An Order for the Eucharist on the Sixth Sunday of Easter (17 May 2015)

Please note that we are using the English Language Liturgical Consultation's recommended Hebrew Bible reading and psalm for the Easter season (Year B).

The Seventh Sunday of Easter

17 May 2015

The Gathering of the Community

Entrance Hymn

‘I Come with Joy’  Common Praise #60

Greeting

Alleluia!  Christ is risen.

The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia!

May his grace and peace be with you.

May he fill our hearts with joy.

Canticle

‘Alleluia!  Jesus Is Risen’  Evangelical Lutheran Worship #377 vv. 1, 2, 5

Collect of the Day

Let us pray.

Giver of eternal life,
send us to your world
to speak the truth of peace,
to stand with those who suffer,
and to show another way;
through Jesus Christ, the life of all things.  Amen. [i]

The Proclamation of the Word of God

The First Reading

A Reading from Jeremiah (10.1-10a).

            ¹ Hear the word that the Lord speaks to you, O house of Israel.

            ² Thus says the Lord:  Do not learn the way of the nations, or be dismayed at the signs of the heavens; for the nations are dismayed at them.  ³ For the customs of the peoples are false:  a tree from the forest is cut down, and worked with an ax by the hands of an artisan; ⁴ people deck it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move.  ⁵ Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak; they have to be carried, for they cannot walk.  Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, nor is it in them to do good.

            ⁶ There is none like you, O Lord; you are great, and your name is great in might.  ⁷ Who would not fear you, O King of the nations?  For that is your due; among all the wise ones of the nations and in all their kingdoms there is no one like you.  ⁸ They are both stupid and foolish; the instruction given by idols is no better than wood!  ⁹ Beaten silver is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz.  They are the work of the artisan and of the hands of the goldsmith; their clothing is blue and purple; they are all the product of skilled workers.  ¹⁰ But the Lord is the true God; he is the living God and the everlasting King.

Hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.

Thanks be to God.

The Psalm of the Day

Psalm 108 with Refrain from Songs for the Holy One

Refrain (twice):  Holy One, your faithful love towers over the heavens.

¹ My heart is firmly fixed, O God, my heart is fixed; *

            I will sing and make melody.

² Wake up, my spirit; awake, lute and harp; *

            I myself will waken the dawn.

³ I will confess you among the peoples, O Lord; *

            I will sing praises to you among the nations.

⁴ For your loving-kindness is greater than the heavens, *

            and your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.

Refrain:  Holy One, your faithful love towers over the heavens.

⁵ Exalt yourself above the heavens, O God, *

            and your glory over all the earth.

⁶ So that those who are dear to you may be delivered, *

            save with your strong hand and answer me.

⁷ You spoke from your heavenly dwelling and said, *

            “I will exult and parcel out Shechem;

            I will divide the valley of Succoth.

⁸ Gilead is mine and Manasseh is mine; *

            Ephraim is my helmet and Judah my sceptre.

⁹ Moab is my washbasin; on Edom I throw down my sandal to claim it, *

            and over Philistia will I shout in triumph.”

Refrain:  Holy One, your faithful love towers over the heavens.

¹⁰ Who will lead me into the strong city? *

            Who will bring me into Edom?

¹¹ Have you not cast us off, O God? *

            you no longer go out, O God, with our armies.

¹² Grant us your help against the enemy, *

            for vain is the help of mortals.

¹³ With you we will do valiant deeds, *

            and you shall tread our enemies under foot.

Refrain:  Holy One, your faithful love towers over the heavens.

The Second Reading

A Reading from the Acts of the Apostles (1.15-17, 21-26).

            ¹⁵ In those days Peter stood up among the believers (together the crowd numbered about one hundred twenty persons) and said, ¹⁶ “Friends, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit through David foretold concerning Judas, who became a guide for those who arrested Jesus — ¹⁷ for he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry.

