Thursday Evenings at All Hallows (October 15, 2026)


Welcome to Thursday Evenings at All Hallows.

In this evening’s message we take a look at the three sayings of Jesus in Luke 9: 57-62, the circumstances in which Jesus said them, and their implications for Christians and those exploring the Christian faith and life.

GATHER IN GOD’S NAME


Open this link in a new tab to hear Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Hymn Prelude on Rhosymedre (Lovely).

Silence

Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness; let the whole earth
stand in awe of him. Psalm 96:9

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth
is not in us. But if we confess our sins, God is faithful and
just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1 John 1:8-9

Let us now confess our sins to almighty God.

Silence

Almighty and most merciful Father,
we have strayed from your ways like lost sheep.
We have followed too much
the devices and the desires of our own hearts.
we have offended against your holy laws,
we have left undone what we ought to have done,
and we have done what we ought not to have done.
Yet, good Lord, have mercy on us;
restore those who are penitent,
according to your promises declared
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Grant, most merciful Father, for his sake,
that we may live a godly, righteous, and sober lives,
to the glory of your holy name. 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 our lips, O Lord;
And we shall declare your praise.
O God, make speed to save us.
O Lord, make haste to help us.
Glory to God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit:
as in the beginning, so now, and for ever. Amen.
Let us praise the Lord.
The Lord’s name be praised.

Open this link in a new tab to hear The Grail’s “In the Silent Hours of Night” (Psalm 134).

In the silent hours of night,
In the silent hours of night,
Bless the Lord,
Bless the Lord.

In the silent hours of night,
In the silent hours of night,
Bless the Lord,
Bless the Lord.


1 O come bless the Lord,
All you servants of the Lord,
Who stand by night in the courts
of the house of the Lord.

In the silent hours of night,
In the silent hours of night,
Bless the Lord,
Bless the Lord.


2 Lift up your hands to the holy place,
Come, bless the Lord.
May the Lord bless you from Zion,
He who made heaven and earth.

In the silent hours of night,
In the silent hours of night,
Bless the Lord,
Bless the Lord.


3 Glory to the Father, and to the Son,
And to the Holy Spirit:
As it was in the beginning,
Is now, and will be forever. Amen.

In the silent hours of night,
In the silent hours of night,
Bless the Lord,
Bless the Lord.


Silence

Blessèd are you, Lord our God,
our creator and sustainer:
in the darkness we look to your light
and we place ourselves and all your household
under your protection through the night.
Blessèd be God for ever! Amen.

Open this link in a new tab to Bernadette Farrell’s “O God, You Search Me” (Psalm 139).

1 O God, you search me and you know me
All my thoughts lie open to your gaze
When I walk or lie down you are before me
Ever the maker and keeper of my days

2 You know my resting and my rising
You discern my purpose from afar
And with love everlasting you besiege me
In every moment of life or death, you are

3 Before a word is on my tongue, Lord
You have known its meaning through and through
You are with me beyond my understanding
God of my present, my past, and future, too

4 Although your Spirit is upon me
Still I search for shelter from your light
There is nowhere on earth I can escape you
Even the darkness is radiant in your sight

5 For you created me and shaped me
Gave me life within my mother’s womb
For the wonder of who I am, I praise you
Safe in your hands, all creation is made new.

Silence

Lord,
who created and fashioned us,
who knows us and searches us out,
who abides with us through light and dark:
help us to know your presence in this life
and, in the life to come, still to be with you;
where you are alive and reign,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.

THE MINISTRY OF THE WORD

A reading from the Gospel according to Luke.
Luke 9: 57-62

As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’

Jesus replied, ‘Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’

He said to another man, ‘Follow me.’

But he replied, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’

Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’

Still another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.’

Jesus replied, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.’

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

Silence

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

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.


Three Short Sayings of Jesus

In this evening’s reading from Luke’s Gospel, we find three short sayings of Jesus which have both puzzled and challenged generations of Christians. Let us take a look at each saying, the circumstances in which Jesus said it, and its implications for ourselves.

