar a church uses are called the “green seasons.” They are so called because green is the primary liturgical color used during these seasons. The use of liturgical colors to mark the seasons of the church year in the Western Church became a common practice in the fourth century. However, the history of liturgical colors is far older.

Liturgical colors are considered “adiaphora,” things that are indifferent to salvation and are not commanded or forbidden by Scripture. They serve as a reminder of the particular season or occasion a church is celebrating, a way of setting that season or occasion apart from other seasons and occasions.

In this evening’s message we unpack a key passage from the First Letter of John, a passage about the relationship between loving God and loving people.

GATHER IN GOD’S NAME

Open this link in a new tab to hear Timothy Seaman's arrangement of the Appalachian folk hymn tune BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD for hammered dulcimer.

Silence

Jesus said, "I am the light of the world; whoever follows me
will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
John 8:12

Let us confess our sins against God and our neighbor.

Silence

Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us and forgive us;
that we may delight in your will,
and walk in your ways,
to the glory of your Name. Amen.

Almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us all our sins
through our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen us in all
goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep us in
eternal life. Amen.

O God, make speed to save us.
O Lord, make haste to help us.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as
it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.
Alleluia.

Open this link in a new tab to hear Susan Briehl’s “Let Evening Fall.”

1 Let evening fall on field and forest,
on desert mesa, canyon deep;
let coyote prowl and night hawk circle
while solemn owl her wise watch keeps.

*2 Let mountain now resound with chanting,
and meadow echo antiphon;
let dusky breezes rustle aspen
while lake and land join even-song.

3 Let those who labor in the daylight
now bring their working to an end;
let others rise to keep the vigil,
the weak to guard, the sick to tend.

4 Let every heart that harbors hatred
(Let every heart that harbors hatred)
release its hold, receive your grace;
(release its hold, receive your grace;)
let every mouth that spoke in anger
(let every mouth that spoke in anger)
seek pardon’s peace, then sing your praise.
(seek pardon’s peace, then sing your praise.)

5 Let daylight fade and shadows lengthen
when those we love draw near to death;
Attend our prayers, our weak faith strengthen
as you receive their final breath.

6 O Maker of creation’s choir,
O Song of love sung out for all,
O Spirit, breath of all our singing,
Let praise arise, let evening fall.

*Omitted on the video.

Open this link in a new tab to hear Jeanne Cotter’s arrangement of Psalm 103, “The Lord Is Kind and Merciful,” for cantor, choir, and assembly.

Refrain
The Lord is kind and merciful;
the Lord is kind and merciful.
Slow to anger, rich in kindness,
the Lord is kind and merciful.

Verse 1
Bless the Lord, O my soul;
all my being bless God's name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul;
forget not all God's blessings.

Refrain
The Lord is kind and merciful;
the Lord is kind and merciful.
Slow to anger, rich in kindness,
the Lord is kind and merciful.

Verse 2
The Lord is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, full of kindness.
God is good to all creation,
full of compassion.

Refrain
The Lord is kind and merciful;
the Lord is kind and merciful.
Slow to anger, rich in kindness,
the Lord is kind and merciful.

Verse 3
The goodness of God is from age to age,
blessing those who choose to love.
And justice toward God's children;
on all who keep the covenant.

Refrain
The Lord is kind and merciful;
the Lord is kind and merciful.
Slow to anger, rich in kindness,
the Lord is kind and merciful.

Silence

Merciful Lord,
as we come from dust and return to dust,
show us the face of our Redeemer,
that in our frailty we may bless your name
and praise you all our days;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

THE MINISTRY OF THE WORD

A reading from the First Letter of John.
1 John 4: 7-21

Dear friends, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Whoever loves is a child of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. And God showed his love for us by sending his only Son into the world, so that we might have life through him. This is what love is: it is not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the means by which our sins are forgiven.

Dear friends, if this is how God loved us, then we should love one another. No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in union with us, and his love is made perfect in us.

We are sure that we live in union with God and that he lives in union with us, because he has given us his Spirit. And we have seen and tell others that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If we declare that Jesus is the Son of God, we live in union with God and God lives in union with us. And we ourselves know and believe the love which God has for us.

God is love, and those who live in love live in union with God and God lives in union with them. Love is made perfect in us in order that we may have courage on the Judgment Day; and we will have it because our life in this world is the same as Christ's. There is no fear in love; perfect love drives out all fear. So then, love has not been made perfect in anyone who is afraid, because fear has to do with punishment.