            ²¹ “So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, ²² beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us — one of these must become a witness with us to his resurrection.”  ²³ So they proposed two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus, and Matthias.  ²⁴ Then they prayed and said, “Lord, you know everyone’s heart.  Show us which one of these two you have chosen ²⁵ to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.”  ²⁶ And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias; and he was added to the eleven apostles.

Hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.

Thanks be to God.

Hymn before the Gospel

‘Alleluia!  The Strife Is O’er’  Common Praise #212 vv. 1, 2, 5

The Gospel

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John (17.6-19)

Glory to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

            ⁶ [Jesus continued to pray to God,] “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world.  They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.  ⁷ Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; ⁸ for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.  ⁹ I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours.  ¹⁰ All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.  ¹¹ And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.  ¹² While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled.  ¹³ But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.  ¹⁴ I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.  ¹⁵ I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.  ¹⁶ They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. ¹⁷ Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.  ¹⁸ As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.  ¹⁹ And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.”

The Gospel of Christ.

Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

The Sermon

An Affirmation of Faith

Let us affirm our faith in God,

the One in Three, the Three in One.

We believe in a loving God,

whose Word sustains our lives

and the work of our hands in the world.

God is life.

We believe in God’s Son among us,

who brought the seed of life’s renewal.

He lived with the poor to show the meaning of love.

Jesus Christ is Lord.

We believe in the Spirit of Life,

who makes us one with God,

whose strength and energy renews our own.

The Spirit is love. [ii]

The Prayers of the Community

Intercessions, Petitions and Thanksgivings

The Exchange of the Peace

May the peace of the risen Christ be with you all.

And also with you.

The Holy Communion

Offertory Hymn

‘Now the Green Blade Rises’  Common Worship #237

The Prayer over the Gifts

Let us pray.

Blessed are you, O God, ruler of heaven and earth.

Day by day you shower us with blessings.

As you have raised us to new life in Christ,

give us glad and generous hearts,

ready to praise you and to respond to those in need,

through Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord.  Amen. [iii]

The Thanksgiving at the Table

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

Lift up your hearts.

We lift them to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

It is right to give our thanks and praise.

Blessed are you, gracious God,

creator of heaven and earth;

we give you thanks and praise

for the glorious resurrection of your Son

Jesus Christ our Lord;

for he is the true paschal lamb

who has taken away the sin of the world. 

By his death he destroyed death,

and by his rising to life again

he has won for us eternal life. 

Therefore, joining our voices

with the whole company of heaven,

we sing our joyful hymn of praise

to proclaim the glory of your name.

Holy, holy, holy Lord,

God of power and might. 

Heaven and earth are full of your glory. 

Hosanna in the highest.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. 

Hosanna in the highest. [iv]

Blessed are you, O God of the universe. 

Your mercy is everlasting

and your faithfulness endures from age to age.

Praise to you for creating the heavens and the earth. 

Praise to you for saving the earth from the waters of the flood. 

Praise to you for bringing the Israelites safely through the sea. 

Praise to you for leading your people

through the wilderness to the land of milk and honey. 

Praise to you for the words and deeds of Jesus, your anointed one. 

Praise to you for the death and resurrection of Christ. 

Praise to you for your Spirit poured out on all nations.

In the night in which he was betrayed,

our Lord Jesus took bread, and gave thanks;

broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying: 

Take and eat; this is my body, given for you. 

Do this for the remembrance of me.

Again, after supper, he took the cup,

gave thanks, and gave it for all to drink, saying: 

This cup is the new covenant in my blood,

shed for you and for all people for the forgiveness of sin. 

Do this for the remembrance of me.

With this bread and cup

we remember our Lord’s Passover from death to life

as we proclaim the mystery of faith:

Christ has died. 

Christ is risen. 

Christ will come again.

O God of resurrection and new life: 

Pour out your Holy Spirit on us

and on these gifts of bread and wine. 

Bless this feast. 

Grace our table with your presence.

Come, Holy Spirit.

Reveal yourself to us in the breaking of the bread. 

Raise us up as the body of Christ for the world. 