‘Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’ 

This was what Jesus to a man who said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ Luke does not tell us anything about this man or what prompted him to say what he did. Based upon how Jesus responded, the man had spoken on the spur of the moment and apparently not given any serious thought to what following Jesus might involve. Jesus points to his attention that the life of a disciple was not an easy one and involved all kinds of hardship. At the time Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem where he expected to suffer and die.

One hears and reads about mass baptisms and pastors who give the appearance of competing with each over how many people they can baptize. One is forced to wonder whether the people whom they are baptizing realize how serious a commitment they are making, what kind of follow-up they are going to receive, and how many will fall away after making a profession of faith in the excitement of the moment. Do they realize that following Jesus comes with a cost and are they willing to pay that cost?

As for ourselves, for those of us who profess to be Christians, have we really counted the cost of being a disciple of Jesus and are we willing to pay that cost?

‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’

On the surface the man’s request appears to be reasonable. Devote Jews set great store in the value of exhibiting love and respect for one’s parents and elders. It was requirement of the Ten Commandments and a major cultural expectation. One, however, is prompted to wonder why the man, if his father was indeed dead, had not hurried to his father’s village to bury him rather than hanging around Jesus and the disciples. In those days it was customary to bury people within eight hours of their death and not to leave a body unburied overnight. Instead, we find him lollygagging about on the fringe of Jesus and the disciples. For all we know, the man’s father was alive and kicking and the man was using his father’s death to excuse himself from following Jesus.

As for Jesus’ enigmatic phrase, “let the dead bury their own dead,” it is tempting to interpret "the dead” to be a reference to the spiritually dead. While this interpretation sounds plausible, whether it can be read out of the phrase or is supported by the context in which the phrase is used is debatable. It requires some interpretative gymnastics. The phrase may be Jesus’ way of telling the man that he knew that the man’s father was not dead. After all, Jesus was able to see into people’s hearts and knew when they were lying. It is not necessary for us to know what exactly it means to understand what Jesus is telling the man. Going and proclaiming the kingdom of God comes first in the life of his disciples. Telling all the world of Jesus is the number one priority of all Christians to this day!

‘No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.’

In those days in that part of the world ploughs were wooden and were drawn by teams of oxen. They were used to scratch the soil and not turn it over. A field was ploughed in preparation for sowing of the seed. Ploughing took two men, one to drive the oxen and the other to steady the plough. To keep looking back served no useful purpose. Once oxen and plough reached the end of the field, they ploughed in the opposite direction. Those doing the ploughing would then see if their furrow was straight. What mattered more was the field was prepared for planting.

To follow Jesus as one of his disciples, the point Jesus is making, an individual must be willing to let go of all other attachments, something that Jesus recognized as not being easy to do. Family loomed large in the lives of the Jews. Jesus knew that if the other man to whom he said, “Follow me,” went back and said goodbye to his family, he was likely to lose his resolve to follow Jesus. He might have difficulty in separating from his family. His family might also dissuade him from following Jesus.

Among the conclusions we can draw from this evening’s reading is that there is no such thing as a part-time disciple of Jesus. It’s full time, twelve months a year, seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day, for the remainder of our lives. No breaks. No time off. No vacations. No sabbaticals.

Jesus did not sugar coat his expectations of his disciples. They must be willing to deny themselves and make sacrifices. His disciples must be wholeheartedly committed to following him, to seeking first the kingdom of God and its righteousness. No reservations. No second thoughts.

Jesus understood how fickle humans can be. They are your friends when the weather is fair, but they abandon you when the weather turns foul.

When we think of Jesus’ disciples, we tend to think of the inner circle of his disciples, the twelve. However, Jesus had other disciples, both men and women who followed him. Some would join him and then drift away. Others, a small group of women, were faithful to the end, witnessing his suffering and death on the cross. One of them, Mary Magdalane, was the first to see her risen Lord.

Jesus also prioritizes the proclamation of the kingdom of God.

Jesus still expects the same level of commitment from his disciples in the twenty-first century as he did in the first century. To his modern-day disciples he has entrusted the task of representing him in today’s world, telling people in all walks of life about him, who he is, and what he has done, and inviting them to become his disciples too. To his modern-day disciples Jesus has also entrusted the task of baptizing those who accept this invitation and instructing them in everything that he commanded. These tasks by their very nature require that Jesus’ modern-day disciples must strive to frame and fashion their own lives according to the teaching of Christ and to make themselves, to the best of their ability, to be wholesome examples and patterns both to those that they are instructing and to all humankind. They themselves must embody what they are teaching to others.