We love because God first loved us. If we say we love God, but hate others, we are liars. For we cannot love God, whom we have not seen, if we do not love others, whom we have seen. The command that Christ has given us is this: whoever loves God must love others also.

The Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God!

Silence

Inseparable

We live in a world in which wealthy men who are unbound by the moral values that others accept –values such as fair play and equal justice for all—jockey for power, influence, and control, seeking to reshape the world to serve their interests. To these ends they are exploiting social media and other means to stir up distrust and hate not only in the United States but also in other countries, pitting one group against another and creating chaos, which they can exploit to their advantage. They seek to place themselves above the law and therefore accountable to no one but themselves by dismantling whatever may hinder their ambitions. They live far removed from the lives of ordinary people and consequently feel no empathy for them, no concern for their wellbeing. Ordinary people are just the faceless masses to be manipulated for their purposes. From a biblical perspective they have succumbed to the oldest temptation—to be gods. They have made idols of themselves to which they bow and to which they would have others bow too.

This is admittedly a bleak picture of the world, but it is the direction that the United States and other countries are taking in the twenty-first century. In such a world, Christians face a number of hazards to their faith and way of life. Among these hazards is allowing ourselves to be swayed by those seeking to stir up distrust and hatred and to exploit it to their advantage. While this is not a particularly new hazard, such individuals are able to wield far greater influence than in the past through the study of human psychology as well as the technological advances of recent years. And Christians are susceptible to their influence as are other people. They may have fears and prejudices in common with those who do not profess to be Christians or, if they identify themselves as Christians, do not live according to the teaching and example of Christ.

A passage in this evening’s reading, 1 John 4: 20-21, is pertinent to this situation.

“If we say we love God, but hate others, we are liars. For we cannot love God, whom we have not seen, if we do not love others, whom we have seen. The command that Christ has given us is this: whoever loves God must love others also.”

In this passage John recognizes an important truth. We cannot claim to love God if we do not love others. Both In the commandments that God gave to the prophet Moses for the people of Israel and in Christ’s own teaching, we are commanded to love others, not only our neighbors but also the foreigner in our midst, not only those who love us but also our enemies. We can hardly be said to respect and admire someone, much less love them, if we pay no attention to what they say.

Jesus himself makes a similar point in Luke 6:46, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ but you don’t do what I say?” It is meaningless to call him “Lord” when we ignore what he says. In John 14: 23-24 Jesus is even more to the point, “All who love me will obey my teaching...But anyone who does not love me does not obey my teaching. This teaching that you hear is not really mine. It is from my Father who sent me.” Jesus equates obedience to his words with love for him. Since his teaching comes from God, obedience to his words also shows love for God.

In Mark 7: 20-22 Jesus identifies the things that make people do wrong as things that come from inside of them, things that begin in the mind. The bad things that people do, and which Jesus lists are breaches of what theologians call the “moral law” of the Old Testament. They are for a large part the different ways that we do not show love for others. Even the sin of pride shows a lack of love for others: we devalue others while overvaluing ourselves.

Both Testaments of the Bible, the Old and the New, have much to say about how we should treat other people. Truthfulness, self-control, patience, kindness, justness, generosity, forgiveness, and compassion are presented as desirable attributes or qualities of an individual’s character, attributes or qualities which God has, and which Christ embodied. On the other hand, the opposite of these qualities is not only represented as undesirable character traits but also as offenses against God.

In 1 John 4:20-21 the apostle affirms the truth that loving God and loving others are inseparable. We cannot compartmentalize our love for God and our love for others. They go hand in hand. A genuine love for God gives rise to a genuine love for others. As we grow in our love for God, we will also grow in our love for others.

A love of God which is not accompanied by a love of others is no love of God at all. Jesus was pointing to this truth when he warned his disciples against following the example of the Pharisees and the teachers of religious law (Mattew 23:3). They cultivated an appearance of piety for the admiration of their fellow Jews, scrupulously observing the various rules and regulations of their religion. They taught the commandments like loving your neighbor as yourself, but they did not obey them. Indeed, they came up with all kinds of rationales for not obeying them (Matthew 15: 1-11). When it came to those things that mattered most to God such as showing mercy, they fell short.

Loving others does not mean accepting everything that they say and do without reservation. This is a common misunderstanding of what it means to love others. A parent who cares about the safety of their child will not let the child play dangerously close to a cliff edge because the child wants to play at the cliff edge. They are going to call the child away from the cliff edge and take what other steps that may be necessary to protect the child from harming themselves.