Breathe new life into us. 

Send us forth, burning with justice, peace and love.

Come, Holy Spirit.

With the ever-blessed Virgin Mary,

blessed Joseph, blessed Faith

and your holy ones of all times and places,

with the earth and all its creatures,

with sun and moon and stars,

we praise you, O God,

blessed and holy Trinity,

now and forever.  Amen. [v]

The Lord’s Prayer

As our Saviour taught us, let us pray,

Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins

as we forgive those who sin against us.

Save us from the time of trial,

and deliver us from evil.

For the kingdom, the power,

and the glory are yours,

now and for ever.  Amen. [vi]

The Breaking of the Bread

Lord, we died with you on the cross.

Now we are raised to new life.

We were buried in your tomb.

Now we share in your resurrection.

Live in us, that we may live in you.

The gifts of God for the people of God.

Thanks be to God.

Communion

Hymn after Communion

‘Come Now, O Prince of Peace’  Common Praise #588

The Sending Forth of the Community

The Prayer after Communion

Life-giving God,

in the mystery of Christ’s resurrection

you send light to conquer darkness,

water to give new life,

and the bread of life to nourish your people.

Send us forth as witnesses to your Son’s resurrection,

that we may show your glory to all the world,

through Jesus Christ, our risen Lord.  Amen. [vii]

Glory to God,

whose power, working in us,

can do infinitely more

than we can ask or imagine. 

Glory to God from generation to generation,

in the Church and in Christ Jesus,

for ever and ever.  Amen.

Closing Hymn

‘Wind Who Makes All Winds That Blow’  Common Praise #249

The Dismissal

Let us go forth in the name of Christ.  Alleluia, alleluia!

Thanks be to God.  Alleluia, alleluia!

---

[i] ‘Trial Use Propers:  Maundy Thursday to Trinity Sunday Year B 2015’, 6.

[ii] Camilo Torres as quoted in Janet Morley, ed., Bread for Tomorrow:  Prayers for the Church Year (1992), 140 and as adapted by the Rev’d Dr Richard Geoffrey Leggett for liturgical recitation.

[iii] ‘Offering Prayer for Easter’, Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), 64.

[iv] Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), #525.

[v] ‘Thanksgiving at the Table IV’, Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), 111.

[vi] Songs for a Gospel People #12.

[vii] ‘Prayer after Communion for Easter’, Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), 65.

Abide with Me and Sing a Song of Love (Easter 6 10 May 2015)

RCL Easter 6B

10 May 2015

Saint Faith’s Anglican Church

Vancouver BC

Focus text:  John 15.9-17

Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached at the 8.00 a.m. Eucharist on Sunday the 10th of May.

            Almost one hundred and seventy-five years ago the English priest, Henry Francis Lyte, left his parish in Devonshire in a vain attempt to restore his health in the south of France.  He would never see England again.  At some point prior to his departure, some say many years before, others the same year of his departure and death, Lyte wrote a hymn that has been sung ever since by Christians of many traditions.  Some of us may know the first verse by heart.

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;

the darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.

When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,

Help of the helpless, O abide with me. [1]

These days the hymn is most often used at evening prayer and, because of later verses, at funerals.  But no matter when it is used, the hymn strikes a sympathetic chord in most hearts.

            ‘Abide’ is an almost archaic verb to our contemporaries, especially the younger generation.  More often than not the weaker verb ‘stay’ is used, but it does not convey the same idea as ‘abide’.  To ‘abide’ with someone or something means ‘to make one’s home with, to dwell with’.  To say that we cannot ‘abide’ someone or something means that we do not have ‘a relationship of trust, knowledge, love [or] unity’ with that person or situation. [2]  ‘Stay with me’ is a command that I might use with my dog, ‘abide with me’ a request I might make of a friend, a trusted confidant, someone in whose presence I feel most at home.

            In today’s gospel Jesus, speaking to his disciples on the night before he was handed over to suffering and death, says, ‘As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.  If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.  I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.’ (John 15.9-11)  We are to make our home, our ‘abode’ in the love shown to us by God in Jesus of Nazareth.