To enable his disciples to fulfill his purposes, Jesus gives them the gift of the Holy Spirit and an abundance of grace, God’s own gracious special help. It is the same grace for which the Prayer Book Catechism encourages us to pray daily. Jesus promised his first disciples not to leave them comfortless, a promise he made to all his disciples for all time and keeps to this day.

Silence

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
And in Jesus Christ, his 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 into hell.
The third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended into 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.
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.

Lord, have mercy on us.
Christ, have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us.


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.


Lord, show us your mercy,
and grant us your salvation.
Keep our nation under your care,
and guide us in justice and truth.
Clothe your ministers with righteousness,
and make your chosen people joyful.
Lord, save your people,
and bless your inheritance.
Give peace in our time, O Lord,
for you are our help and strength.
Create in us dean hearts, O God,
and renew us by your Holy Spirit.

Lord God, without you we are not able to please you; mercifully
grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our
hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Eternal God, from whom all holy desires, all good purposes,
and all just works proceed: give to your servants that peace
which the world cannot give, that our hearts may be set to
obey your commandments, and that free from the fear of our
enemies we may pass our time in trust and quietness;
through the merits of Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.

Lighten our darkness, Lord, we pray: and in your great
mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night;
for the love of your only Son our Saviour Jesus Christ.
Amen.

Open this link in a new tab to hear Charles W. Everest’s
“Take Up Thy Cross, the Saviour Said.”


1 Take up thy cross, the Saviour said,
if thou wouldst my disciple be;
deny thyself, the world forsake,
and humbly follow after me.

2 Take up thy cross: let not its weight
fill thy weak spirit with alarm;
his strength shall bear thy spirit up,
and brace thy heart, and nerve thine arm.

3 Take up thy cross, nor heed the shame,
nor let thy foolish pride rebel:
thy Lord for thee the cross endured,
to save thy soul from death and hell.

4 Take up thy cross then in his strength,
and calmly every danger brave;
'twill guide thee to a better home,
and lead to victory o'er the grave.

5 Take up thy cross, and follow Christ,
nor think till death to lay it down;
for only they who bear the cross
may hope to wear the glorious crown.

6 To thee, great Lord, the One in Three,
all praise for evermore ascend:
O grant us in our home to see
the heavenly life that knows no end.

Silence is kept.

Those present may offer their own prayers and thanksgivings, either silently or aloud.

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.


Open this link to hear James Seddon’s “Go Forth and Tell! O Church of God, Awake!”

1 Go forth and tell! O church of God, awake!
God's saving news to all the nations take;
proclaim Christ Jesus, Saviour, Lord, and king,
that all the world his worthy praise may sing.

2 Go forth and tell! God's love embraces all;
he will in grace respond to all who call:
how shall they call if they have never heard
the gracious invitation of his word?

3 Go forth and tell where still the darkness lies;
in wealth or want, the sinner surely dies:
give us, O Lord, concern of heart and mind,
a love like yours which cares for humankind.

4 Go forth and tell! The doors are open wide:
share God's good gifts let no one be denied;
live out your life as Christ your Lord shall choose,
your ransomed powers for his sole glory use.

5 Go forth and tell! O church of God, arise!
go in the strength which Christ your Lord supplies;
go till all nations his great name adore
and serve him, Lord and king for evermore


THE SENDING FORTH OF GOD’S PEOPLE

The Lord be with you.
And also with you
Let us praise the Lord.
Thanks be to God.

Open this link in a new tab to hear John A. Behnke’s “Benediction.”


The Lord bless you
The Lord keep you
The Lord make his face to shine upon you
And be gracious
And be gracious
The Lord look upon you with favor
And give you peace.
The Lord bless you
The Lord keep you
The Lord make his face to shine upon you
And be gracious
And be gracious
The Lord look upon you with favor
And give you peace.
Amen. Amen.
Amen. Amen.
Amen. Amen.

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