Loving others does mean seeing in every person someone who was made in the image of God and for whom Christ suffered and died on the cross, someone whom God loves and about whom God cares. It means treating everyone with respect, patience, kindness, generosity, dignity, and compassion. It means helping and encouraging others. It means not holding grudges against them and nurturing hatred toward them in our hearts. It means forgiving them when they do wrong. It means making allowances for them and giving them the benefit of the doubt. It means looking for the good that God’s grace is producing in them and not dwelling upon their shortcomings, real and imagined. It means not listening to the voices that urge us to hate and mistreat others, to give rein to ill-will toward them. It means putting into practice what Jesus taught and following his example as his true disciples.

Loving others may not always be easy. Some people may prove more difficult to love than others. However, the God who is love, who enables us to love because he first loved us, provides us with grace, the power of the Holy Spirit working in us, to will and do what pleases him (Colossians 2:13), and loving others is what pleases God.

Silence

Open this link in a new tab to hear Owen Alstott’s metrical paraphrase of the Magnificat, “My Soul Proclaims the Greatness of the Lord.”

1 My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord
My spirit sings to God, my saving God,
Who on this day above all others favored me
And raised me up, a light for all to see.

2 Through me great deeds will God make manifest,
And all the earth will come to call me blest.
Unbounded love and mercy sure will I proclaim
For all who know and praise God's holy name.

3 God's mighty arm, protector of the just,
Will guard the weak and raise them from the dust.
But mighty kings will swiftly fall from thrones corrupt.
The strong brought low, the lowly lifted up.

4 Soon will the poor and hungry of the earth
Be richly blest, be given greater worth.
And Israel, as once foretold to Abraham,
Will live in peace throughout the promised land.

5 All glory be to God, Creator blest,
To Jesus Christ, God's love made manifest,
And to the Holy Spirit, gentle Comforter,
All glory be, both now and ever more.

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
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,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and 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.

THE MINISTRY OF PRAYER

The Lord be with you
and also with you.

Let us 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.

That this evening may be holy, good, and peaceful,
We entreat you, O Lord.

That your holy angels may lead us in paths of peace and
goodwill,
We entreat you, O Lord.

That we may be pardoned and forgiven for our sins
and offenses,
We entreat you, O Lord.

That there may be peace to your Church and to the whole
world,
We entreat you, O Lord.

That we may depart this life in your faith and fear,
and not be condemned before the great judgment seat
of Christ,
We entreat you, O Lord.

That we may be bound together by your Holy Spirit in
the communion of all your saints,
entrusting one another and all our life to Christ.
We entreat you, O Lord.

O God, by the leading of a star you manifested your only Son
to the peoples of the earth: Lead us, who know you now by
faith, to your presence, where we may see your glory face to
face; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

Be our light in the darkness, O Lord, and in your great mercy
defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love
of your only Son, our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

O God, you manifest in your servants the signs of your
presence: Send forth upon us the spirit of love, that in
companionship with one another your abounding grace may
increase among us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Opening this link in a new tab to hear David Haas’ Prayer for Peace.

1 Peace before us,
peace behind us,
peace under our feet.
Peace within us,
peace over us,
let all around us be peace.

2 Love before us,
love behind us,
love under our feet.
Love within us,
love over us,
let all around us be love.

3 Light before us,
light behind us,
light under our feet.
Light within us,
light over us,
let all around us be light.

4 Christ before us,
Christ behind us,
Christ under our feet.
Christ within us,
Christ over us,
let all around us be Christ.

5 Alleluia.
Alleluia.
Alleluia.
Alleluia.
Alleluia.
Alleluia.

6 Peace before us,
peace behind us,
peace under our feet.
Peace within us,
peace over us,
let all around us be peace.

O God, you have included all your commandments
in one commandment of love, so that if we do not
love our neighbor, we cannot fulfil your law; we humbly
beseech you to create in us such a sincere and fervent
love of one another, that we may be truly children of
our Father in heaven, and faithful disciples of Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.

Gracious God,
you have given us much today;
grant us also a thankful spirit.
Into your hands we commend ourselves
and those we love.
Be with us still, and when we take our rest
renew us for the service of your Son Jesus Christ.
Amen.

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.

THE SENDING FORTH OF GOD’S PEOPLE

Let us bless the Lord.
Thanks be to God.

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