            That love is not a romantic love; it is not a feeling.  It is a choice ‘. . . to be for another and to act for another, even at cost to oneself.’ [3]  While it is natural for a mother or father to have love for her or his child, the love that God shows us in Jesus is deeper.  While it is commendable that friends offer each other constant support and encouragement, the love that God shows us in Jesus is deeper.  God’s love is the love that chooses to bring creation into being, even though God takes the risk of creating beings who can choose to love or to hate, to heal or to wound, to give life or to deal death.  The love that God has for us, the love that led God to create all things, visible and invisible, animate and inanimate, is a love that risks everything in the hope of gaining everything.

            Many of us have known a glimpse of such love in our families.  Without the self-giving love and support of my parents I would not have achieved any of the goals that I set for myself when I was younger.  But I must confess that the love shown to me by my parents was matched by the love shown to me by the community of faith to which we belonged.  The people of Saint Michael the Archangel, the parish in which I grew up, never failed to encourage me, to endure my mistakes and to rejoice in my successes.

            I believe that the love of my parents and the love of my parish ‘abided’ in the love that God has made known and continues to make known to us.  Because of what God has done for us in time and space, we cannot help but choose to be people who find their dwelling-place in the compassion, generosity and self-sacrifice made visible in the life and teaching of Jesus.  Another hymn that I love begins with this verse:

My life flows on in endless song

above earth’s lamentation.

I hear the real though far-off hymn

that hails a new creation.

No storm can shake my inmost calm,

while to that Rock I’m clinging.

Since Love is lord of heaven and earth,

how can I keep from singing? [4]

            Today, across North America and elsewhere, people will be feting their mothers and other women that have shaped the lives of others.  It is well and good that we should remember them and, next month, remember the fathers and other men who have done the same.  But for many of our neighbours these celebrations of self-giving love will fade until next year and the great consumer machine begins churning again.  Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are not places to ‘abide’.

            But here in this place, where the love of God is proclaimed every day and every week, here is a place to ‘abide’, to dwell in the love of the Holy One.  May the Love that drew us here draw others, so that the Song can keep singing.

---

[1] ‘Abide with Me’, Common Praise #24.

[2] Fred B. Craddock, John H. Hayes, Carl A. Holladay and Gene M. Tucker, Preaching Through the Christian Year:  Year B (Valley Forge, PA:  Trinity Press International, 1993), 265.

[3] Craddock 1993, 265.

[4] ‘My Life Flows On in Endless Song’, Common Praise #401.

Dandelion Wine (Easter 5, 3 May 2015)

RCL Easter 5B

3 May 2015

Saint Faith’s Anglican Church

Vancouver BC

Focus text:  John 15.1-8 
Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached at the 10.00 Eucharist on Sunday the 3rd of May.

         In today’s gospel Jesus uses the image of the vine and the branches to describe his relationship with each person who believes in the good news he proclaims.  The image is an ancient one used throughout the Hebrew scriptures to describe the people of Israel and God’s relationship with them.  For a people linked closely to the land and who tended crops that included both fruits and vegetables that grew on vines, Jesus’ image spoke powerfully of their relationship to God and to each other.

         Over the centuries the image of Christ as the vine and Christians as the branches has been painted on our walls, fused into our stained glass, sung in our hymns and embroidered on our vestments and hangings.  For British Columbians who live in a province where we produce many crops grown on vines and wine from our grapes, the image still has some resonance for us.  But I want to offer you a different image.

         I spent most of the summer of 1980 in Fort Wayne, Indiana serving as a seminarian intern at Trinity Episcopal Church.  The Rector, Cory Randall, was anxious to give me as extensive an experience of parish life as possible in those months, so it was a rare day that did not see me with him.  I remember one parish visit with particular clarity.

         We went out to visit two older women, unmarried sisters who still lived in the family farm house set in the midst of a considerable acreage.  Although neither of the ladies farmed, they leased the land to their neighbours and made quite an excellent living.  Both sisters were very active in the parish and in the wider community of Fort Wayne.  Cory wanted to visit them for two reasons:  they loved meeting seminarians and they were possible donors to a particular project Cory had in mind for the parish.

         I had come down with a particularly nasty summer cold the evening before, but Cory would not let me rest.  So off we went to see the sisters.  They were charming and Cory was able to achieve his goal of getting them to donate to his project.  I was a bit more disappointing.  The cold meant that I really was having a hard time keeping up my end of the conversation.  At first the sisters thought that I was a bit dull, but when they realized how badly I was suffering, they turned their ire on Cory.  “How could you bring that poor boy here in such a state?” one of them asked.  She said it with such intensity that I’m sure Cory thought he was about to lose his donation.

         The other sister stood up and said, “I’ve got just the thing for you.”  She went into the kitchen and came back with a tumbler full of a light yellow liquid.  “Drink this down all at once,” she ordered.  “What is it?” I asked.  “Dandelion wine,” she replied.  Her look told me that resistance was futile, so I drank the whole glass in a single movement.  Within two minutes I was dozing on their chesterfield.

         Cory managed to get me to the car and back to my abode.  I went straight to bed, slept for twelve hours and woke up cured.  Since then I’ve always had a sweet spot in my heart for dandelions.

         When Paula and I came to Vancouver in 1987, we were both struck by the beauty of the lawns and gardens, whether those around multi-family dwellings or single-family homes.  Every park was a wonder to behold.  True, there were a few wild things here and there, but they rarely stood a chance in the face of the onslaught of outraged gardeners.  The restrictions on the use of herbicides that came into effect over the last few years were greeted with mixed feelings by those who valued the beauty and order of their lawns and gardens.

         But the dandelions, those crisp and hardy yellow demons, now had their chance to re-establish themselves in places from whence they had been earlier banished.  Wherever I look these days, little yellow heads peek above the trimmed lawns of our neighbours and disrupt the uniformity of green grass.  If the truth be told, I find myself on the side of the dandelions more often than the grass.

         Now I know that many of you are devoted gardeners.  Your homes are oases of beauty and dandelions are not among the crops you wish to cultivate.  But bear with me for a moment.  In such a time as ours, I think that Christians, especially Anglican Christians who form a minority within the spectrum of Christian traditions, have more to learn from dandelions than from vines.

         Just as the dandelion will take root in almost any soil, so must we find ways to take root in soil that is very different from those who built this place and many others like it.  One hundred years ago, fifty years ago, building churches was easy; being a member of a church was considered the norm; Christianity was understood to be the foundation of our culture.  That soil has been worked out and we now live in a time when we struggle to maintain buildings, when having no faith or belonging to another faith is the norm, when there are those who see Christianity as a problem. 

         Just as the dandelion sends out its seeds with every pulse of wind, so we must use new ways to share the good news of God in Christ.  First and foremost among those ‘new’ ways is a commitment on the part of each one of us to share our ‘good news’, our testimony to how our faith in Christ has enriched our lives.  Websites, Twitter, YouTube have their roles to play, but none of them can replace the simple act of talking with a friend, a neighbour, a family member about how knowing Jesus has opened doors into a new way of living, a new way of hoping, a new way of acting.  Using prayers and hymns in contemporary English has a role to play, but neither can replace our witness in deed and word to the new life that is among us.

         God sends each one of us out like a dandelion seed on the wind of the Spirit.  We find ourselves in new and challenging soil and then we dig in.  We send out our roots, raise our heads and then, when the time is right, send out our own seeds:  our words, our actions, our hopes, our living.  We dare to break into the order of people’s lives and offer them a touch of colour, a glimpse of disorder, a taste of sweet wine.  And their worlds and ours are transformed, bit by bit, into fruitful abundance, into life-giving relationships with one another and with the One who created all things, weeds as well as grass, and who rejoices in them all.